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Over the last three decades, welfare policies have been informed by popular beliefs that welfare fraud is rampant. As a result, welfare policies have become more punitive and the boundaries between the welfare system and the criminal justice system have blurred—so much so that in some locales prosecution caseloads for welfare fraud exceed welfare caseloads. In reality, some recipients manipulate the welfare system for their own ends, others are gravely hurt by punitive policies, and still others fall somewhere in between. This book endeavors to clear up these gray areas by providing insights into the history, social construction, and lived experience of welfare. It shows why welfare cheating is all but inevitable—not because poor people are immoral, but because ordinary individuals navigating complex systems of rules are likely to become entangled despite their best efforts. Through an examination of the construction of the crime we know as welfare fraud, the book challenges readers to question their assumptions about welfare policies, welfare recipients, and crime control in the United States.

Masculinity at Work is a theoretical disposition and a practical guide for lawyers and judges on the interpretation of sex and race discrimination cases. It argues that fact finders should consider social science research about masculinity when determining whether an employer has engaged in illegal discrimination in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The book educates the reader about the invisibility of masculine structures and practices, how society constructs concepts of masculinity, and how men (and sometimes women) perform masculinity in different ways depending on their identities and the context of their situations. The book features the story, among others, of Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito of the Miami Dolphins to illustrate how harassing behavior can occur because of sex even though the gendered nature of the harassment is invisible to onlookers. After more than a year of ongoing harassment on the Miami Dolphins, Jonathan Martin left the team and checked himself into a mental health institution. The book explains the difficulties Martin would have suing the Dolphins under Title VII because of the hidden gendered behaviors. It encourages lawyers representing plaintiffs in sex and race discrimination suits to use experts in masculinities to educate both judges and juries. It criticizes the courts’ and juries’ undue reliance on their common sense to interpret behaviors alleged to have occurred because of sex and demonstrates through vivid, real-life examples how masculinities studies can offer a more accurate interpretation of the behaviors of employers and employees in workforces.

This book examines how the Social Security Administration determines eligibility for disability benefits based on ability to make work adjustments to jobs in the economy. It examines program history and the agency’s complex adjudicatory processes, as well as the federal judicial framework, through analysis of the SSA’s use of the administrative notice doctrine and vocational expert testimony, including its development and use of unique “grid” regulations with predetermined medical-vocational conclusions and rules upon which to base work adjustment assessments. It explores why that system is broken and based on antiquated assumptions and obsolete empiricism and taxonomies. It examines transformation from a goods-producing to a service-providing economy and other significant labor market changes since inception, such as automation, globalization, and robotics, which have constricted the low-skill job market that SSA disability claimants typically encounter. It challenges the former SSA Deputy Disability Policy Commissioner’s proposal to eliminate vocational factors in work adjustment assessments and use only medical factors, which would have the greatest deleterious impact on Black, Latinx, and the lowest-income claimants, who often lack access to quality health care and regular medical treatment. It further challenges assumptions animating pursuit of more restrictive disability standards, including: trust fund insolvency; disability prevalence; standard leniency, including in global comparisons; fraud; and adjudicators’ claimant-favorable impartiality against the agency—as opposed to claimant-hostile and racially disparate decision-making. After evaluating restrictive proposals such as a revived Reagan administration proposal and proposals influenced by the 1996 welfare reform legislation’s “work first” model, as well as an inclusive one to adopt a European-style occupational standard, the books concludes with recommendations to fix the current process.