Clinton’s welfare reform act is infamous for installing both workfare and marriage promotion at the heart of American social policy. It is less well known that PRWORA essentially federalized a principle of poor relief dating right back to the old poor law tradition—the principle, that is, of private family responsibility for the welfare of dependents. Even less well known is the fact that Ronald Reagan first initiated this project as Governor of California in the 1970s, when he sought to revive the state’s old poor law rules for compelling family members to look after impoverished relatives.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 211