Finding Jobs: Work and Welfare Reform. Edited by David E. Card and Rebecca M. Blank. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000. Pp. viii, 549. $55.00.

Abstract

This book is ahead of its time. While the title suggests that Finding Jobs might be a study of the labor market impacts of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), the editors and authors make clear that it is simply too early to study these effects directly. Rather, their purpose is to examine the characteristics of low-wage, low-skill labor markets, along with the effects of policies directed at these labor markets, relying on data from the pre-PRWORA era. Their hope is that this analysis will clarify the questions that we will need to ask as the effects of welfare reform become more pronounced. While the chapters are of varying quality, the book as a whole accomplishes this goal.