Abstract: Fifteen years ago, New Jersey became the first of over twenty states to introduce the family cap, a welfare reform policy that reduces or eliminates cash benefits for unmarried women on public assistance who become pregnant. The caps have lowered extra-marital birth rates, as intended but as this book shows they did so in a manner that few of the policy’s architects are willing to acknowledge publicly, namely by increasing the abortion rate disproportionately among black and Hispanic women. This book presents the caps history from inception through implementation to the investigation and the dramatic attempts to squelch the author’s unpleasant findings. The book contains clear-cut evidence and data analyses, yet also plays close attention to the reactions the author’s findings provoked in policymakers, both conservative and liberal, who were unprepared for the effects of their crude social engineering and did not want their success scrutinized too closely. The book argues that absent of any successful rehabilitation or marriage strategies, abortion provides a viable third way for policymakers to help black and Hispanic women accumulate the social and human capital they need to escape welfare, while simultaneously appealing to liberals passion for reproductive freedom and the neoconservatives sense of social pragmatism.

Keywords: New Jersey, family cap, cash benefits, pregnancy, unmarried women, birth rates, abortion rate, black women, Hispanic women