This book discusses the evolution of workfare policies in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Chapter 1 defines the term "workfare" and examines the concepts of transnationalizing workfare and workfarist labor regulation. Chapter 2 establishes workfare's theoretical context and explores the relationship between welfare arrangements and the labor market from the days of the workhouse system through the days of the welfare state to the emergent workfare system. Chapter 3 considers the origins of workfare in the context of restructuring or "reform" of the previous welfare programs in the United States and explores the range of meanings associated with the regulatory term "workfare" within different historical and geographical contexts. The history of welfare and workfare politics in Massachusetts is traced in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 presents a critical analysis of the methodology and interpretations of Riverside, California's Greater Avenues for Independence program. Chapter 6 traces Canada's path from welfarism to workfarism, and Chapter 7 describes the United Kingdom's recent embrace of workfare. Chapter 8 begins by presenting an abstract examination of workfare and its contradictions and ends by speculating on the future course of workfare politics. (Twenty tables/figures are included. The bibliography contains 607 references.) (MN)