This issue evaluates the fallout of efforts to reform welfare in the U.S. through the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. It documents the ideological shifts in Republican circles that shaped the debate, and which are finding echoes in conservative politics in Australia and elsewhere. Now that welfare rolls have been radically reduced, we must pose difficult questions: What happens at the end of lifetime limits? What of those who found marginal employment, but are unable to keep it because their lives -- or the economy -- take a turn for the worse? What becomes of those who used to occupy bottom-rung positions that have been eliminated to create workfare places? What will the long-term consequences be of discouraging education in favor of "working first," in a world where knowledge is the primary economy? Authors begin to rethink the possibility of new directions.