Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy (Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion)

Tackling one of the most volatile issues in contemporary politics, Martin Gilens's work punctures myths and misconceptions about welfare policy, public opinion, and the role of the media in both. Why Americans Hate Welfare shows that the public's views on welfare are a complex mixture of cynicism and compassion; misinformed and racially charged, they nevertheless reflect both a distrust of welfare recipients and a desire to do more to help the "deserving" poor.

"With one out of five children currently living in poverty and more than 100,000 families with children now homeless, Gilens's book is must reading if you want to understand how the mainstream media have helped justify, and even produce, this state of affairs." —Susan Douglas, The Progressive
"Gilens's well-written and logically developed argument deserves to be taken seriously." —Choice

"A provocative analysis of American attitudes towards 'welfare.'. . . [Gilens] shows how racial stereotypes, not white self-interest or anti-statism, lie at the root of opposition to welfare programs." -Library Journal

• Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America
• Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches (Walras-Pareto Lectures)
• Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
• When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
• The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy (Chicago Studies in American Politics)
• How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State (Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives)
• Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics
• American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass
• Congress in Black and White: Race and Representation in Washington and at Home
• The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States