ABSTRACT
Over the past four decades, shifting labor markets have severely diminished the work and income prospects for low-skilled Americans. Partly as a response, public assistance programs have been redesigned to prod people into whatever jobs the changing economy provides (Peck, 2001). Under the neoliberal logic that guides these programs, paid work has been enshrined as the chief responsibility of citizenship (Soss et al., 2011). Activities that were once seen as societal contributions in their own right (e.g., care of children or aging adults) are now widely viewed as impediments to paid work (Stone, 2007). In the process, a remarkable variety of life conditions have come to be known by a simple term: barriers.
