ABSTRACT
The reception area, completely remodeled with plants and posters and a children’s play area, came to resemble the waiting room of an elite pediatrician’s office more than the entrance to a state bureaucracy. Denise is making use of what Michele Lamont has called “symbolic boundaries” to develop an implicit hierarchy of social worth. These symbolic boundaries also allow her to positively affirm shared values and specify the proper way to live one’s life. Symbolic boundaries thus become exclusionary boundaries—simultaneously offering a means to affirm shared values and a means to think of “outsiders” in terms of individual blame. The long-term consequences of welfare reform will also place a tremendous burden on other working-poor and working-class families. From this angle, the real winners in the story of welfare reform are all the restaurant, hotel, retail, and food service chains, and all the corporations, manufacturers, and small business owners across America who employ low-wage workers.
