Blanche Bernstein

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Blanche Bernstein (died Jan. 27, 1993) was a welfare expert and controversial commissioner of the New York City Department of Human Resources (1978–1979) at the outset of the administration of Mayor Edward I. Koch. Bernstein was a critic of a system she thought created dependency rather than uplifting welfare recipients, a perspective that was strongly criticized by other experts and welfare advocates, but which prefigured both the Reagan Era attack on welfare and the later reforms under President Bill Clinton.