Understanding Social Welfare introduces students to the issues, historical influences, trends, methods of operation, and unresolved conflicts of American social welfare.

This well-organized, comprehensive, and scholarly text is accessible to social work students and helps them acquire the basic tools for understanding, analyzing, and evaluating social welfare policies and programs. The text focuses on the impact of social structure on people's lives, emphasizing the current concerns of a diverse client population, and incorporating the latest social welfare legislation.