The Myth of the Welfare Queen: A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist's Portrait of Women on the Line

For six months in 1995, Zucchino, now the Philadelphia Inquirer's foreign editor, observed the world of several welfare mothers living in grim North Philadelphia. His narrative is rich in detail but not in analysis. His main character, Odessa Williams, is a God-fearing, redoubtable grandmother who, despite her limited education and health problems, helps care for several generations of her extended family through savvy shopping, scouring others' discards and off-the-books entrepreneurship. He also focuses on Cheri Honkala, the unpaid organizer of a local welfare rights group, who struggles to keep the members together, maintain pressure on intransigent officials and pay her considerable debts. The book includes memorable scenes, such as Honkala's effort to establish a ""tent city"" near the Liberty Bell and the holiday dinner for the poor catered by an apparent mobster seeking a PR boost. As the title suggests, these inspiring women--with limited skills in a tight job market--hardly live well. It's unfortunate that Zucchino does not probe further the link between welfare and behavior: Why have some of Williams's children escaped into the working class, while one daughter is a drug-addicted prostitute and one granddaughter neglects her children? Those questions also need answers in our current policy debate. (Mar.)