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"The Origin and Transformation of the Idea of Workfare: From Charles Evers to Richard Nixon"

KOBAYASHI Hayato

last update: 20151224


The Origin and Transformation of the Idea of Workfare: From Charles Evers to Richard Nixon

KOBAYASHI Hayato
Abstract:
This article unveils the origin and development of the idea of workfare in the late 1960's and early 1970's. "Workfare" was invented by Charles Evers, a Civil Rights leader, who succeeded in organizing a boycott in Mississippi but then disbanded it to run for Congress in 1968. During the campaign, one of the programs he proposed was workfare. Although Evers lost the Congressional campaign, he later won the mayoral election in Fayette, Mississippi in 1969. After becoming the mayor, he attracted companies, created employment, and reduced the number of public assistance recipients. His political strategy was to increase voter registration by black people without scaring white people. He used workfare to help black people, because white people did not like welfare. The word workfare soon became nationally famous when President Nixon used it in a TV speech to propose a welfare reform plan in August 1969. Through the process in which the plan was deliberated and rejected in 1972, the effectiveness of welfare in moving recipients to employment came to be questioned. As a result, the idea of workfare was redefined in the early 1970's to mean that welfare recipients must work in return for their benefits.


Keywords: Workfare, Charles Evers, Civil Rights Movement, Mississippi, Nixon

REV: 20151224
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