professor scott allard, what's out of reach? >> well, this book was motivated by a concern about rising poverty rates in the u.s. over the last decade that occurred during a time when the way we helped poor people changed as well. what's out of reach now are the social service programs that compose a large share of how we help low-income americans, and the book is focused on where these programs are located and how difficult it might be for low income, poor families to access them. >> give us an example. >> typically, we think about welfare and food stamps, and those are really important, but we spend just as much money, if not more, on social service programs like job training, education, um, child care, housing assistance, mental health or substance abuse services that promote greater well being, help people find and keep a job, but i can't mail you job train, right? like i can a welfare check or a food stamp benefit. so it becomes really important where these programs are located, and as the book discusses, there's a lot of f

. >> professor scott allard is the author of "out of reach: place, poverty and the new american welfare state." he joins booktv at the university of chicago. >> we'd like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback. twitter.com/booktv. >> university of chicago professor james t. sparrow, what did world war ii do to the size of the federal government? >> >> oh, it increased it by more than tenfold. >> how so? >> well, the economic mobilization required a drastic increase in the presence of the government within the economy. the armed forces grew drastically as well, over 16 million people served over the course of the war, and roughly half of the economy was absorbed by the mobilization. so it was an unprecedented expansion, the scope of the government. >> how did it compare to the 1930s during fdr's first terms? >> yeah. well, the '30s, of course, were a period of dramatic growth, but the government of the '30s even at its peak was just absolutely swamped by the warfare state that came out of the second world war. and years after the second world war was over and before the korean war had