Lifting Up the Poor: A Dialogue on Religion, Poverty & Welfare Reform

Mary Jo Bane is professor of public policy and management at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. She served as cochair of President Clinton's Working Group on Welfare Reform and assistant secretary for children and families at the Department of Health and Human Services. Lawrence M. Mead is a professor of politics at New York University and was a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institute. He was deputy director of research, Republican National Committee; policy scientist, the Urban Institute; and policy analyst, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

"LIFTING UP THE POOR captures an articulate and earnest discussion on poverty, welfare reform, and the contributions of religion in the formation of public policy between two leading social scientists." --Matthew Schobert, Family Ministry "The value of the book lies within its ability to show how religious principles have a strong impact upon policy today." --Audrey Hoffer, Street Sense, 3/1/2004 "The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the editors of dialogues on religion and public life, E.J. Dionne Jr., Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Kayla Drogosz, are to be congratulated for bringing out this book." --William A. Galston, University of Maryland, Commonweal, 2/27/2004 "A great book" --Kevin Little, United Church, Toronto Star, 6/3/2006 "While it is impossible to come up with a definitive final answer on the issue of welfare reform, Bane and Mead make an honest and satisfactory attempt to bring new issues to the discussion...Overall, LIFTING UP THE POOR would make an excellent choice for anyone interested in helping the downtrodden, and would be a useful text in social work and political science classes." --Nathan R Lynn, Journal of Church and State