Peter
Cove is a nationally-acclaimed advocate for private
solutions to welfare dependency, and author of the new
book, POOR NO MORE: Rethinking Dependency and the War on
Poverty. Peter Cove is founder of America Works, the
first for-profit, welfare-to-work company. He has
created more than 1 million jobs for welfare recipients
through America Works and other private sector
endeavors. For 50 years, he has been at the forefront of
mitigating poverty by promoting jobs as a solution to
welfare dependency. He previously served in key posts in
New York City municipal government, charitable
foundations, and private companies.
Peter Cove is a frequent media guest who has appeared on
major radio and television programs nationwide. He has
contributed to such publications as the New York Post,
New York Daily News, The Hill, City Journal, and the
Huffington Post. Peter Cove has testified before the
United States Congress. He graduated from Northeastern
University and resides in New York City. Check out
America Works http://americaworks.com/.
Poor No More
purchase
Rethinking Dependency and the War on Poverty
By Peter Cove
Washington,
DC—In the 1960s, America set out to end poverty.
Policy-makers put forth an unprecedented package of
legislation, funding anti-poverty programs and
empowering the poor through ineffective
employment-related education and training. However,
these handouts produced little change, and efforts to
provide education and job-training proved
inconsequential, boasting only a 2.5 percent decrease in
the poverty rate since 1965. Decades after the War on
Poverty began, many of its programs had failed. Only one
thing really worked to help end poverty—and that was
work itself, the centerpiece of welfare reform in 1996.
In POOR NO MORE: Rethinking Dependency and the War on
Poverty (Transaction Publishers, February 2017), Peter
Cove—acclaimed advocate for private solutions to welfare
dependency—proposes a radical solution to abolish all
welfare and poverty programs and replace them with jobs
for all able Americans. As Peter Cove argues, “Simply, I
propose that we eliminate all welfare programs except
those geared toward people who truly cannot work due to
physical or mental problems. Second, we scuttle all
poverty programs, including everything from Head Start
to Food Stamps. From 1964 until today we have spent over
$19 trillion on such programs and have hardly moved the
poverty rate down from 17 percent in 1965 to 14.5
percent in 2014. We should wipe the slate clean, take
all the money saved, and create jobs—first, in the
private sector and then, as a last resort, in the public
one. In so doing we will return our country to a work
ethic and steer it away from dependency. We will solve
poverty with work—a job for all who
are able.”
POOR NO MORE is a pioneering plan to restructure
poverty programs by prioritizing jobs above all else.
Traditionally, job placement programs stemmed from
non-profit organizations or government agencies.
However, America Works, the first for-profit job
placement venture founded by Peter Cove, has the highest
employee retention rate in the greater New York City
area, even above these traditional agencies—and almost
always beats the competition in markets nationwide. In
the 1990s, when the federal government embraced the
work-first ideal, inspired by the success of America
Works, welfare rolls plummeted from 12.6 million to 4.7
million nationally within one decade.
For 50 years, Peter Cove has been at the forefront of
mitigating poverty, starting out as a true believer in
income transfers, social services, and a reliance on
improving human capital through training and education
programs. He gradually came to the realization that
these programs were failing individuals by stressing
education and training over work itself—leaving those in
need without real world work experience and utterly
dependent on government largess. Despite these failures,
liberal politicians and policy-makers—avowed defenders
of the downtrodden—continued to advocate for these
failed programs. Why? Peter Cove contends that “making
real change threatens the foundations of their own
electoral support. Because defending the vulnerable is
ultimately less important than kowtowing to labor
unions, social workers, community groups, and the
welfare-industrial complex. They have thrown the poor
under the special interest bus.”
Armed with this new understanding, Peter Cove put these
theories into action by founding America Works, the
first for-profit welfare-to-work company. America Works
offers employment services to state and local welfare
agencies with the aim of placing welfare recipients in
jobs quickly, with a minimal amount of time spent on
training. Instead, America Works weeklong training
sessions are narrowly focused on the attributes and
skills needed to land an entry-level job. Trainers work
with clients on the basics, such as maintaining a
businesslike personal appearance, speaking properly,
preparing a resume, and showing up on time. Clients
quickly learn that success depends on self-discipline
and their own motivation and effort. Peter Cove has
created more than 1 million jobs for welfare recipients
through his for-profit company America Works and other
private endeavors.
On the march today are social policies based on
progressivism that reject the welfare bill of 1996’s
mandate for work and reciprocal responsibility. As
practiced by President Barack Obama and New York Mayor
Bill de Blasio, we are returning to the failed programs
and approaches of the past that now threaten the gains
made in reducing poverty, dependency, and welfare rolls
when a work-first method was adopted. POOR NO MORE is a
paradigm-shifting work that guides the reader through
the evolution of America’s War on Poverty and urges
policy-makers to eliminate training and education
programs that waste time and money, and to adopt a
work-first model.
To arrange an interview with Poor No More author Peter
Cove, please contact Stephen Manfredi at 202.222.8028 or
smanfredi@manfredistrategygroup.com .
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