This book represents a truly innovative and empowering approach to social problems. Instead of focusing solely on a seemingly tireless list of major problems, Sara Towe Horsfall considers how select key issues can be solved and pays particular attention to the advocate groups already on the front lines. Horsfall first provides a robust theoretical foundation to the study of social problems before moving on to the problems themselves, examining each through the lens of specific advocate groups working towards solutions. This concise and accessible text also incorporates useful learning tools including study questions to help reinforce reading comprehension, questions for further thought to encourage critical thinking and classroom discussion, a glossary of key terms, and a worksheet for researching advocate groups. "Social Problems: An Advocate Group Approach "is an essential resource for social problems courses and for anyone who is inspired to effect change.

Severe poverty is one of the greatest moral challenges of our times. But what place, if any, do ethical thinking and questions of global justice have in the policies and practice of international organizations? This books examines this question in depth, based on an analysis of the two major multilateral development organizations - the World Bank and the UNDP - and two specific initiatives where poverty and ethics or human rights have been explicitly in focus: in the Inter-American Development Bank and UNESCO. The current development aid framework may be seen as seeking to make globalization work for the poor; and multilateral organizations such as these are powerful global actors, whether by virtue of their financial resources, or in their role as global norm-setting bodies and as sources of hegemonic knowledge about poverty. Drawing on their backgrounds in political economy, ethics and sociology of knowledge, as well as their inside knowledge of some of the case studies, the authors show how, despite the rhetoric, issues of ethics and human rights have - for very varying reasons and in differing ways - been effectively prevented from impinging on actual practice. Global Poverty, Ethics and Human Rights will be of interest to researchers and advanced students, as well as practitioners and activists, in the fields of international relations, development studies, and international political economy. It will also be of relevance for political philosophy, human rights, development ethics and applied ethics more generally.

Exploring the lived realities of both poverty and prosperity in the UK, this book examines the material and symbolic significance of welfare austerity and its implications for social citizenship and inequality. The book offers a rare and vivid insight into the everyday lives, attitudes and behaviours of the rich as well as the poor, demonstrating how those marginalised and validated by the existing welfare system make sense of the prevailing socio-political settlement and their own position within it. Through the testimonies of both affluent and deprived citizens, the book problematises dominant policy thinking surrounding the functions and limits of welfare, examining the civic attitudes and engagements of the rich and the poor, to demonstrate how welfare austerity and rising structural inequalities secure and maintain institutional legitimacy. The book offers a timely contribution to academic and policy debates pertaining to citizenship, welfare reform and inequality.

African Americans today face a systemic crisis of mass underemployment, mass imprisonment, and mass disfranchisement. This comprehensive reader makes clear to students the mutual constitution of these three crises. NEW SERIES ANNOUNCEMENT Critical Black Studies Series Editor: Manning Marable

The Critical Black Studies Series features readers and anthologies examining challenging topics within the contemporary black experience--in the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, and across the African Diaspora. Under the general editorial supervision of Manning Marable, the readers in the series are designed both for college and university course adoption, as well as for general readers and researchers. The Critical Black Studies Series seeks to provoke intellectual debate and exchange over the most critical issues confronting the political, socioeconomic and cultural reality of black life in the United States and beyond.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. In our society, a wealthy minority flourish, while around one-fifth experience chronic poverty and many people on middle incomes fear for their futures. Social policy has failed to find answers to these problems and there is now a demand for a new narrative to enable us to escape from the crisis in our society. With the aim of ending poverty, this book argues that we need to start with the society we want, rather than framing poverty as a problem to be solved. It calls for a bold forward-looking social policy that addresses continuing austerity, under-resourced organisations and a lack of social solidarity. Based on a research programme carried out by the Webb Memorial Trust involving leading organisations, academics, community activists, children, and surveys of more than 12,000 people living in poverty, a key theme is power which shows that the way forward is to increase people's sense of agency in building the society that they want.

Poverty rates vary dramatically across the UK's ethnic groups - an issue of concern both for poverty-reduction policies and for social justice. This book provides a comprehensive account of these variations and explores the reasons why they occur. Drawing on a wealth of research conducted since 1991, and with a particular focus on the most recent evidence, the report reviews what we know about poverty and ethnicity and provides a detailed and considered insight into the factors contributing to the differing rates of poverty. In addition to outlining the policy implications of existing research, the author also reflects on the limitations to our knowledge and understanding of the issues, which serves as a useful framework for a future research agenda. The book is valuable both as a comprehensive assessment of the topic and as an up-to-date and searchable resource on relevant research writings. It is essential reading for all those wishing to know more about ethnic differences in poverty experience and the contributing factors. It provides a sophisticated reading of the literature for students and researchers and a policy-informed take on the research for policy-makers.

Experts review the leading social policy scholarship from the past year in this comprehensive volume. Published in association with the Social Policy Association, the latest volume in this long-running series addresses current issues and critical debates throughout the international social policy field with a particular focus on employment policy, housing policy and climate justice. Contributors also explore key developments including researching during the COVID-19 pandemic, migrants' access to social benefits in Germany, the right(s) to healthcare in Italy, American and European homelessness policies and much more. This annual review is essential reading for students and academics in social policy, social welfare and related disciplines.

Based on the largest UK study of its kind ever commissioned, this fascinating book provides the most detailed national picture of poverty and social exclusion. Chapters consider a range of dimensions of disadvantage - access to local services or employment, social relations or civic participation, health and well-being. The book also explores relationships between these in the first truly multi-dimensional analysis of exclusion. Written by leading academics, this is an authoritative account of welfare outcomes achieved across the UK.

Under Siege is one of the first books of its kind. It vividly describes the devastating consequences of living in a public housing community damaged by the disappearance of manufacturing jobs, government cutbacks, and other alarming structural transformations that currently plague the United States and Canada. Walter DeKeseredy and his colleagues build on the rich theoretical perspectives developed by feminist scholars-as well as those constructed by Jock Young, Robert Sampson, and William Julius Wilson-as they present both the qualitative and quantitative results of a case study of six public housing estates located in an impoverished urban area. This groundbreaking book provides an in-depth analysis of predatory crime victimization, intimate partner victimization, public racial and sexual harassment, and the relationship of all these harms to the residents' perceptions of their neighborhood social disorganization/collective efficacy. Under Siege is uniquely valuable both for its rich theoretical basis and for its transparent presentation of the authors' research methodology. It is a thought-provoking sociological contribution that offers progressive strategies for ameliorating both poverty and crime in North American public housing complexes.

From 2007 to 2012, almost five percent of American adults-about ten million people-lost their homes because they could not make mortgage payments. The scale of this home mortgage crisis is unprecedented-and it's not over. Foreclosures still displace more American homeowners every year than at any time before the twenty-first century. The dispossession and forced displacement of American families affects their health, educational success, and access to jobs. It continues to block any real recovery in the hardest-hit communities. While we now know a lot about how this crisis affected the global economy, we still know very little about how it affected the people who lost their homes. Foreclosed America offers the first representative portrait of those people-who they are, how and where they live after losing their homes, and what they have to say about their finances, their neighborhoods, and American politics. It is a sobering picture of Americans down on their luck, and of a crisis that is testing American democracy.

The results of this report from a major international research project, funded by UNICEF, on child rights and child poverty in the developing world are shocking. They show that over one billion children - more than half the children in developing countries - suffer from severe deprivation of basic human need and over a third (674 million) suffer from absolute poverty. The study's findings indicate that considerably more emphasis needs to be placed on improving basic infrastructure and social services for families with children, particularly with regards to shelter, sanitation and safe drinking water in rural areas. Anti-poverty strategies need to respond to local conditions, as blanket solutions to eradicating child poverty will be unsuccessful. (REPORT)

Neighbourhoods of Poverty is concerned with the spatial dimension of urban social exclusion and integration. It draws on research from twenty-two neighbourhoods in eleven European cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Antwerp, London, Birmingham, Berlin, Hamburg, Milan, Naples and Paris and addresses two questions: - How do different neighbourhoods have an impact upon the opportunities and perspectives of poor individuals and households? - Are these neighbourhood impacts conditioned by national and welfare state contexts, by the wider metropolitan structures and by specific neighbourhood characteristics? Various aspects of poverty, social exclusion and integration are brought together and provide a new assessment of the place of neighbourhood within these wider debates.

In the 1790s, for the first time, reformers proposed bringing poverty to an end. Inspired by scientific progress, the promise of an international economy, and the revolutions in France and the United States, political thinkers such as Thomas Paine and Antoine-Nicolas Condorcet argued that all citizens could be protected against the hazards of economic insecurity. In "An End to Poverty?" Gareth Stedman Jones revisits this founding moment in the history of social democracy and examines how it was derailed by conservative as well as leftist thinkers. By tracing the historical evolution of debates concerning poverty, Stedman Jones revives an important, but forgotten strain of progressive thought. He also demonstrates that current discussions about economic issues -- downsizing, globalization, and financial regulation -- were shaped by the ideological conflicts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Paine and Condorcet believed that republicanism combined with universal pensions, grants to support education, and other social programs could alleviate poverty. In tracing the inspiration for their beliefs, Stedman Jones locates an unlikely source-Adam Smith. Paine and Condorcet believed that Smith's vision of a dynamic commercial society laid the groundwork for creating economic security and a more equal society.

But these early visions of social democracy were deemed too threatening to a Europe still reeling from the traumatic aftermath of the French Revolution and increasingly anxious about a changing global economy. Paine and Condorcet were demonized by Christian and conservative thinkers such as Burke and Malthus, who used Smith's ideas to support a harsher vision of society based on individualism and laissez-faire economics. Meanwhile, as the nineteenth century wore on, thinkers on the left developed more firmly anticapitalist views and criticized Paine and Condorcet for being too "bourgeois" in their thinking. Stedman Jones however, argues that contemporary social democracy should take up the mantle of these earlier thinkers, and he suggests that the elimination of poverty need not be a utopian dream but may once again be profitably made the subject of practical, political, and social-policy debates.

This book is the most authoritative study of poverty and social exclusion in Britain at the start of the 21st century. It reports on the most comprehensive survey of poverty and social exclusion, ever to be undertaken in Britain: The Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey. This enormously rich data set records levels of poverty not just in terms of income and wealth but by including information about the goods and services which the British public say are necessary to avoid poverty. The relationship between poverty and factors such as age, gender and paid work are explored, as well as other social issues such as crime and neighbourhood disadvantage. Poverty and social exclusion in Britain charts the extent and nature of material and social deprivation and exclusion in Britain at the end of the 20th century; makes the first ever measurement of the extent of social exclusion based on a survey specifically designed for this purpose and provides a clear conceptual understanding of poverty and social exclusion from both an national and international perspective. This important book should be read by officials and policy makers in national and local government, NGOs, charities and voluntary organisations dealing with poverty and social exclusion. It will also be required reading for academics and students of social policy, sociology, public health, economics and politics.

Find out how welfare reform has affected women living at the poverty level Women, Work, and Poverty presents the latest information on women living at or below the poverty level and the changes that need to be made in public policy to allow them to rise above their economic hardships. Using a wide range of research methods, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, small-scale surveys, and analysis of personnel records, the book explores different aspects of women's poverty since the passage of the 1986 welfare reform bill. Anthropologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists, and social workers examine marriage, divorce, children and child care, employment and work schedules, disabilities, mental health, and education, and look at income support programs, such as welfare and unemployment insurance. Women, Work, and Poverty illuminates the changes in the causes of women's poverty following welfare reform in the United States, using up-to-date research that's both qualitative and quantitative. Taking racial and ethnic diversity into account, the book's contributors examine new findings on the feminization of poverty, the role of children and the lack of child care as an obstacle to employment, labor market policies that can reduce poverty and improve gender wage equality, sex and race segregation in the labor market, and the low quality of jobs available to low income women. Women, Work, and Poverty examines: marriage, motherhood, and work pay equity and living wage reforms community resources welfare status and child care acquiring higher education advancing women of color income security repaying debt after divorce gender differences in spendable income women's job loss Women, Work, and Poverty is an invaluable aid for academics working in social work, social policy, women's studies, economics, sociology, and political science, and for policy researchers, anti-poverty activists, and women's leaders.

How do young people get by in hard times and hard places? Have they become a "lost generation" disconnected from society's mainstream? Do popular ideas about social exclusion or a welfare-dependent underclass really connect with the lived experiences of the so-called "disaffected," "disengaged" and "difficult-to-reach"? Based on close-up research with young men and women from localities suffering social exclusion in extreme form," Disconnected Youth? will appeal to all those who are interested in understanding and tackling the problems of growing up in Britain's poor neighborhoods.

As events highlight deep divisions in attitudes between America and Europe, this is a very timely study of different approaches to the problems of domestic inequality and poverty. Based on careful and systematic analysis of national data, the authors describe just how much the two continents differ in their level of State engagement in the redistribution of income. Discussing various possible economic explanations for the difference, they cover different levels of pre-tax income, openness, and social mobility; they survey politico-historical differences such as the varying physical size of nations, their electoral and legal systems, and the character of their political parties, as well as their experiences of war; and they examine sociological explanations, which include different attitudes to the poor and notions of social responsibility. Most importantly, they address attitudes to race, calculating that attitudes to race explain half the observed difference in levels of public redistribution of income. This important and provocative analysis will captivate academic and serious lay readers in economics and welfare systems.

The Sunday Times top ten bestseller.

Winner of the Orwell Prize 2018.

Darren McGarvey has experienced poverty and its devastating effects first-hand. He knows why people from deprived communities all around Britain feel angry and unheard. And he wants to explain . . .

So he invites you to come on a safari of sorts. But not the kind where the wildlife is surveyed from a safe distance. This book takes you inside the experience of poverty to show how the pressures really feel and how hard their legacy is to overcome.

Arguing that both the political left and right misunderstand poverty as it is actually lived, McGarvey sets out what everybody – including himself – could do to change things. Razor-sharp, fearless and brutally honest, Poverty Safari is an unforgettable insight into modern Britain.

There is enormous inequality between the income and wealth of the richest 1 percent and all other Americans. While the top 1 percent own 42 percent of all wealth in America, the lower half on the income ladder has only 2 percent of all of the wealth. This book develops a viewpoint contrary to the prevailing conservative paradigm, setting out both reasons for this inequality and the impact of this. To explain inequality, conservative economists focus on individual characteristics such as intelligence and hard work. This book puts forward new evidence to show that changes in economic inequality are primarily due to characteristics inherent in the standard operation of capitalist institutions. Furthermore, the authors seek to explain the cycle of boom and bust by considering political and social factors often overlooked by conservative economists. This book also explores how wealth influences political policies in a way that increases economic inequality even more than its present level. Through analysis of American political and economic institutions, Inequality, Boom, and Bust presents concrete steps for an activist, progressive policy to greatly reduce inequality through free healthcare, free higher education, and reduced unemployment.

There is enormous inequality between the income and wealth of the richest 1 percent and all other Americans. While the top 1 percent own 42 percent of all wealth in America, the lower half on the income ladder has only 2 percent of all of the wealth. This book develops a viewpoint contrary to the prevailing conservative paradigm, setting out both reasons for this inequality and the impact of this. To explain inequality, conservative economists focus on individual characteristics such as intelligence and hard work. This book puts forward new evidence to show that changes in economic inequality are primarily due to characteristics inherent in the standard operation of capitalist institutions. Furthermore, the authors seek to explain the cycle of boom and bust by considering political and social factors often overlooked by conservative economists. This book also explores how wealth influences political policies in a way that increases economic inequality even more than its present level. Through analysis of American political and economic institutions, Inequality, Boom, and Bust presents concrete steps for an activist, progressive policy to greatly reduce inequality through free healthcare, free higher education, and reduced unemployment.

This is a study of the longer-term transitions of young people living in neighbourhoods beset by the worst problems of social exclusion. Based on a rare example of longitudinal, qualitative research with 'hard-to-reach' young adults, the study throws into question common approaches to understanding and tackling social exclusion. socially disadvantaged 15-25 year olds undertaken in North East England. The findings provide a detailed picture of the processes that shape 'poor transitions'. The authors argue that understanding social exclusion and devising effective policies to reduce it requires immersion in the experiences of the socially excluded. young adults who had grown up in a context of social exclusion, as they reached their mid to late twenties; aids understanding of the key influences on social inclusion and exclusion for this age group; examines the young adults' extended participation in education, training and employment, their experiences of family life, and criminal and drug-using careers; draws out the implications for policy and practice interventions. readers interested in an in-depth account of the biographical experiences of the socially excluded.

The lack of access to transportation among low-income groups is increasingly being recognised as a barrier to employment and social inclusion both in Britain and the United States. However, 'transport poverty', and its links with wider welfare objectives, is poorly understood. This groundbreaking book looks at the delivery of transport from a social policy perspective to assist in a better understanding of this issue. inequalities in the ability of low-income households to access adequate transport has undermined effective delivery of welfare policies in the US and UK; describes the new policies and initiatives being developed to address this oversight; inquiry, identifying key factors; uses case study examples of practical initiatives from both sides of the Atlantic to draw lessons for future policy and practice. with an interest in understanding the social effects of transport policy. The comparison between US and UK policy and practice adds an important new dimension to those familiar with the subject, while its easy-to-read format and well-illustrated case study examples make it an ideal first text for newcomers to the field.

An important new volume showcasing a wide range of faith-based responses to one of today's most pressing social issues, challenging us to expand our ways of understanding. Land of Stark Contrasts brings together the work of social scientists, ethicists, and theologians exploring the profound role of religion in understanding and responding to homelessness and housing insecurity in all corners of the United States-from Seattle, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley to Dallas and San Antonio to Washington, D.C., and Boston. Together, the essays of Land of Stark Contrasts chart intriguing ways forward for future initiatives to address the root causes of homelessness. In this way they are essential reading for practical theologians, congregational leaders, and faith-based nonprofit organizers exploring how to combine spiritual and material care for homeless individuals and other vulnerable populations. Social workers, nonprofit managers, and policy specialists seeking to understand how to partner better with faith-based organizations will also find the chapters in this volume an invaluable resource. Contributors include James V. Spickard, Manuel Mejido Costoya and Margaret Breen, Michael R. Fisher Jr., Laura Stivers, Lauren Valk Lawson, Bruce Granville Miller, Nancy A. Khalil, John A. Coleman, S.J., Jeremy Phillip Brown, Paul Houston Blankenship, Maria Teresa Davila, Roberto Mata, and Sathianathan Clarke. Co-published with Seattle University's Center for Religious Wisdom and World Affairs

Poverty has dire consequences on the ability to fulfil one's aspirations for life. Poverty has strong implications for social cohesion and societies' abilities to function in harmonious ways. This book presents the readers with the core concepts, latest development and knowledge about policies that work to eliminate absolute poverty. This volume shows what the consequences are for the quality of life of those living in poverty. It describes life for people in poverty in general, but also deals more specifically with children, in-work poverty and the elderly, thus providing a life, generational and global perspective on poverty, including the impact on people's happiness levels. The book also discusses policies aimed at poverty reduction, such as changes to the labour market - including the risk of working poor - and shows that there is a variety of possible instruments available to reduce poverty. These range from direct provision of social security to ensuring education and a better functioning labour market. Written in an engaging and accessible style, the book provides a succinct insight into the concept of poverty, how to measure it, the situation of poverty around the globe as well as different types of possible interventions to cope with poverty. Supporting theory with examples and case studies from a variety of contexts, suggestions for further reading, and a detailed glossary, this text is an essential read for anyone approaching the study of poverty for the first time.

In this seminal book, Krumer-Nevo introduces the Poverty-Aware Paradigm: a radical new framework for social workers and professionals working with and for people in poverty. The author defines the core components of the Poverty-Aware Paradigm, explicates its embeddedness in key theories in poverty, critical social work and psychoanalysis, and links it to diverse facets of social work practice. Providing a revolutionary new way to think about how social work can address poverty, she draws on the extensive application of the paradigm by social workers in Israel and across diverse poverty contexts to provide evidence for the practical advantages of integrating the Poverty-Aware Paradigm into social work practices across the globe.