The Road to Wigan Pier should be in this. Orwell lived with coal miners' families in Northern Britain for months. I particularly was struck by his descriptions of the way social-welfare policies were used to weaken family structures of the poor.
> social-welfare policies were used to weaken family structures of the poor
How on earth do you get that message out of Orwell?
He argued in places that the various relief organisations were often patronising and under-informed, but the "weaken family structures" is a distinctly modern code phrase.
>“The most cruel and evil effect of the Means Test is the way in which it breaks up families. Old people, sometimes bedridden, are driven out of their homes by it. An old age pensioner, for instance, if a widower, would normally live with one or other of his children; his weekly ten shillings goes towards the household expenses, and probably he is not badly cared for. Under the Means Test, however, he counts as a ‘lodger’ and if he stays at home his children’s dole will be docked. So, perhaps at seventy or seventy-five years of age, he has to turn out into lodgings, handing his pension over to the lodging-house keeper and existing on the verge of starvation. I have seen several cases of this myself. It is happening all over England at this moment, thanks to the Means Test.”
Marilynne Robinson's book 'Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution' talks extensively about the history of Britian's social welfare system and its degrading effect on the people it ostensibly serves.
I recommend it highly if you are interested in the relationship between people and states of the British colonial diaspora, including the USA.
If you were affected by it I'd strongly recommend you read the ragged trousered philanthropists. Unfortunately it seems like not much has changed in the 100 years since it was written.
