Presentation

The "Etudes du CERI" is a policy working papers series focusing on contemporary or prospective international issues. Topics of individual papers can concentrate on a specific country or a region, industrial sectors, a geo-strategic problem or an economic trend.
Before publication, all the papers are subject to a rigorous editing process and evaluation by referees. Most of them are written as a result of a field mission.

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The Etudes du CERI can be freely consulted on this website one year after publication. More than 150 papers have been published since 1995.

The social policy of the US welfare state is based on a liberal model of social protection. The social contract is based on the idea that individuals of working age individuals should support themselves and their dependants thanks to their earned income. However, to have a job is no longer sufficient in protecting individuals against main social risks. President Obama has been elected on the promise that he will restore the American dream, whereby individual work is rewarded by upward social mobility. However, the Obama administration faces the challenge of rising social inequality and poverty, in an extremely difficult economic context. The Great Recession has laid bare the gaps of the safety net: a growing proportion of families must choose between paying for food or rent. To understand the inadequacies of the US social protection system, it is necessary to study the structure of public assistance programmes, as well as labour market trends and the impact of the recession on low-income households. This analysis will shed light on the main characteristics of the Obama administration’s response to the economic crisis.