Ellen Reese is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California-Riverside. Her research focuses on poverty, welfare state development, urban politics, and social movements. Her book, Backlash Against Welfare Mothers: Past and Presents (2005) examines long-term transformations in the U.S. welfare state. She is also coeditor with Amalia Cabezas and Marguerite Waller of The Wages of Empire: Neoliberal Policies, Repression, and Women's Poverty (Paradigm Publishers 2007). She is currently writing a new book, They Say Cutback; We Say Fight-back! Welfare Rights Activism in an Era of Retrenchment.