David Cheal, New Poverty: Families in Postmodern Society, Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1995, £43.95, 209 pp.

David Donnison, Policies for a Just Society, London: Macmillan, 1997, £40, paper £12.50, 218 pp.

Joel Handler and Yeheskel Hasenfeld, We The Poor People: Work, Poverty and Welfare, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997, £25, 281 pp.

Joel Handler, The Poverty of Welfare Reform, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996, £16.50, paper £8.50, 177 pp.

Inga Persson and Christina Jonung (eds), Economics of the Family and Family Policies, London: Routledge, 1997, £47.50, 222 pp.

John E. Schwartz, Illusions of Poverty: The American Dream in Question, New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1998, £16.95, 237 pp.

Britain's first Labour government for 18 years was elected on a mandate that placed the reform of welfare at the heart of its modernising ambitions (Labour Party 1997; Bennett and Walker 1998). The welfare system, the new government argued, was ‘plainly not working’ (Cm. 1998a). It had not kept pace with profound social and economic changes such as increased divorce and separation, rising numbers of lone parents, less secure employment and a widening pay gap. Moreover, it had actually contributed to growth in workless households, with worklessness going hand in hand with low income and social exclusion.