Back in 1996 welfare as we knew it was forever changed by President Clinton.  But while public policy can address issues like food stamps, child care, Medicaid, and many other aspects, it can never address issues of trust.  We know from Civil Rights legislation that no matter what the policy prescriptions, you can’t address what’s in the human heart.

In the panoply of issues surrounding welfare you might not think that trust was paramount.  In fact, Temple University Professor Judith Levine, in Ain't No Trust: How Bosses, Boyfriends, and Bureaucrats Fail Low-Income Mothers and Why It Matters, finds that it is one of the defining issues for low income women.  That it has an ongoing corrosive and paralyzing effect in the lives of these women and that even public policy cannot fully address it.

My conversation with Judith Levine: