Lawrence M. Mead
Lawrence M. Mead is Professor of
Politics at New York University, where he teaches public
policy and American government. He has been a visiting
professor at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of
Wisconsin. He has also been a visiting fellow at
Princeton and the Hoover Institution at Stanford.
Professor Mead is an expert on the
problems of poverty and welfare in the United States, and
the politics of these Issues. His works include Beyond
Entitlement (Free Press, 1986), The New Politics
of Poverty (Basic Books, 1992) and The New
Federalism (Brookings, 1997). Together, these books
set out much of the theory and practice for mandatory
work programs, which are the leading approach to welfare
reform in the United States. Currently, Professor Mead is
researching welfare politics in Congress and the
implementation of welfare reform in Wisconsin.
He has also published many journal
articles on other aspects of social policy, program
implementation, policy analysis, and public policy
research.
Before coming to NYU in 1979, Professor
Mead held several policy and research positions in and
around the federal government in Washington. He testifies
regularly to Congress on poverty, welfare, and social
policy, and he often comments on these subjects in the
media.
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