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Cambridge Journal of Economics 24:119-138 (2000)
Copyright © 2000 Cambridge Political Economy Society

Article

Commentary. 'Work first': workfare and the regulation of contingent labour markets

J Peck1,2,z and N Theodore2

1 School of Geography, Manchester University, Manchester M13 9Pl, UK
E-mail: jamie.peck@man.ac.uk
2 After 1 April 2000: Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Science Hall, 550 North Park St, Madison, WI 53706, USA
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
z Corresponding author

Abstract

The paper presents a critical review of UK and US welfare-to-work strategies, stressing their implications for changing forms of labour regulation. The favoured policy orientation - 'work first' - forcefully redistributes the risks and burdens of job-market instability from the state to unemployed individuals, the solution to whose 'welfare dependency' is presented in terms of a one-way transition into (low) waged work. At a systemic level, the analysis suggests that a regressive regulatory accommodation may be emerging between mandatory welfare-to-work programming on the one hand and the lowest reaches of deregulated, 'flexible' labour markets on the other, as the destabilisation of welfare via work-activation measures creates a forced labour supply for contingent jobs.

Key Words: Workfare • Welfare-to-work programmes • Labour-market policy • Policy transfer • Welfare reform


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