Book reviews Sharon Hays, Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform, Oxford University Press, New York, 2003, ISBN: 0-19-517601-4, 279 pp. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 (PRWORA) has been deemed a success by Republicans and Democrats alike. Indeed, welfare caseloads dropped from 4.4 million families in 1996 to 2 million in 2003. Not surprisingly, most politicians are basking in the glow of this success. But, beyond the patina of success is a grim story that Sharon Hays is anxious to tell. It’s a story of welfare mothers trying to make it despite the odds. It’s the story of a breformedQ welfare system that embodies a set of complex and conflicting messages about what is desirable. It’s the story of welfare reform that in the guise of making recipients bindependent,Q is harming vast numbers of clients. And it is the story of a society that has exploited welfare as a symbol to aggravate the deep cultural rifts between conservatives and liberals. My first response on seeing Flat Broke with Children was a yawn, bYet another book about welfare reform. Just what we need.Q But after reading it, I was surprised. Flat Broke with Children is not the typical hand-wringing book about welfare reform. In fact, it’s hard to pigeonhole. On the one hand, the book takes a fiercely critical look at welfare, values and American society. It’s a vigorous and systematic analysis of how the welfare system complements and conflicts with larger social trends and values. For Hays, welfare reform is emblematic of the changing mores and the hypocrisy of American society. Hays deconstructs welfare reform in unusual and refreshing ways. For example, she sees welfare reform as being two-pronged: the work plan (get recipient mothers into the workforce ASAP) and the family plan (get recipient mothers married, thereby supporting traditional family values). How this strategy fails on both accounts is a major subject of the book. Hays surgically dissects American-style welfare reform. In fact, it may be the most thorough dissection in print. Virtually every well-written page is chock full of ideas and observations, most of them noteworthy. The book makes you think and it’s hard to quickly coast through. In fact, I found myself stopping often to think about what the author meant. Flat Broke with Children is about how welfare really works. It cuts through the ideology, the hype and the hand-wringing. Sharon Hays is a first-rate sociologist and it shows in the book. Unlike many sociological works, Flat Broke with Children contains little jargon and is reader- friendly, even for the most general audiences. It’s not an easy read, but that’s not due to the style. What makes this book difficult is the ideas and the emotions it generates. Many readers will be indignant at the systemic abuses faced by recipient mothers. Some readers will even be outraged by it. Flat Broke with Children is not a dry academic text. Instead, it is a mix of astute ethnomethodology combined with a kind of muckraking journalism. (I don’t consider muckraking a pejorative term since it has led to important social change.) Hays spent three Children and Youth Services Review 28 (2006) 578 – 594 www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth