Much of the research explaining the generosity of antipoverty programs has focused on the perceived deservingness of the poor. While the notion of deservingness is useful in explaining the scope and general outlines of policy, it does not help us understand the development and change of the specific policy instruments that constitute antipoverty policies. The author argues that to better understand the development of antipoverty policy tools aimed at changing the behavior of the poor, we need to analyze how policy elites frame both the causes of poverty and the nature of the poor. He illustrates the utility of this approach by analyzing congressional antipoverty discourse in two periods, comparing the “Great Society” period of 1964 to 1968 and the “neoliberal” era of 1981 to 1996, and shows how policymakers’ frames about the causes of poverty and about the capacities and desires of the poor shaped the specific antipoverty policies adopted in each period.
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