Where All the Counties Are Above Average: Top Down Versus Bottom Up Perspectives of Welfare Reform

This paper uses in depth interviews with the directors of Departments of Human Service Agencies in 29 counties of Appalachian Ohio, a rural area of persistent poverty, to examine their perspectives on the effects of welfare reform on their agencies and communities. We compare these views from the top with those of welfare recipients whose lives are directly affected by the changing policies to examine the assumptions embedded in current welfare reform efforts through the perspectives of these two core populations. The perspectives of both groups illustrate the underlying contradictions in the way policy is politically justifies and implemented and the particular problems that face rural areas to demonstrate the disparities between the "top-down" goals of welfare policy and the "bottom-up" perceptions of their outcomes.