Tag: Poverty

Topics

Books

The Two Wars Against Poverty

– The Public Interest, Fall 1982.
Excerpt: Most people, including most scholars, think the War on Poverty began with a formal declaration by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In a sense this is true, for there was in fact no formal… More

Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980

– (New York: Basic Books, 1984.)
Summary: This classic book serves as a starting point for any serious discussion of welfare reform. Losing Ground argues that the ambitious social programs of the 1960s and 1970s actually… More

The Fairness Delusion

– American Spectator, October 1984.
Excerpt: Democrats have been bludgeoning the Reagan Administration with “the fairness issue” since 1981. The fairness issue covers a variety of sins, generally falling under the… More

The War on Poverty 1965–1980

– Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 1984.
Excerpt: No one disputes that poverty exists in America. But how serious is the problem? Who are the poor? Why are they poor? Are there more poor people than there used to be? On such… More

Saving the Poor from Welfare

– Reason, December 1984.
Excerpt: There is a lesson to be learned from our national experience with the Great Society programs of the 1960s and their successors in the years since. The lesson is that the kinds of… More

Charles Murray & His Critics

– Robert Royal, Crisis Magazine, July 1985.
Excerpt: What is it about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (Basic Books, 1984) that has evoked such violent reactions? After initial shock at its… More

The Rediscovery of Character

– James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Fall 1985.
Excerpt: Charles Murray, whose 1984 book, Losing Ground, has done so much to focus attention on the problem of welfare, generally endorses the economic explanation for the decline of… More

Are the Poor ‘Losing Ground’?

– Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1985.
Excerpt: In the year since it was published, Losing Ground has become a political football in the debate about social policy toward the poor, and many of the substantive issues it raises… More

Cruel and Usual: Pretrial Punishment in Jail

– The Washington Monthly, December 1985.
Excerpt: John Irwin’s thesis is that American society uses jails to control and segregate the “rabble,” a subset of the poor and disadvantaged. Besides being destitute, the rabble are… More

White Welfare, White Families, ‘White Trash’

– National Review, March 28, 1986.
Excerpt: How many dozens of article, Op-Ed columns, cover stories, talk shows, and features on the six o’clock news have by now used Bill Moyer’s documentary on the vanishing… More

In Search of the Working Poor

– The Public Interest, Fall 1987.
Excerpt: The American debate about poverty and public policy has always been grounded in the prevailing answer to the question, “Can any American who is willing to work hard make a… More

Don’t Give Up: Poverty Programs That Work

– The Washington Monthly, June, 1988.
Excerpt: What you have generously offered me is a  chance to say that while I think most of the programs failed, I’m not a fanatic, and to prove it, here are some successes. And I… More

Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family

– David T. Ellwood, Basic Books, 1988.
Excerpt: Charles Murray’s powerful indictment of the social welfare system implicitly emphasizes these contradictions. According to Murray, the very system that was designed to help… More

Congress Writes a Law: Research and Welfare Reform

– Ron Haskins, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10:4 (Fall 1991).
Abstract: This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on… More

Regaining Lost Ground

– City Journal, Spring 1994.
Excerpt: In 1968, as Lyndon Johnson left office, 13 percent of Americans were poor, using the official definition. Over the next 12 years, our expenditures on social welfare quadrupled.… More

Charles Murray and the Underclass: The Developing Debate

– Ruth Lister, ed., IEA Health and Welfare Unit in association with The Sunday Times London, 1996.
Excerpt: IN 1989 Charles Murray visited Britain in search of the ‘underclass’, courtesy of The Sunday Times. Four years later he returned to warn that the crisis of the ‘underclass’… More

The Advantages of Social Apartheid

– Sunday Times (London), April 4, 2005.
Excerpt: Underclass is an ugly word, and we live in an age that abhors ugly words, so it is good to hear that the Blair government has devised a cheerier label: Neet, an acronym for “not… More

The Hallmark of the Underclass

– Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2005.
Excerpt: Watching the courage of ordinary low-income people as they deal with the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, it is hard to decide which politicians are more contemptible —… More

In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

– (Washington: AEI Press, 2006.)
Summary from Publisher: America’s population is wealthier than any in history. Every year, the American government redistributes more than a trillion dollars of that wealth to provide for… More

The Check Is In the Mail

– Lawrence M. Mead, First Things, October 2006.
Excerpt: Toward the end of In Our Hands, Murray makes clear that his priority is not really to overcome the dysfunctions behind poverty. Rather, it is to restore the small-government… More

Poverty and Marriage, Inequality and Brains

– Pathways, Winter 2008.
Excerpt: It may be said with only a little exaggeration that policy analysts are happy describing the causes of problems while ignoring their solution, and politicians are happy proposing… More

The State of White America

– Video, Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, April 4, 2011.
Summary: Over the last half century, America has developed a new lower class and a new upper class that are different in kind from anything it has ever known. These developments are not… More

The Great Divorce by David Brooks

– David Brooks, New York Times, January 30, 2012.
Excerpt: I’ll be shocked if there’s another book this year as important as Charles Murray’s Coming Apart. I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes… More

The Virtue Deficit

– Ron Haskins, National Review, February 6, 2012.
Excerpt: Charles Murray writes important and provocative books. His latest book, Coming Apart, joins Losing Ground (1984) and The Bell Curve (1994) as, in my view, among his most important… More

Mind the Gap by Yuval Levin

– Yuval Levin, Weekly Standard, March 19, 2012.
Excerpt: Charles Murray’s profound and important new book has, for the most part, been received as merely the latest volley in the inequality debates. Its champions have tended to praise… More

American Caste

– Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal, Spring 2012.
Excerpt: When Charles Murray’s best-selling Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 appeared a few months ago, the book’s fictional working-class neighborhood, Fishtown,… More

Why America is Coming Apart

– Video, American Enterprise Institute, June 24, 2012.
Summary: It used to be that America meant something to all Americans. But that common understanding is dissolving, explains AEI scholar Charles Murray in his new book, Coming Apart: The… More

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010

– (New York: Crown Forum, 2012.)
Summary from Publisher: In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way… More

Essays

The Two Wars Against Poverty

– The Public Interest, Fall 1982.
Excerpt: Most people, including most scholars, think the War on Poverty began with a formal declaration by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In a sense this is true, for there was in fact no formal… More

Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980

– (New York: Basic Books, 1984.)
Summary: This classic book serves as a starting point for any serious discussion of welfare reform. Losing Ground argues that the ambitious social programs of the 1960s and 1970s actually… More

The Fairness Delusion

– American Spectator, October 1984.
Excerpt: Democrats have been bludgeoning the Reagan Administration with “the fairness issue” since 1981. The fairness issue covers a variety of sins, generally falling under the… More

The War on Poverty 1965–1980

– Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 1984.
Excerpt: No one disputes that poverty exists in America. But how serious is the problem? Who are the poor? Why are they poor? Are there more poor people than there used to be? On such… More

Saving the Poor from Welfare

– Reason, December 1984.
Excerpt: There is a lesson to be learned from our national experience with the Great Society programs of the 1960s and their successors in the years since. The lesson is that the kinds of… More

Charles Murray & His Critics

– Robert Royal, Crisis Magazine, July 1985.
Excerpt: What is it about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (Basic Books, 1984) that has evoked such violent reactions? After initial shock at its… More

The Rediscovery of Character

– James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Fall 1985.
Excerpt: Charles Murray, whose 1984 book, Losing Ground, has done so much to focus attention on the problem of welfare, generally endorses the economic explanation for the decline of… More

Are the Poor ‘Losing Ground’?

– Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1985.
Excerpt: In the year since it was published, Losing Ground has become a political football in the debate about social policy toward the poor, and many of the substantive issues it raises… More

Cruel and Usual: Pretrial Punishment in Jail

– The Washington Monthly, December 1985.
Excerpt: John Irwin’s thesis is that American society uses jails to control and segregate the “rabble,” a subset of the poor and disadvantaged. Besides being destitute, the rabble are… More

White Welfare, White Families, ‘White Trash’

– National Review, March 28, 1986.
Excerpt: How many dozens of article, Op-Ed columns, cover stories, talk shows, and features on the six o’clock news have by now used Bill Moyer’s documentary on the vanishing… More

In Search of the Working Poor

– The Public Interest, Fall 1987.
Excerpt: The American debate about poverty and public policy has always been grounded in the prevailing answer to the question, “Can any American who is willing to work hard make a… More

Don’t Give Up: Poverty Programs That Work

– The Washington Monthly, June, 1988.
Excerpt: What you have generously offered me is a  chance to say that while I think most of the programs failed, I’m not a fanatic, and to prove it, here are some successes. And I… More

Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family

– David T. Ellwood, Basic Books, 1988.
Excerpt: Charles Murray’s powerful indictment of the social welfare system implicitly emphasizes these contradictions. According to Murray, the very system that was designed to help… More

Congress Writes a Law: Research and Welfare Reform

– Ron Haskins, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10:4 (Fall 1991).
Abstract: This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on… More

Regaining Lost Ground

– City Journal, Spring 1994.
Excerpt: In 1968, as Lyndon Johnson left office, 13 percent of Americans were poor, using the official definition. Over the next 12 years, our expenditures on social welfare quadrupled.… More

Charles Murray and the Underclass: The Developing Debate

– Ruth Lister, ed., IEA Health and Welfare Unit in association with The Sunday Times London, 1996.
Excerpt: IN 1989 Charles Murray visited Britain in search of the ‘underclass’, courtesy of The Sunday Times. Four years later he returned to warn that the crisis of the ‘underclass’… More

The Advantages of Social Apartheid

– Sunday Times (London), April 4, 2005.
Excerpt: Underclass is an ugly word, and we live in an age that abhors ugly words, so it is good to hear that the Blair government has devised a cheerier label: Neet, an acronym for “not… More

The Hallmark of the Underclass

– Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2005.
Excerpt: Watching the courage of ordinary low-income people as they deal with the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, it is hard to decide which politicians are more contemptible —… More

In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

– (Washington: AEI Press, 2006.)
Summary from Publisher: America’s population is wealthier than any in history. Every year, the American government redistributes more than a trillion dollars of that wealth to provide for… More

The Check Is In the Mail

– Lawrence M. Mead, First Things, October 2006.
Excerpt: Toward the end of In Our Hands, Murray makes clear that his priority is not really to overcome the dysfunctions behind poverty. Rather, it is to restore the small-government… More

Poverty and Marriage, Inequality and Brains

– Pathways, Winter 2008.
Excerpt: It may be said with only a little exaggeration that policy analysts are happy describing the causes of problems while ignoring their solution, and politicians are happy proposing… More

The State of White America

– Video, Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, April 4, 2011.
Summary: Over the last half century, America has developed a new lower class and a new upper class that are different in kind from anything it has ever known. These developments are not… More

The Great Divorce by David Brooks

– David Brooks, New York Times, January 30, 2012.
Excerpt: I’ll be shocked if there’s another book this year as important as Charles Murray’s Coming Apart. I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes… More

The Virtue Deficit

– Ron Haskins, National Review, February 6, 2012.
Excerpt: Charles Murray writes important and provocative books. His latest book, Coming Apart, joins Losing Ground (1984) and The Bell Curve (1994) as, in my view, among his most important… More

Mind the Gap by Yuval Levin

– Yuval Levin, Weekly Standard, March 19, 2012.
Excerpt: Charles Murray’s profound and important new book has, for the most part, been received as merely the latest volley in the inequality debates. Its champions have tended to praise… More

American Caste

– Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal, Spring 2012.
Excerpt: When Charles Murray’s best-selling Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 appeared a few months ago, the book’s fictional working-class neighborhood, Fishtown,… More

Why America is Coming Apart

– Video, American Enterprise Institute, June 24, 2012.
Summary: It used to be that America meant something to all Americans. But that common understanding is dissolving, explains AEI scholar Charles Murray in his new book, Coming Apart: The… More

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010

– (New York: Crown Forum, 2012.)
Summary from Publisher: In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way… More

Commentary

The Two Wars Against Poverty

– The Public Interest, Fall 1982.
Excerpt: Most people, including most scholars, think the War on Poverty began with a formal declaration by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In a sense this is true, for there was in fact no formal… More

Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980

– (New York: Basic Books, 1984.)
Summary: This classic book serves as a starting point for any serious discussion of welfare reform. Losing Ground argues that the ambitious social programs of the 1960s and 1970s actually… More

The Fairness Delusion

– American Spectator, October 1984.
Excerpt: Democrats have been bludgeoning the Reagan Administration with “the fairness issue” since 1981. The fairness issue covers a variety of sins, generally falling under the… More

The War on Poverty 1965–1980

– Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 1984.
Excerpt: No one disputes that poverty exists in America. But how serious is the problem? Who are the poor? Why are they poor? Are there more poor people than there used to be? On such… More

Saving the Poor from Welfare

– Reason, December 1984.
Excerpt: There is a lesson to be learned from our national experience with the Great Society programs of the 1960s and their successors in the years since. The lesson is that the kinds of… More

Charles Murray & His Critics

– Robert Royal, Crisis Magazine, July 1985.
Excerpt: What is it about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (Basic Books, 1984) that has evoked such violent reactions? After initial shock at its… More

The Rediscovery of Character

– James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Fall 1985.
Excerpt: Charles Murray, whose 1984 book, Losing Ground, has done so much to focus attention on the problem of welfare, generally endorses the economic explanation for the decline of… More

Are the Poor ‘Losing Ground’?

– Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1985.
Excerpt: In the year since it was published, Losing Ground has become a political football in the debate about social policy toward the poor, and many of the substantive issues it raises… More

Cruel and Usual: Pretrial Punishment in Jail

– The Washington Monthly, December 1985.
Excerpt: John Irwin’s thesis is that American society uses jails to control and segregate the “rabble,” a subset of the poor and disadvantaged. Besides being destitute, the rabble are… More

White Welfare, White Families, ‘White Trash’

– National Review, March 28, 1986.
Excerpt: How many dozens of article, Op-Ed columns, cover stories, talk shows, and features on the six o’clock news have by now used Bill Moyer’s documentary on the vanishing… More

In Search of the Working Poor

– The Public Interest, Fall 1987.
Excerpt: The American debate about poverty and public policy has always been grounded in the prevailing answer to the question, “Can any American who is willing to work hard make a… More

Don’t Give Up: Poverty Programs That Work

– The Washington Monthly, June, 1988.
Excerpt: What you have generously offered me is a  chance to say that while I think most of the programs failed, I’m not a fanatic, and to prove it, here are some successes. And I… More

Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family

– David T. Ellwood, Basic Books, 1988.
Excerpt: Charles Murray’s powerful indictment of the social welfare system implicitly emphasizes these contradictions. According to Murray, the very system that was designed to help… More

Congress Writes a Law: Research and Welfare Reform

– Ron Haskins, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10:4 (Fall 1991).
Abstract: This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on… More

Regaining Lost Ground

– City Journal, Spring 1994.
Excerpt: In 1968, as Lyndon Johnson left office, 13 percent of Americans were poor, using the official definition. Over the next 12 years, our expenditures on social welfare quadrupled.… More

Charles Murray and the Underclass: The Developing Debate

– Ruth Lister, ed., IEA Health and Welfare Unit in association with The Sunday Times London, 1996.
Excerpt: IN 1989 Charles Murray visited Britain in search of the ‘underclass’, courtesy of The Sunday Times. Four years later he returned to warn that the crisis of the ‘underclass’… More

The Advantages of Social Apartheid

– Sunday Times (London), April 4, 2005.
Excerpt: Underclass is an ugly word, and we live in an age that abhors ugly words, so it is good to hear that the Blair government has devised a cheerier label: Neet, an acronym for “not… More

The Hallmark of the Underclass

– Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2005.
Excerpt: Watching the courage of ordinary low-income people as they deal with the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, it is hard to decide which politicians are more contemptible —… More

In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

– (Washington: AEI Press, 2006.)
Summary from Publisher: America’s population is wealthier than any in history. Every year, the American government redistributes more than a trillion dollars of that wealth to provide for… More

The Check Is In the Mail

– Lawrence M. Mead, First Things, October 2006.
Excerpt: Toward the end of In Our Hands, Murray makes clear that his priority is not really to overcome the dysfunctions behind poverty. Rather, it is to restore the small-government… More

Poverty and Marriage, Inequality and Brains

– Pathways, Winter 2008.
Excerpt: It may be said with only a little exaggeration that policy analysts are happy describing the causes of problems while ignoring their solution, and politicians are happy proposing… More

The State of White America

– Video, Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, April 4, 2011.
Summary: Over the last half century, America has developed a new lower class and a new upper class that are different in kind from anything it has ever known. These developments are not… More

The Great Divorce by David Brooks

– David Brooks, New York Times, January 30, 2012.
Excerpt: I’ll be shocked if there’s another book this year as important as Charles Murray’s Coming Apart. I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes… More

The Virtue Deficit

– Ron Haskins, National Review, February 6, 2012.
Excerpt: Charles Murray writes important and provocative books. His latest book, Coming Apart, joins Losing Ground (1984) and The Bell Curve (1994) as, in my view, among his most important… More

Mind the Gap by Yuval Levin

– Yuval Levin, Weekly Standard, March 19, 2012.
Excerpt: Charles Murray’s profound and important new book has, for the most part, been received as merely the latest volley in the inequality debates. Its champions have tended to praise… More

American Caste

– Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal, Spring 2012.
Excerpt: When Charles Murray’s best-selling Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 appeared a few months ago, the book’s fictional working-class neighborhood, Fishtown,… More

Why America is Coming Apart

– Video, American Enterprise Institute, June 24, 2012.
Summary: It used to be that America meant something to all Americans. But that common understanding is dissolving, explains AEI scholar Charles Murray in his new book, Coming Apart: The… More

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010

– (New York: Crown Forum, 2012.)
Summary from Publisher: In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way… More

Multimedia

The Two Wars Against Poverty

– The Public Interest, Fall 1982.
Excerpt: Most people, including most scholars, think the War on Poverty began with a formal declaration by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In a sense this is true, for there was in fact no formal… More

Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980

– (New York: Basic Books, 1984.)
Summary: This classic book serves as a starting point for any serious discussion of welfare reform. Losing Ground argues that the ambitious social programs of the 1960s and 1970s actually… More

The Fairness Delusion

– American Spectator, October 1984.
Excerpt: Democrats have been bludgeoning the Reagan Administration with “the fairness issue” since 1981. The fairness issue covers a variety of sins, generally falling under the… More

The War on Poverty 1965–1980

– Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 1984.
Excerpt: No one disputes that poverty exists in America. But how serious is the problem? Who are the poor? Why are they poor? Are there more poor people than there used to be? On such… More

Saving the Poor from Welfare

– Reason, December 1984.
Excerpt: There is a lesson to be learned from our national experience with the Great Society programs of the 1960s and their successors in the years since. The lesson is that the kinds of… More

Charles Murray & His Critics

– Robert Royal, Crisis Magazine, July 1985.
Excerpt: What is it about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (Basic Books, 1984) that has evoked such violent reactions? After initial shock at its… More

The Rediscovery of Character

– James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Fall 1985.
Excerpt: Charles Murray, whose 1984 book, Losing Ground, has done so much to focus attention on the problem of welfare, generally endorses the economic explanation for the decline of… More

Are the Poor ‘Losing Ground’?

– Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1985.
Excerpt: In the year since it was published, Losing Ground has become a political football in the debate about social policy toward the poor, and many of the substantive issues it raises… More

Cruel and Usual: Pretrial Punishment in Jail

– The Washington Monthly, December 1985.
Excerpt: John Irwin’s thesis is that American society uses jails to control and segregate the “rabble,” a subset of the poor and disadvantaged. Besides being destitute, the rabble are… More

White Welfare, White Families, ‘White Trash’

– National Review, March 28, 1986.
Excerpt: How many dozens of article, Op-Ed columns, cover stories, talk shows, and features on the six o’clock news have by now used Bill Moyer’s documentary on the vanishing… More

In Search of the Working Poor

– The Public Interest, Fall 1987.
Excerpt: The American debate about poverty and public policy has always been grounded in the prevailing answer to the question, “Can any American who is willing to work hard make a… More

Don’t Give Up: Poverty Programs That Work

– The Washington Monthly, June, 1988.
Excerpt: What you have generously offered me is a  chance to say that while I think most of the programs failed, I’m not a fanatic, and to prove it, here are some successes. And I… More

Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family

– David T. Ellwood, Basic Books, 1988.
Excerpt: Charles Murray’s powerful indictment of the social welfare system implicitly emphasizes these contradictions. According to Murray, the very system that was designed to help… More

Congress Writes a Law: Research and Welfare Reform

– Ron Haskins, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10:4 (Fall 1991).
Abstract: This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on… More

Regaining Lost Ground

– City Journal, Spring 1994.
Excerpt: In 1968, as Lyndon Johnson left office, 13 percent of Americans were poor, using the official definition. Over the next 12 years, our expenditures on social welfare quadrupled.… More

Charles Murray and the Underclass: The Developing Debate

– Ruth Lister, ed., IEA Health and Welfare Unit in association with The Sunday Times London, 1996.
Excerpt: IN 1989 Charles Murray visited Britain in search of the ‘underclass’, courtesy of The Sunday Times. Four years later he returned to warn that the crisis of the ‘underclass’… More

The Advantages of Social Apartheid

– Sunday Times (London), April 4, 2005.
Excerpt: Underclass is an ugly word, and we live in an age that abhors ugly words, so it is good to hear that the Blair government has devised a cheerier label: Neet, an acronym for “not… More

The Hallmark of the Underclass

– Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2005.
Excerpt: Watching the courage of ordinary low-income people as they deal with the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, it is hard to decide which politicians are more contemptible —… More

In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

– (Washington: AEI Press, 2006.)
Summary from Publisher: America’s population is wealthier than any in history. Every year, the American government redistributes more than a trillion dollars of that wealth to provide for… More

The Check Is In the Mail

– Lawrence M. Mead, First Things, October 2006.
Excerpt: Toward the end of In Our Hands, Murray makes clear that his priority is not really to overcome the dysfunctions behind poverty. Rather, it is to restore the small-government… More

Poverty and Marriage, Inequality and Brains

– Pathways, Winter 2008.
Excerpt: It may be said with only a little exaggeration that policy analysts are happy describing the causes of problems while ignoring their solution, and politicians are happy proposing… More

The State of White America

– Video, Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, April 4, 2011.
Summary: Over the last half century, America has developed a new lower class and a new upper class that are different in kind from anything it has ever known. These developments are not… More

The Great Divorce by David Brooks

– David Brooks, New York Times, January 30, 2012.
Excerpt: I’ll be shocked if there’s another book this year as important as Charles Murray’s Coming Apart. I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes… More

The Virtue Deficit

– Ron Haskins, National Review, February 6, 2012.
Excerpt: Charles Murray writes important and provocative books. His latest book, Coming Apart, joins Losing Ground (1984) and The Bell Curve (1994) as, in my view, among his most important… More

Mind the Gap by Yuval Levin

– Yuval Levin, Weekly Standard, March 19, 2012.
Excerpt: Charles Murray’s profound and important new book has, for the most part, been received as merely the latest volley in the inequality debates. Its champions have tended to praise… More

American Caste

– Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal, Spring 2012.
Excerpt: When Charles Murray’s best-selling Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 appeared a few months ago, the book’s fictional working-class neighborhood, Fishtown,… More

Why America is Coming Apart

– Video, American Enterprise Institute, June 24, 2012.
Summary: It used to be that America meant something to all Americans. But that common understanding is dissolving, explains AEI scholar Charles Murray in his new book, Coming Apart: The… More

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010

– (New York: Crown Forum, 2012.)
Summary from Publisher: In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way… More

Teaching

The Two Wars Against Poverty

– The Public Interest, Fall 1982.
Excerpt: Most people, including most scholars, think the War on Poverty began with a formal declaration by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In a sense this is true, for there was in fact no formal… More

Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980

– (New York: Basic Books, 1984.)
Summary: This classic book serves as a starting point for any serious discussion of welfare reform. Losing Ground argues that the ambitious social programs of the 1960s and 1970s actually… More

The Fairness Delusion

– American Spectator, October 1984.
Excerpt: Democrats have been bludgeoning the Reagan Administration with “the fairness issue” since 1981. The fairness issue covers a variety of sins, generally falling under the… More

The War on Poverty 1965–1980

– Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 1984.
Excerpt: No one disputes that poverty exists in America. But how serious is the problem? Who are the poor? Why are they poor? Are there more poor people than there used to be? On such… More

Saving the Poor from Welfare

– Reason, December 1984.
Excerpt: There is a lesson to be learned from our national experience with the Great Society programs of the 1960s and their successors in the years since. The lesson is that the kinds of… More

Charles Murray & His Critics

– Robert Royal, Crisis Magazine, July 1985.
Excerpt: What is it about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (Basic Books, 1984) that has evoked such violent reactions? After initial shock at its… More

The Rediscovery of Character

– James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Fall 1985.
Excerpt: Charles Murray, whose 1984 book, Losing Ground, has done so much to focus attention on the problem of welfare, generally endorses the economic explanation for the decline of… More

Are the Poor ‘Losing Ground’?

– Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1985.
Excerpt: In the year since it was published, Losing Ground has become a political football in the debate about social policy toward the poor, and many of the substantive issues it raises… More

Cruel and Usual: Pretrial Punishment in Jail

– The Washington Monthly, December 1985.
Excerpt: John Irwin’s thesis is that American society uses jails to control and segregate the “rabble,” a subset of the poor and disadvantaged. Besides being destitute, the rabble are… More

White Welfare, White Families, ‘White Trash’

– National Review, March 28, 1986.
Excerpt: How many dozens of article, Op-Ed columns, cover stories, talk shows, and features on the six o’clock news have by now used Bill Moyer’s documentary on the vanishing… More

In Search of the Working Poor

– The Public Interest, Fall 1987.
Excerpt: The American debate about poverty and public policy has always been grounded in the prevailing answer to the question, “Can any American who is willing to work hard make a… More

Don’t Give Up: Poverty Programs That Work

– The Washington Monthly, June, 1988.
Excerpt: What you have generously offered me is a  chance to say that while I think most of the programs failed, I’m not a fanatic, and to prove it, here are some successes. And I… More

Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family

– David T. Ellwood, Basic Books, 1988.
Excerpt: Charles Murray’s powerful indictment of the social welfare system implicitly emphasizes these contradictions. According to Murray, the very system that was designed to help… More

Congress Writes a Law: Research and Welfare Reform

– Ron Haskins, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10:4 (Fall 1991).
Abstract: This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on… More

Regaining Lost Ground

– City Journal, Spring 1994.
Excerpt: In 1968, as Lyndon Johnson left office, 13 percent of Americans were poor, using the official definition. Over the next 12 years, our expenditures on social welfare quadrupled.… More

Charles Murray and the Underclass: The Developing Debate

– Ruth Lister, ed., IEA Health and Welfare Unit in association with The Sunday Times London, 1996.
Excerpt: IN 1989 Charles Murray visited Britain in search of the ‘underclass’, courtesy of The Sunday Times. Four years later he returned to warn that the crisis of the ‘underclass’… More

The Advantages of Social Apartheid

– Sunday Times (London), April 4, 2005.
Excerpt: Underclass is an ugly word, and we live in an age that abhors ugly words, so it is good to hear that the Blair government has devised a cheerier label: Neet, an acronym for “not… More

The Hallmark of the Underclass

– Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2005.
Excerpt: Watching the courage of ordinary low-income people as they deal with the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, it is hard to decide which politicians are more contemptible —… More

In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

– (Washington: AEI Press, 2006.)
Summary from Publisher: America’s population is wealthier than any in history. Every year, the American government redistributes more than a trillion dollars of that wealth to provide for… More

The Check Is In the Mail

– Lawrence M. Mead, First Things, October 2006.
Excerpt: Toward the end of In Our Hands, Murray makes clear that his priority is not really to overcome the dysfunctions behind poverty. Rather, it is to restore the small-government… More

Poverty and Marriage, Inequality and Brains

– Pathways, Winter 2008.
Excerpt: It may be said with only a little exaggeration that policy analysts are happy describing the causes of problems while ignoring their solution, and politicians are happy proposing… More

The State of White America

– Video, Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, April 4, 2011.
Summary: Over the last half century, America has developed a new lower class and a new upper class that are different in kind from anything it has ever known. These developments are not… More

The Great Divorce by David Brooks

– David Brooks, New York Times, January 30, 2012.
Excerpt: I’ll be shocked if there’s another book this year as important as Charles Murray’s Coming Apart. I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes… More

The Virtue Deficit

– Ron Haskins, National Review, February 6, 2012.
Excerpt: Charles Murray writes important and provocative books. His latest book, Coming Apart, joins Losing Ground (1984) and The Bell Curve (1994) as, in my view, among his most important… More

Mind the Gap by Yuval Levin

– Yuval Levin, Weekly Standard, March 19, 2012.
Excerpt: Charles Murray’s profound and important new book has, for the most part, been received as merely the latest volley in the inequality debates. Its champions have tended to praise… More

American Caste

– Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal, Spring 2012.
Excerpt: When Charles Murray’s best-selling Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 appeared a few months ago, the book’s fictional working-class neighborhood, Fishtown,… More

Why America is Coming Apart

– Video, American Enterprise Institute, June 24, 2012.
Summary: It used to be that America meant something to all Americans. But that common understanding is dissolving, explains AEI scholar Charles Murray in his new book, Coming Apart: The… More

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010

– (New York: Crown Forum, 2012.)
Summary from Publisher: In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way… More