Concurrently, shifting political attitudes and disillusionment with the policies that have been tried are giving rise to a new surge of debate and reform. Most visible in the 1990s is the effort to reform the welfare system to increase work incentives and to limit its use as a long-term source of support for able-bodied adults, even when they have small chil- dren. Behind this policy change has been a decade-long ideological debate about the nature and causes of poverty, pitting conservatives against liberals. This article does not describe that debate, except where directly necessary. Rather, we concentrate on research about poverty and its relation to the conditions.
