The purpose of this article is to discuss current social policies and their subjective repercussions on workers' lives, particularly the effects of prolonged unemployment and the consequent dependence on social programs and assistance from third parties to guarantee subsistence. Results of a qualitative study conducted in the municipality of São Paulo show the unease caused by this dependence and the disgust with the denial of the right to work. In addition to insufficiently combating the true causes of inequality, compensatory policies based on liberal orthodoxy reinforce the fragmentation and submission of the efforts of labor, reduce the population involved to mere objects of intervention and impede the construction of a class project and identity, through which workers could have organized and collective influence, assuming the role of agents in the formulation of policies and in the direction of society.
work; precariousness of work; social policies; dependence