Childhood poverty has moved from the periphery to the centre of the policy agenda following New Labour's pledge to end it within twenty years. However, whether the needs and concerns of poor children themselves are being addressed is open to question. The findings raise critical issues for both policy and practice - in particular the finding that children are at great risk of experiencing exclusion within school. School has been a major target in the drive towards reducing child poverty. However, the policy focus has been mainly about literacy standards and exclusion from school. This book shows that poor children are suffering from insufficient access to the economic and material resources necessary for adequate social participation and academic parity. Childhood poverty and social exclusion will be an invaluable teaching aid across a range of academic courses, including social policy, sociology, social work and childhood studies. All those who are interested in developing a more inclusive social and policy framework for understanding childhood issues from a child-centred perspective, including child welfare practitioners and policy makers, will want to read this book. Studies in poverty, inequality and social exclusion series Series Editor: David Gordon, Director, Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research. Poverty, inequality and social exclusion remain the most fundamental problems that humanity faces in the 21st century. This exciting series, published in association with the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol, aims to make cutting-edge poverty related research more widely available. For other titles in this series, please follow the series link from the main catalogue page.

World poverty is an important book offering fresh insights into how to tackle poverty worldwide. With contributions from leading scholars in the field both internationally and in the UK, the book asks whether existing international and national policies are likely to succeed in reducing poverty across the world. It concludes that they are not and that a radically different international strategy is needed. This book is a companion volume to Breadline Europe: The measurement of poverty (The Policy Press, 2001). The focus of World poverty is on anti-poverty policies rather than the scale, causes and measurement of poverty. A wide range of countries is discussed including countries such as China and India, which have rarely been covered elsewhere. The interests of the industrialised and developing world are given equal attention and are analysed together. Policies intended to operate at different levels - international, regional, national and sub-national - ranging from the policies of international agencies like the UN and the World Bank through to national governments, groups of governments and local and city authorities - are examined. Key aspects of social policy, like 'targeting' and means-testing, de-regulation and privatisation, are considered in detail. World poverty will become a definitive point of reference for anyone working, studying or researching in the poverty field. Studies in poverty, inequality and social exclusion series Series Editor: David Gordon, Director, Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research. Poverty, inequality and social exclusion remain the most fundamental problems that humanity faces in the 21st century. This exciting series, published in association with the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol, aims to make cutting-edge poverty related research more widely available. For other titles in this series, please follow the series link from the main catalogue page.

This book provides selections from the seminal works of Karl Marx, Max Weber, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman that reveal some of the reasons why class, race, and gender inequalities have proven very adaptive and can flourish even today in the 21st century.

Stock market euphoria and blind faith in the post cold war economy have driven the topic of poverty from popular and scholarly discussion in the United States. At the same time the gap between the rich and poor has never been wider. The New Poverty Studies critically examines the new war against the poor that has accompanied the rise of the New Economy in the past two decades, and details the myriad ways poor people have struggled against it.

The essays collected here explore how global, national, and local structures of power produce poverty and affect the material well-being, social relations and politicization of the poor. In updating the 1960s encounter between ethnography and U.S. poverty, The New Poverty Studies highlights the ways poverty is constructed across multiple scales and multiple axes of difference.

Questioning the common wisdom that poverty persists because of the pathology, social isolation and welfare state "dependency" of the poor, the contributors to The New Poverty Studies point instead to economic restructuring and neoliberal policy "reforms" which have caused increased social inequality and economic polarization in the U.S.

Contributors include: Georges Fouron, Donna Goldstein, Judith Goode, Susan B. Hyatt, Catherine Kingfisher, Peter Kwong, Vin Lyon-Callo, Jeff Maskovsky, Sandi Morgen, Leith Mullings, Frances Fox Piven, Matthew Rubin, Nina Glick Schiller, Carol Stack, Jill Weigt, Eve Weinbaum, Brett Williams, and Patricia Zavella.

"These contributions provide a dynamic understanding of poverty and immiseration"
"--North American Dialogue, Vol. 4, No. 1, Nov. 2001"

The shocking truth about how state governments and their private industry partners are profiting from the social programs meant to support disadvantaged Americans Government aid doesn't always go where it's supposed to. Foster care agencies team up with companies to take disability and survivor benefits from abused and neglected children. States and their revenue consultants use illusory schemes to siphon Medicaid funds intended for children and the poor into general state coffers. Child support payments for foster children and families on public assistance are converted into government revenue. And the poverty industry keeps expanding, leaving us with nursing homes and juvenile detention centers that sedate residents to reduce costs and maximize profit, local governments buying nursing homes to take the facilities' federal aid while the elderly languish with poor care, and counties hiring companies to mine the poor for additional funds in modern day debtor's prisons. In The Poverty Industry, Daniel L. Hatcher shows us how state governments and their private industry partners are profiting from the social safety net, turning America's most vulnerable populations into sources of revenue. The poverty industry is stealing billions in federal aid and other funds from impoverished families, abused and neglected children, and the disabled and elderly poor. As policy experts across the political spectrum debate how to best structure government assistance programs, a massive siphoning of the safety net is occurring behind the scenes. In the face of these abuses of power, Hatcher offers a road map for reforms to realign the practices of human service agencies with their intended purpose and to prevent the misuse of public taxpayer dollars. With more Americans than ever before seeking unemployment benefits, it is essential to remedy the nefarious practices that will impede them from receiving the full government support they are due. The Poverty Industry shows us the path to rectify this systemic inequality to ensure that government aid truly gets to those in need.

Child poverty and the well-being of children is an important policy issue throughout the industrialised world. Some 47 million children in 'rich' countries live in families so poor that their health and well-being are at risk. The main themes addressed are: * the extent and trend of child poverty in industrialised nations; * outcomes for children - for example, the relationship between childhood experiences and children's health; * country studies and emerging issues; * child and family policies. All the contributions underline the urgent need for a comprehensive policy to reduce child poverty rates and to improve the well-being of children. Findings are clearly presented and key focus points identified for policy makers to consider.

Since 1990, the World Bank, most of the other international agencies and an increasing number of governments have committed themselves to the eradication of poverty. But the basis of their work badly needs overhaul and concerted verification. Breadline Europe provides a scientific and international basis for the analysis and reduction of poverty. It demonstrates that there is far more important research into the problem of poverty going on in many countries of Europe than the international agencies and national governments admit or even realise. Knowledge of the major scientific advances in research needs to be spread among other countries within as well as outside Europe. Breadline Europe has been written by a number of leading European poverty researchers and has three main themes: the need for a scientific poverty line: for better definition and measurement of what is the biggest and rapidly growing international social problem; the need for better theories distinguishing between poverty and social exclusion, with the corresponding policies calculated to diminish these problems;the need for better international social policy and for better policy-related analyses of poverty: for more exact analysis of the year-by-year contribution of specific policies to poverty. This is the first book to examine poverty in Europe within the international framework agreed at the 1995 World Summit on Social Development. Breadline Europe provides up-to-date, essential reading for social science undergraduates and postgraduate students. It will also be of considerable interest to policy makers and NGOs with a concern for poverty reduction.

The largest UK research study on poverty and social exclusion ever conducted reveals startling levels of deprivation. 18m people are unable to afford adequate housing; 14m can't afford essential household goods; and nearly half the population have some form of financial insecurity. Defining poverty as those whose lack of resources forces them to live below a publicly agreed minimum standard, this text provides unique and detailed insights into the nature and extent of poverty and social exclusion in the UK today. Written by a team of leading academics, the book reports on the extent and nature of poverty for different social groups: older and younger people; parents and children; ethnic groups; men and women; disabled people; and across regions through the recent period of austerity. It reflects on where government policies have made an impact and considers potential future developments. A companion volume Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK Volume 2 focuses on different aspects of poverty and social exclusion identified in the study.

What are the poverty reduction goals of the European development co-operation agencies? This work examines the credibility of their actual record in terms of their commitment and approaches to poverty reduction. The poverty impact of their aid programmes and their good and bad practices are assessed based on field studies in seven poor countries. Ways of maximizing benefits to poor people are explored and changes in agency management systems and dialogue are recommended.

Poverty is perceived as an urban problem, yet many in rural Britain also experience hardship. This book explores how and why people in rural areas experience and negotiate poverty and social exclusion. It examines the role of societal processes, individual circumstances, sources of support (markets; state; voluntary organisations; family and friends) and the role of place. It concludes that the UK's welfare system is poorly adapted to rural areas, with the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and cutbacks exacerbating pressures. Voluntary organisations increasingly fill gaps in support left by the state. Invaluable to those in policy and practice, the book recommends a combination of person-based and place-based approaches to tackle rural poverty.

Can the problem of poverty simply be confined to a lack of adequate money income? Does the degree of social deprivation correlate with individual poverty? In 1966, a social survey was conducted into the living, social and working conditions of the residents of the St Ann's area of Nottingham. It asked: are such areas more delinquent than others? How far did the existence of areas of poverty correlate with political and social apathy? And above all what were the attitudes of people who lived in such conditions: were they aware of their position as being in any sense deprived or underprivileged and did they accept their status or challenge it? The survey was conducted under the auspices of the Adult Education Department of the University of Nottingham and it gave rise to a film directed by Stephen Frears.

The growing divide between the poor and the rich is the most significant social change to have occurred during the last few decades. The new Labour government inherited a country more unequal than at any other time since the Second World War. This book brings together a collection of contributions on inequalities in the main areas of British life: income, wealth, standard of living, employment, education, housing, crime and health. It charts the extent of the growth in inequalities and offers a coherent critique of the new Labour government's policies aimed at those tackling this crisis. In particular, the numerous area-based anti-poverty policies currently being pursued are unlikely to have a significant and long-lasting effect, since many lessons from the past have been ignored. The contributors use and interpret official data to show how statistics are often misused to obscure or distort the reality of inequality. A range of alternative policies for reducing inequalities in Britain are discussed and set within the global context of the need for international action. Tackling inequalities is a valuable contribution to the emerging policy debate written by the leading researchers in the field. It is essential reading for academics, policy makers, and students with an interest in inequalities, poverty and social exclusion. Studies in poverty, inequality and social exclusion series Series Editor: David Gordon, Director, Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research. Poverty, inequality and social exclusion remain the most fundamental problems that humanity faces in the 21st century. This exciting series, published in association with the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol, aims to make cutting-edge poverty related research more widely available. For other titles in this series, please follow the series link from the main catalogue page.

Relentlessly, the wide health gap between different groups of people living in Britain continues to get even wider. This book presents new evidence (which was not available to the government's Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health) on the size of the gap, and the extent to which the gap is widening. In particular, new geographical data are presented and displayed in striking graphical form. It challenges whether the government is concerned enough about reducing inequalities and highlights the living conditions of the million people living in the least healthy areas in Britain. It presents explanations for the widening health gap, and addresses the implications of this major social problem. In the light of this evidence the authors put forward social policies which will reduce the health gap in the future. The widening gap synthesises all the information available to date and should be read alongside the report of the evidence presented to the Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health (Inequalities in health, The Policy Press, 1999) and by all those concerned with reducing health inequalities. Studies in poverty, inequality and social exclusion series Series Editor: David Gordon, Director, Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research. Poverty, inequality and social exclusion remain the most fundamental problems that humanity faces in the 21st century. This exciting series, published in association with the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol, aims to make cutting-edge poverty related research more widely available. For other titles in this series, please follow the series link from the main catalogue page.

In the Beveridge Lecture, delivered on 18 March 1999, Prime Minister Tony Blair committed his government to abolishing child poverty within 20 years. He concluded that the present-day welfare state is not fitted to the modern world, and laid out his vision for a welfare state for the 21st century. Blair's vision, grounded in a particular conception of social justice, is perhaps as challenging as the blueprint laid down by Beveridge. Ending child poverty presents Blair's Beveridge Lecture alongside the views of some of Britain's foremost policy analysts and commentators. This unique collection makes it possible to not only read the ideas of leading current thinkers in this critical area of policy, but also to compare them with the Prime Minister's lecture, and to see which ideas he himself took up and in what form. Ending child poverty is a record of not only the Lecture itself, but also of the ideas available to government and their influence on its leader at an important moment in the formation of policy. It provides a rich tapestry on analysis, insight and reflection that will, it is to be hoped, stimulate critical debate about the future shape of British welfare. This collection is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of modern society and politics and provides an accessible handbook for undergraduate students of politics, social policy and sociology.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Solow directs his attention here to one of today's most controversial social issues: how to get people off welfare and into jobs. With characteristic eloquence, wit, and rigor, Solow condemns the welfare reforms recently passed by Congress and President Clinton for confronting welfare recipients with an unworkable choice--finding work in the current labor market or losing benefits. He argues that the only practical and fair way to move recipients to work is, in contrast, through an ambitious plan to guarantee that every able-bodied citizen has access to a job.

Solow contends that the demand implicit in the 1996 Welfare Reform Act for welfare recipients to find work in the existing labor market has two crucial flaws. First, the labor market would not easily make room for a huge influx of unskilled, inexperienced workers. Second, the normal market adjustment to that influx would drive down earnings for those already in low-wage jobs. Solow concludes that it is legitimate to want welfare recipients to work, but not to want them to live at a miserable standard or to benefit at the expense of the working poor, especially since children are often the first to suffer. Instead, he writes, we should create new demand for unskilled labor through public-service employment and incentives to the private sector--in effect, fair "workfare." Solow presents widely ignored evidence that recipients themselves would welcome the chance to work. But he also points out that practical, morally defensible workfare would be extremely expensive--a problem that politicians who support the idea blithely fail to admit. Throughout, Solow places debate over welfare reform in the context of a struggle to balance competing social values, in particular self-reliance and altruism.

The book originated in Solow's 1997 Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Princeton University. It includes reactions from the distinguished scholars Gertrude Himmelfarb, Anthony Lewis, Glenn Loury, and John Roemer, who expand on and take issue with Solow's arguments. "Work and Welfare" is a powerful contribution to debate about welfare reform and a penetrating look at the values that shape its course.

How are poverty and social inequality entrenched through a failing justice system? In this important book, Jon Robins and Daniel Newman examine how the lives of people already struggling with problems with their welfare benefits, jobs, housing and immigration are made much harder by cuts to legal aid and the failings of our creaking justice system. Over the course of 12 months, interviews were carried out on the ground in a range of settings with people as they were caught up in the justice system, in a range of settings such as foodbanks in a church hall in a wealthy part of London; a community centre in a former mining town; a homeless shelter for rough sleepers in Birmingham; and a destitution service for asylum seekers in a city on the South coast, as well as in courts and advice agencies up and down the country. The authors argue that a failure to access justice all too often represents a catastrophic step in the life of the person concerned and their family. This powerful, yet moving, account humanises the hostile political debates that surround legal aid and reveals what access to justice really means in Austerity Britain.

"This collection of 17 essays examines poverty and its causes from a variety of angles. The common thread is a concern for the structural causes of poverty; the book therefore offers a welcome alternative to the dominant ideological views that portray poverty as a result of individuals' decisions, attributes and/or moral failings...The authors show the connections between capitalism, slavery and the development of state policies and ideologies that maintained the oppressed and exploited status of African Americans after the Civil War and constituted the basis for the emergence of white identity and privilege to the detriment of working class identities based on a recognition of the common plight of workers, regardless of skin color...this is an outstanding collection, useful for courses in social stratification, the sociology of work, and race and ethnic relations."
"--Science and Society"

Since the end of the Second World War, poverty in the United States has been a persistent focus of social anxiety, public debate, and federal policy. This volume argues convincingly that we will not be able to reduce or eliminate poverty until we take the political factors that contribute to its continuation into account.

Ideal for course use, A New Introduction to Poverty opens with a historical overview of the major intellectual and political debates surrounding poverty in the United States. Several factors have received inadequate attention: the impact of poverty on women; the synergy of racism and poverty; race and gender stratification of the workplace; and, crucially, the ways in which the powerful use their resources to maintain the economic status quo.

Contributors include MimiAbramovitz, Peter Alcock, Bonnie Thornton Dill, Raymond Franklin, Herman George Jr., Michael B. Katz, Marlene Kim, Rebecca Morales, Sandra Patton, Valerie Polakow, Jackie Pope, Jill Quadagno, David C. Ranney, Barbara Ransby, Bette Woody, and Maxine Baca Zinn.

At a time when the gap between rich and poor has been increasing, Poverty, Riches and Social Citizenship provides an accessible introduction to current debates about inequality, exclusion and the nature of citizenship, while also presenting an innovative exploration of popular beliefs and values in Britain. The authors develop a series of conceptual models by which to understand the competing traditions which have informed ideas about citizenship, and the contradictory moral notions that currently inform popular expectations of the welfare state.

According to Ivar Berg's performance criteria, over half of the U.S. workforce is now underemployed. Using analysis based on U.S. and Canadian surveys of work and learning experiences and other documental data, author David Livingstone exposes the myth of the "learning enterprise" and argues that the major problem in education-work relations is not education but the mismatch between work and worker.

Over the last twenty years more and more historians of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have turned their eyes away from the records of central administration, towards local archives, and the lives of the poor. What they have found is a wealth of sources some of which chronicle the lives, and many of which record the words, of working people. This book will bring together some of the best work based on these sources.

The contributions of this collected volume are the result of a call for papers. The authors met and discussed their drafts at the workshop "Inequality in Europe," organized by the editors. The workshop was sponsored by the "Population Economics" section of the German Association for Demography ("Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Bevoelkerungs wissenschafl" - DGBw) and by the "Josef-Popper-Naehrpflicht" Foundation. The aim of this foundation, located at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University of Frankfurt am Main, is to support research dealing with problems of achieving a "reasonable" standard of living. Originally the aim of the foundation was to further the notion of a guaranteed minimum income ("allgemeine Naehrpjlicht"). The publication of this book is also sponsored by this foundation. The workshop was held at the "Evangelische Akademie Arnoldshain," near Frankfurt am Main. The helpful discussions during the workshop benefitted greatly from the friendly atmosphere of the academy. Some of the articles were financially supported by the "Panel Comparability" Project (PACO), located at CEPS (Centre d'Etudes de Populations, de Pauvrete et de Politiques Socio-Economiques) in Luxembourg. PACO is a joint activity of the German Institute for Economic Research (DrW) in Berlin, CEPS and some other institutions in European countries. It is sponsored by grant No. ERBCHRX-CT92- 0037 ("European Network on Longitudinal Household Panel Studies Meeting Technology Requirement for Comparative Research") of the "Human Capital and Mobility" program of the Commission of the European Community."

In the revised and updated second edition of this comprehensive book, the first anthology to integrate social-psychological literature on prejudice with sociological and historical investigations, contributors introduce readers to the key debates and principal writings on racial and ethnic conflict, representing conservative, liberal, and radical positions. Presented in debate format, each section offers a provocative discussion of contemporary problems and issues, allowing students to take part in the controversies from an informed perspective. The editors' introductions provide current data and describe cutting-edge arguments that are reshaping the study of race and ethnicity today. The second edition boasts new readings which serve to further enhance the dialogue on America's continuing struggle with racial issues. Contributors tackle a wide array of issues which plague the country today--from discrimination and immigration to education and politics--and ask how we can affect change as we move into the twenty-first century.

Poverty, inequality and social welfare are defined in this book. Previous poverty studies are surveyed and a new index of poverty is developed based on everyday meanings, and stressing the individual and relative nature of poverty. Previous definitions of inequality and welfare are described and the relations between them and poverty are explored. New estimates of poverty are made for Australia. Conclusions are derived from comparisons between measured levels of poverty over time and across family types. Previous Australian studies of inequality and welfare are surveyed and new estimates are made for Australia for recent years.

The economies of Latin America have undergone a deep process of change in the last decade as a result of the application of major reforms. The outcome can be fairly described as a New Economic Model. This New Economic Model is distinguished from its predecessor, in force before the 1980s debt crisis, by an emphasis on market forces and export-led growth. This book explores the main features of the New Economic Model in Latin America and, through analysis of the reform process and case studies, examines its impact on income distribution and poverty.

Amidst the current debates on the future of welfare, one voice has been conspicuously absent: that of the unemployed and underprivileged. The result of almost a half-century of research, "America Before Welfare" traces the leadership and activities of the unemployed from industrialization to the outbreak of World War II. It is at once a profound work of history and an anecdotal window onto America's past, in the days before FDR's New Deal.