The Upper Limit: How Low-Wage Work Defines Punishment and Welfare

by François Bonnet

Since 1993, crime in the United States has fallen to historic lows, seeming to legitimize the country’s mix of welfare reform and mass incarceration. The Upper Limit explains how this unusual mix came about, examining how, beginning in the 1970s, declining living standards for the poor have defined social and penal policy in the United States, making welfare more restrictive and punishment harsher. François Bonnet shows how low-wage work sets the upper limit of social and penal policy, where welfare must be less attractive than low-wage work and criminal life must be less attractive than welfare. In essence, the living standards of the lowest class of workers in a society determine the upper limit for the generosity of welfare and for the humanity of punishment in that society. The Upper Limit explores the local consequences of this punitive adjustment in East New York, a Brooklyn neighborhood where crime fell in the 1990s. Bonnet argues that no meaningful penal reform can happen unless living standards and the minimum wage rise again. Enlightening and provocative, The Upper Limit provides a comprehensive theory of the evolution of social and penal policy.  

200 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 27, 2019

Reviews

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

The musings of a small mind with a big agenda. Sure, all those things happened, only the demographics of the example changed quite a lot. Many people changed residence. Many others changed age groups and interests. So the people in the beginning of the story are not the same as the ones in the end. That argument being said, this is a singular example that might have other explanations. So you might find this book nice to feed your confirmation bias, but it's still navel gazing from an average minded bureaucrat.