Mimi Abramovitz
Bertha Capen Reynolds Professor of Social Policy, Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College, CUNY Faculty Associate, Roosevelt House

Mimi Abramovitz is Bertha Capen Reynolds Professor of Social Policy at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. She has published widely on issues related to women, poverty, human rights, and the U.S. Welfare State, including more than 90 articles in scholarly journals and the popular press. Dr Abramovitz is currently writing a book on the history of low-income women’s activism in the U.S. since 1900. Her previous books include the award-winning Under Attack, Fighting Back: Women and Welfare in the U.S., Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy From Colonial Times to the Present, The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy and Taxes are a Woman’s Issue: Reframing the Debate. Dr. Abramovitz is the co-founder of the Welfare Rights Initiative at Hunter College and currently co-leads of the National Social Work Voter Mobilization Campaign (Voting is Social Work). She recently received the Significant Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Education Award from the Council on Social Work Education and was inducted as a Fellow of American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

Recent Awards

• 2019     Leadership Award, Building an Inclusive Economy in NYC , Labor Market Information Service,  Center for Urban Research, CUNY Graduate Center , NYC January 17
• 2018     Significant Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Education Award CSWE Nov 11, Orlando Fla.
• 2018      Fellow, American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare 
• 2015     Top Social Work Leader Award, NASW. New York City Chapter
• 2015     Social Work Pioneer for contributions and leadership, NASW Foundation

Recent International Conference Presentations

• The Logic of the Market vs the Logic of Social Work: Social Services in the Neo-Liberal Era. Keynote Address at Conference entitled Social Work and Solidarity: In Search of New Paradigms. University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia., 8/20/18–8/22/18
• Privatization in the Human Services in NYC: Understanding Managerialism, Keynote Address at Conference entitled Ambivalences of the Rising Welfare State. University of Bielefeld & University of Geneva, Hannover, Germany, May 28–May 30 2018
• The Logic of the Market versus the Logic of Social Work: Whither Social Work? Street-level Research in the Employment and Social Policy Area, 2nd Conference Aalborg University,  Copenhagen, Denmark. June 21–22.,
• The Impact of Privatization on the Human Service Workforce in US and Switzerland..  Keynote address International Congress of the Swiss Association of Social Work.  Zurich, Switzerland . Sept 3–4 2015
• Privatization in the Human Service: Impact on the Ground Floor and the Front Lines at the Conference on Privatization, Globalization, and Social Responsibility,  Invited Paper.. Lund University, Faculty of Law, Lund Sweden, June 14–15, 2013

Recent  National State and Local Presentations

• 2019        Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Shift to Neoliberalism and Social Work’s Future (with J. Zelnick, J. Toft and L Lightfoot). Annual Program Meeting, Council on Social Work Education. Denver, CO. October 26 .
• 2019     Looking Backward, Looking Forward, Privatization and the Crisis in Social Work ( with Jennifer  Zelnick) Annual Program Meeting, Council on Social Work Education. Denver. CO. October 25
• 2019      Revitalizing a Movement for Macro Education and Practice: Historic r Moments, Future Directions ( with Darlyne Bailey), Annual Program Meeting, Council on Social Work Education.Denver. CO. October 26
• 2019      Managerialism, Gender and Social Justice: Results From the Human Service Workforce Study (with
  Jennifer Zelnick) Global Care Work Summit, University of Toronto  June 9–11, 2019
• 2019      Residential Segregation & Structural Violence  1940–2019, Society of Society Work Reseacrh (SSWR), San Francisco, CA, Jan 16–20
• 2018     Persistence of Resident Segregation by Race: Role of Social Policy  CSWE, Orlando, FL, Nov 11. Business as Usual? A Wake-UP Call to the Human Services, Public Forum, Hosted by Human Services Council, Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College. Oct 11 (with Jennifer Zelnick)
• 2017     Teaching Social Policy in the Era of Trump, Teaching Institute,. Social Policy 2.0 Conference  Keunoe June 1,  George Warren Brown School of Social Work ST Louis, Mo., June 1
• 2017     Community Loss Index A New Social Indicator, SAMSHA Grantee Meeting (ReCAST) Rockville, Md. Jan 25
• 2016     Special Research Panel; Race and Inequality. Influencing Social Policy Conference 2.0; Brown School of Social Work, Washington, University, St Louis. June 2–4
• 2016      Feminization of Austerity Seizing the Means of Reproduction. Brown University , Rhode Island 2/19/16
• 2015    Doing More With Less  The Impact of Mangerialism on uman service delivery in the Age of Austerity. Social Policy 2 Conference, Austin, May 29–30

Books

• 2018    Regulating The Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy From Colonial Times to the Present, Routledge  London and New York  3^rdEdition
• 2014    The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy, NY: Oxford University Press (and Joel Blau). (4threvised  edition)

Recent Articles

• 2020     The Perils of Privatization: Bringing the Business Model into the Human Services. with Jennifer Zelnick). Read the article on the Social Work website
• 2020     “How to Proceed With Professionalism and Managerialism In Social Work’ in New Practice (Neuepraxis. Special issue)  Neuwied. Germany
• 2019     Voting is Social Work; Voices from the National Social Work Mobilization Campaign, Journal of Social Work Education 19: 626-644  (with Margaret Sherraden, Katharine Hill,  Tanya R Smith, Beth Lewis, Terry Mizrahi)
• 2019     Political Ideology and Social Welfare. NASW Encyclopedia of Social Work, NY Oxford University Press (on line edition)

•  2018      Voting Is Social Work: Voter Empowerment and the National Social Work Voter Mobilization Campaign   The New Social Worker, Fall.
• 2018     Logic of The Market Versus the Logic of Social Work; Whither the Welfare  State  Social Work and Society 16(2) (Online Journal)  Special Supplement. Proceedings of the Conference Ambivalences of the Rising Welfare Service State Hopes and Hazards of Fundamentally Realigning the Architecture of Welfare
• 2016     Case to Cause: Back to the Future, Journal of Social Work Education (w. Margaret Sherraden) v. 52 ( Special Issue) S89 to S98
  2015      Privatization in the Human Services Implications for Direct Practice, Clinical Social Work Journal June 43(3):283- 293   (with Jennifer Zelnick)
• 2015      Moving Toward Racial Equity: The Undoing Racism Workshop and Organizational Change. Journal of Race and Social Problem (with Lisa Blitz) 7(2): 97-110

Recent Chapters

• In press Abramovitz. Mimi. Social Structures of Accumulation and the U.S. Welfare State  Terrance, McDonough David Kotz, and  Cian McMahon(eds) Handbook on Social Structures of Accumulation. Elgar Publishing
• In press Abramovitz, Mimi The Rise of Managerialism in the US: Whither Worker Control? Baines, D. and  Cunningham, Ian  (eds.) Working in the Context of Austerity: Challenges and Struggle. Bristol    University Press (with Jennifer Zelnick)
• In press.  Abramovitz, Mimi .Political Ideology and Social Welfare. NASW Encyclopedia of  Macro Social Work, NY Oxford University Press
• 2020     Abramovitz, Mimi  Democratic Socialism, Socialist Feminism and the US Welfare State, in Gregory Smulewsicz  Zucker and Michael Thompson (eds.)  An Inheritance for Our Times: The  Principles and  Politics of Democratic Socialism. New York: OR Books., pp .261-277
• 2018      Abramovitz, Mimi. From the Welfare State to the Carceral State: Whither Social Reproduction in (eds.) A, Kessler–Harris and M. Vaudagna. Democracy and the Welfare State, Columbia  University Press. pp, 195-226
• 2017      Abramovitz, M. & Zelnick, J.R. Privatization in the Human Services: Impact on the Front Lines and the Ground Floor in M. Fineman, U Andersson, and M. Mattsson (Eds) Privatization, Vulnerability, and Social Responsibility ; London: Routledge, pp.182-200
• 2016     Abramovitz, Mimi . When Does Race Matter? Examining Antiracist Organizational Change, in Carten, Pender Greene, and Siskind (eds.) Transforming Health and Human Service Systems, Oxford University Press (with Liza Blitz) , pp. 67-87
• 2014     Economic Crises, Neoliberalism, and the U.S. Welfare State: Trends, Outcomes and Political Struggle. Global Social Work Education: Crossing Borders and Blurring Boundaries, Carolyn Noble, Helle Strauss & Brian Littlechild (eds.) Sydney University Press., pp. 225-241
• 2014     Which Side Are We On?  In Chris Jones and Tony Novak (eds), Critical and Radical Debates in Social Work. Policy Press, Bristol/UK/Chicago/US, pp. 27-34/