One week from today, American Welfare will be published.
I wrote this book because I believe we are living through a moment when the gap between our national story and people’s real experiences has become impossible to ignore. Across communities, families face overlapping pressures: economic instability, climate change, rapid technological shifts, workforce challenges, and deep uncertainty about which institutions can be trusted.
In moments like these, it becomes clear that the systems we call “welfare” are not peripheral. They are part of the country’s load-bearing structure. They shape whether people can meet basic needs, recover from setbacks, care for one another, and stay connected to civic life. They determine whether people feel seen or blamed.
That’s why the central argument of American Welfare is not just historical. It is also deeply forward-looking:
If we treat well-being as infrastructure, we design for stability, clarity, and connection.
If we treat support as a stigma-laden exception, we design for friction, shame, and scarcity, often without realizing we’ve made those choices.
The book traces how we arrived here. It shows how narratives about merit, responsibility, and “deservingness” hardened into rules, experiences, and administrative practices. But it also offers a different perspective: because systems are designed by people, they can be redesigned. And since communities are already doing it, this isn’t wishful thinking. It’s a practical call to replicate what works and build systems where more of us can find steady footing and belonging.
If you’ve ever wondered why help feels hard to access, why systems remain fragmented even when intentions are good, or what it would mean to expand the circle of belonging so the American Dream isn’t rationed but realized, this book is for you.
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Human services are the infrastructure of democracy.
