Reforming Social Services in New York City: How Major Change Happens in Urban Welfare Policies

Reforming Social Services in New York City examines efforts across six decades to respond to poverty, joblessness, and homelessness through the establishment and periodic restructuring of the city’s Human Resources Administration (HRA) and related social welfare agencies.

As Thomas J. Main shows through archival research and interviews with key figures, the HRA has been the focus of several mayoralties. The John Lindsay administration’s creation of the HRA in 1966 was a classic liberal effort to fight poverty; Rudy Giuliani brought dramatic change by implementing work-oriented welfare reform; and the Bill de Blasio administration attempted to install a progressive social welfare agenda within the city’s social service agencies to reduce inequality. Reforming Social Services in New York City tells the story of these efforts, assessing the strategies employed and the success of their outcomes, concluding that major nonincremental change in urban welfare policy is not only possible but has been effective.

Thomas J. Main is Professor at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College, CUNY. He is the author of The Rise of Illiberalism, The Rise of the Alt-Right, and Homelessness in New York City.