Poor people’s agency involvement is involuntary when no real alternative exists.

Evidence

However, if one takes the view that poor people have no alternatives to seeking essential goods and services through public programs, then analytically the voluntary nature of their involvement in the system becomes suspect. The alternative to volunteering to become a part of the welfare system may be not eating. The alternative to going to a hospital emergency room may be to neglect a serious health problem. If this is the case then to call the client “voluntary” or the mode of client compliance “utilitarian” becomes a bit scholastic. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 348

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Loïc Wacquant and Piven & Cloward on how welfare structures poor people’s options — forms of coercion inside nominally voluntary systems. — connects to: Poor clients’ agency involvement is nonvoluntary when no real alternatives exist
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Poor clients’ agency involvement is nonvoluntary when no real alternatives exist #corroborates (0.97)