San Antonio College Library

The state of Indiana denied one million applications for health care, food stamps, and cash benefits in three years - because a new computer system interpreted any application mistake as "failure to cooperate." In Los Angeles, an algorithm calculates the comparative vulnerability of tens of thousands of homeless people in order to prioritize them for an inadequate pool of housing resources. In Pittsburgh, a child welfare agency uses a statistical...

The modern social safety net is under attack. So argues economist Janet Currie in one of the most provocative books ever published on America's social welfare system. Unlike most books about antipoverty programs, Currie trains her focus on cash welfare, which accounts for a small and shrinking share of federal expenditures on poor families with children, but on the staples of today's American welfare system: Medicaid, Food Stamps, Head Start, WIC,...

Overview: In this powerful and culminating work about a group of inner-city children he has known for many years, Jonathan Kozol returns to the scene of his prize-winning books Rachel and Her Children and Amazing Grace, and to the children he has vividly portrayed, to share with us their fascinating journeys and unexpected victories as they grow into adulthood. For nearly fifty years, Jonathan has pricked the conscience of his readers by laying bare...

The failure of America's medical system, as seen through the stories of the people who engineered the current health care revolution and those who have suffered from it. Every day, millions of Americans find themselves struggling to find affordable medical care for themselves and their families. It is a problem unique to the United States, the only country in the developed world that does not guarantee access to medical care as a right of citizenship....

Presents national and state-by-state history of public health options for the American poor.

"Today there are nearly six million children under the age of five living in poverty in the world's richest country. Blanket statements are often tossed around in the political arena, public debate sphere, and progressive rhetoric. But the statistic remains intangible for many Americans, likely because the root causes, effects, and implications are multifaceted and complex, and are often hard to understand for the average American living a much different...

Poor Families in America's Health Care Crisis examines the implications of the fragmented and two-tiered health insurance system in the United States for the health care access of low-income families. For a large fraction of Americans their jobs do not provide health insurance or other benefits and although government programs are available for children, adults without private health care coverage have few options. Detailed ethnographic and survey...