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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Poverty
Since the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, it has become clear that the issues associated with welfare are now inextricably woven into the problems of low-wage work. In this volume leading commentators on the labor scene analyze poverty and welfare reform within a context of low-wage work and the contours of the labor market that welfare recipients are entering. Given the new welfare reform regime of time limits and work requirements, problems of welfare cannot be separated from problems of work, politics, organizing, and other questions of social and economic policy. Although there have been many volumes on welfare reform, the unique contribution of this work is that it brings labor into the discussio and creates a bridge between the domains of labor and welfare.
What must affluent people do to alleviate global poverty? This question has occupied moral and political philosophers for forty years. But the controversy has reached an impasse: approaches like utilitarianism and libertarianism either demand too much of ordinary mortals or else let them off the hook. In Distant Strangers, Judith Lichtenberg shows how a preoccupation with standard moral theories and with the concepts of duty and obligation have led philosophers astray. She argues that there are serious limits to what can be demanded of ordinary human beings, but this does not mean we must abandon the moral imperative to reduce poverty. Drawing on findings from behavioral economics and psychology, she shows how we can motivate better-off people to lessen poverty without demanding unrealistic levels of moral virtue. Lichtenberg argues convincingly that this approach is not only practically, but morally, appropriate.
Since the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, it has become clear that the issues associated with welfare are now inextricably woven into the problems of low-wage work. This volume analyzes poverty and welfare reform within a context of low-wage work and the contours of the labor market that welfare recipients are entering. Given the new welfare regime of time limits and work requirements, problems of welfare cannot be separated from problems of work, politics, organizing, and other questions of social and economic policy. Although there have been many volumes on welfare reform, the unique contribution of this volume is that it brings labor into the discussion and creates a bridge between the domains of labor and welfare.
This timely book introduces a fresh perspective on youth unemployment by analysing it as a global phenomenon. Continuously-escalating rates of youth unemployment have become endemic, normalised features of contemporary society. Ross Fergusson and Nicola Yeates argue that only by incorporating analysis of the dynamics of the global economy and global governance can we make convincing, comprehensive sense of these developments. The authors present new substantial evidence spanning a century pointing to the strong relationships between youth unemployment, globalisation, economic crises and consequent harms to young people's social and economic welfare worldwide. The book notably encompasses data and analysis spanning the Global South as well as the Global North. The authors' innovative exploration is holistic in approach and committed to analyses that span histories, territories, academic disciplines and policy contexts. Providing new statistical examination of the incidence, distribution, impacts and putative causes, this book presents a highly original interpretation of youth unemployment and its global governance. It calls for urgently-needed robust responses on a global scale. Global Youth Unemployment is essential reading for students and academics within the fields of social, labour, public and economic policy as well as policy makers within the youth employment and unemployment sectors.
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."
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.
A senior editor at Mother Jones dives into the lives of the extremely rich, showing the fascinating, otherworldly realm they inhabit-and the insidious ways this realm harms us all. Have you ever fantasized about being ridiculously wealthy? Probably. Striking it rich is among the most resilient of American fantasies, surviving war and peace, expansions and recessions, economic meltdowns and global pandemics. We dream of the jackpot, the big exit, the life-altering payday, in whatever form that takes. (Americans spent $81 billion on lottery tickets in 2019, more than the GDPs of most nations.) We would escape "essential" day jobs and cramped living spaces, bury our debts, buy that sweet spread, and bail out struggling friends and relations. But rarely do we follow the fantasy to its conclusion-to ponder the social, psychological, and societal downsides of great affluence and the fact that so few possess it. What is it actually like to be blessed with riches in an era of plagues, political rancor, and near-Dickensian economic differences? How mind-boggling are the opportunities and access, how problematic the downsides? Does the experience differ depending on whether the money is earned or unearned, where it comes from, and whether you are male or female, white or black? Finally, how does our collective lust for affluence, and our stubborn belief in social mobility, explain how we got to the point where forty percent of Americans have literally no wealth at all? These are all questions that Jackpot sets out to explore. The result of deep reporting and dozens of interviews with fortunate citizens-company founders and executives, superstar coders, investors, inheritors, lottery winners, lobbyists, lawmakers, academics, sports agents, wealth and philanthropy professionals, concierges, luxury realtors, Bentley dealers, and even a woman who trains billionaires' nannies in physical combat, Jackpot is a compassionate, character-rich, perversely humorous, and ultimately troubling journey into the American wealth fantasy and where it has taken us.
The plight of the poorest around the world has been pushed to the forefront of Americas international agenda for the first time in many years by the war on terrorism and the formidable challenges presented by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In March 2002, President Bush announced the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). This bilateral development fund represents an increase of $5 billion per year over current assistance levels and establishes of a new agency to promote growth in reform-oriented developing countries. Amounting to a doubling of U.S. bilateral development aidthe largest increase in decades -- the MCA offers a critical chance to deliberately shape the face that the United States presents to people in poor nations around the world. This book makes concrete recommendations on crafting a new blueprint for distributing and delivering aid to make the MCA an effective tool, not only in its own right, but also in transforming U.S. foreign aid and strengthening international aid cooperation more generally. The book tackles head on the tension between foreign policy and development goals that chronically afflicts U.S. foreign assistance; the danger of being dismissed as one more instance of the United States going it alone instead of buttressing international cooperation; and the risk of exacerbating confusion among the myriad overlapping U.S. policies, agencies, and programs targeted at developing nations, particularly USAID. In doing so, The Other War draws important lessons from new international development initiatives, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, the mixed record of previous U.S. aid efforts, trends in the U.S. budget for foreign assistance, the agencies currently involved in administering U.S. development policy, and the importance of the relationship between Congress and the executive branch in determining aid outcomes. The MCA holds the promise of substantially increasing U.S. development assistance and pioneering a new era in aid, but the authors caution against creating yet another example of wasted aid that could undermine political support for foreign assistance for decades to come. �back flap� About the Authors Lael Brainard is director of the Brookings/CGD Project on the Millennium Challenge Account and holds the New Century Chair in Economic Studies and Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. Carol Graham is Vice President and Director of the Governance Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, where she also directs the Global Poverty Reduction Initiative. Steven Radelet is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. Nigel Purvis is a senior scholar in Foreign Policy, Economic, and Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. Gayle E. Smith is a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and formerly was senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council.
IMAGES (II) - Images of the Poor offers readers a cross-section of current research on the perception of poverty and on contemporary and historical representations of poverty coming from a variety of fields in people's daily lives. The fact that the international group of contributors to this book come from very different cultural, ideological, scientific/academic perspectives, and backgrounds is adding even more to the diversity of thought and ideas documented. The arguments presented help to raise the social awareness needed to break the vicious circle of poverty. (Series: Anthropology / Ethnologie - Vol. 52)
Are poverty, misery, famine, disease and war inevitably part of the human condition? Will the creations of science become uncontrollable and socially dangerous, like Frankenstein's monster? Or can science and education create a world of material plenty - a war-free world, where the benevolent, creative and intellectual sides of human nature will have a chance to flourish?
First published in 1997, this volume looks at the rationale for, the implementation of, and the economic and social effect of the World Bank Structural Adjustment Policy (SAP) in Ghana from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. It shifts the focus from a primarily economic evaluation of these programmes and includes issues such as their impact on vulnerable groups within the Ghanaian society and on poverty in general. Therefore, it must be asked whether the 'ordinary Ghanaian' has gained anything from any wealth creation in Ghana. The book will be useful for both academic and policy purposes.
First published in 1999, this much-needed volume powerfully re-evaluates attitudes to the 'deserving and 'undeserving' poor and aims to investigate social workers' attitudes and actions towards poverty issues, social service users who have needed financial help and to question whether learning about poverty is an integrated part of social work students' training and social workers' in-service training. Monica Dowling has experience of being a social work student and social worker, as well as a social work teacher and researcher. In an age when increasing numbers of undergraduate and postgraduate students are unemployed and living on benefits, Dowling reveals the true picture of the people who end up on the poverty line, reconnecting social work theory and practice.
The studies collected here centre on the social and economic life of medieval Germany, within a broader European context. The first three articles engage the day-to-day workings of rural society: literature, verbal attack and the language of mediated settlement of conflicts lead to a nuanced view of social hierarchy, in which the meek too have a say. The next group examines some major elements of rural life, dealing with technology, resources, ecology, transport, communication and credit. In the second part, the author focuses on the life of the Jews in Germany, first charting the process of settlement of Jews in Germany, the dynamics of social stratification and household composition, and the impact of economics and persecution on settlement patterns. A case study uncovers the motives and steps that led up to the expulsion of the Jews of Nuremberg in 1498. These themes are followed up into the early modern period, when German Jewry mostly came to live a village life. The last studies deal with the economic history of medieval European Jews, including professions other than moneylending, and with the function of women in economic life.
First published in 1910, this volume is a dispassionate analysis of the changes in and the various aspects of official policy towards pauperism from the 'Revolution of 1834' to the Majority and Minority Reports of 1909. In their preface to this volume the Webbs wrote: "What obscured the history was the manner in which masses of heterogeneous facts were heaped together. To read, one after another, these complicated Orders and lengthy Reports, each dealing with all kinds of paupers and various methods of relief, was but to accumulate confusion. They resembled a heap of geological conglomerates which could not be assayed until they had been broken up in such a way as to sort the different materials into separate homogeneous parcels". This book succeeds in presenting a masterly survey of this sector of the British social services on the eve of the foundation of the Welfare State, and completes the corpus of the Webbs on the Poor Law.
Despite the recent success of welfare reform in moving people off public assistance and into jobs, most of America's working poor are still unable to accumulate even the most minimal of assets. Even when they are getting by, they lack many of the resources --tangible and intangible --that provide middle-class Americans with a sense of security, stability, and a stake in the future. In "Owning Up," Michelle Miller-Adams demonstrates how asset-building programs, used in combination with traditional income-based support, can be an effective means for helping millions of American out of poverty. Miller-Adams expands the traditional concept of assets to encompass a range of tools, experiences, resources, and support systems that are necessary if asset building is to serve as an effective anti-poverty strategy. She identifies four types of assets that can represent sources of wealth for low-income individuals and communities: economic human social, and natural assets. Economic assets include equity, retirement savings, and other financial holdings. Human assets include education, knowledge, skills, and talents. Included among social assets are the networks of trust and reciprocity that bind communities together. Natural assets include the land, water, air and other natural resources we depend on for survival. Owning Up also examines five organizations at the forefront of building assets for the poor. Their stories are told through the eyes of individuals whose lives they have helped transform. These organizations have all developed effective strategies for building assets, and Miller-Adams identifies them as models to be emulated elsewhere. The profiled organizations include: Neighborhoods Incorporated of Battle Creek, Michigan. Its innovative strategies seek to increase home ownership and promote neighborhood revitalization in poor communities. The Watershed Research and Training Center. This local organization strengthens the natural resource-based economy by retraining workers and strengthening social ties. The Private Industry Partnership of Wildcat Service Corporation. Based in New York City, PIP trains former welfare recipients in New York City for entry-level white collar jobs. Iowa's Institute for Social and Economic Development. This microenterprise development organization is one of the largest U.S. based organizations training low-income entrepreneurs. The Corporation for Enterprise Development. CFED, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that has been instrumental in showing that poor people can and will save if given the opportunities and incentives for doing so. They have helped put Individual Development Accounts on the national agenda.
WINNER OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY PETER TOWNSEND PRIZE 2017 Welcome to Foodbank Britain, where emergency food provision is an increasingly visible and controversial feature of ongoing austerity. We know the statistics, but what does it feel like to be forced to turn to foodbanks for help? What does it take to get emergency food, and what's in the food parcel? Kayleigh Garthwaite conducted hundreds of hours of interviews while working in a Trussell Trust foodbank. She spoke to people like Anna and her 11 year old daughter Daisy who were eating out of date food since Anna left her job due to mental health problems. Glen explained the shame he felt using the foodbank having taken on a zero hours contract. Pregnant Jessica walked two miles to the foodbank because she couldn't afford public transport. This provocative book provides a much needed voice for foodbank users and volunteers in the UK, and a powerful insight into the realities of foodbank use from the inside.
As urban populatiCC'lS in developing countries oootinue to grow rapidly, cne of the nest critical issues in the Third W:lrld has beoane p:rovidirYJ shelter and other basic services such as clean water, heal th clinics, and sewage disposal to the urban poor. This book of nine case studies of urban programs and projects in Ind:oesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Korea, India, and Sri Lanka focuses en impediments to slum upgrading. The authour discuss each project's evoluticn, the capabilities and resources of inplenenting agencies, the problems of interagency relaticoships and coordinaticn, costs and funding, the difficulties of developing effective linkages with poor cx:mnunities, and the accessibility of the new services to the urban poor.
In the years 1849 and 1850, Henry Mayhew was the metropolitan correspondent of the Morning Chronicle in its national survey of labour and the poor. Only about a third of his Morning Chronicle material was included in his later and better known, publication, London Labour and the London Poor. First published in 1981, this series of six volumes constitutes Henry Mayhew's complete Morning Chronicle survey, in the sequence in which it was originally written in 1849 and 1850. It addresses a wealth of topics from cholera in the Jacob's Island area to the food markets of London. The publication of this complete survey represented the first time in which the whole of Mayhew's pioneering work was available in one place. The set is introduced by Dr Peter Razzell, who was co-editor of the national Morning Chronicle survey. This sixth volume contains letters from September to December 1850. This series will be of interest to those studying the history of social welfare, poverty and urbanisation.
This special issue of Educational Studies explores poverty and schooling. Divided into two sections of articles and book reviews, the papers address topics such as: the creation of an urban normal school - what constitutes quality in alternative certification?; children with disabilities; educating students about poverty and health needs; and more. The contributors include K. Burch, N.K. Mutua, L.R. Bloom, J.H. Romeo and M. Haberman.
'The alleviation of poverty and the protection of the environment are both critical challenges for the vindication of basic human rights for all of humankind. This relationship is however not necessarily an easy one. While there is an inextricable link between poverty and the degradation of the environment, a sophisticated analysis of a problem needs to deal with those cases where the need to increase economic opportunity for poor communities may appear to conflict with fragile ecosystems or the preservation of traditional practices. This collection provides the most sustained engagement with these problems. Drawing on the expertise of a range of distinguished authors, this book presents the reader with an integrated global engagement with these problems. In doing so, it represents a landmark effort towards the creation of a coherent literature to deal with one of humankind's most pressing challenges.' - Dennis Davis, Judge of the High Court, South Africa This timely book explores the complex relationship between the alleviation of poverty and the protection of the environment. There is every reason to believe that these issues are in many ways interdependent. However this book demonstrates that there are situations where alleviation of poverty and the protection of the environment appear to be in a fraught relationship. The contributing authors illustrate that the role played by law in this relationship, whether at the international or national level, will vary depending on the situation and will be more successful at pursuing environmental justice in some cases than in others. This interdisciplinary study will appeal to academics and students in environmental law and other environmental disciplines, environmental policy makers and NGOs interested in issues of poverty, environment and indigenous peoples. Contributors: C.D. Aceves-Avila, D. Behn, K. Bubna-Litic, M.A. Cohen, E. Couzens, J.J. Gonzalez Marquez, S. Gruber, O.F. Jauregui, M. Kidd, Y. Le Bouthillier, P. Martin, A. Mumma, L.C. Paddock, C.G. Pring, G.W. Pring, S. Sabzwari, D.N. Scott, D. Shelton, S.L. Smith
The last decade has witnessed a conspicuous alteration in policies protecting unemployed people in modern welfare states. Social policies are increasingly designed to encourage economic independence. Policy makers have introduced a wide range of reforms linking disability, unemployment, and welfare programs cash benefits to work-oriented measures. Welfare policies are being framed by a new emphasis on recipients' obligations, emphasizing that the receipt of benefits creates a responsibility to take action towards becoming self-reliant. The objective is to minimize the duration of dependence or improve the well-being of family or community. Activating the Unemployed addresses this growing interest in work-oriented measures. This represents a shift in the dominant discourse on social welfare from focus on the citizen's rights to social benefits to emphasis on their responsibilities to work and lead an active life. In this volume, a distinguished array of international contributors provide cross-cultural perspectives to analyze recent diverse policy initiatives to activate the unemployed in nine countries-Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Each provides a systematic account of the background, design, implementation, and results of employment-oriented measures. Collectively they permit comparison of organized responses to common problems in the areas of public assistance (welfare), unemployment, and disability, among others. Further chapters seek to broaden perspectives on policy options, the issues raised, and lessons learned in the course of activating the unemployed. This thorough and insightful account addresses significant contemporary issues and concerns about welfare, social security, and unemployment. It will aid policy makers, professionals, and scholars in assessing current trends in welfare in various countries throughout the world. Neil Gilbert is Chernin Professor of Social Services and Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, and Director of the Center for Comparative Study of Family Welfare and Poverty Research. Dr. Gilbert served as a Senior Research Fellow for the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development in Geneva and was twice awarded Fulbright Fellowships to study European social policy. His numerous publications include 22 books and 100 articles that have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The Public Interest, Society, Commentary, and other leading academic journals. Rebecca Van Voorhis is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at the State University of California, Hayward.
In his foreword, the president of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, states plainly and precisely the rationale for this volume. "Evaluation is a central aspect of any poverty reduction endeavor. Evaluation implies that we have adopted a methodology that allows us to look in an effective way at the results of what we are doing so that we can, in turn, adapt our future actions toward the effective achievement of our goals. Evaluation adds value if we can learn something useful from it. It is not just a scorecard. It is something that helps us change our behavior or influence the behavior of others." This high powered collection of papers illustrates this statement. The network of world class scholars and development practitioners covers the gamut from methodological issues to policy concerns with respect to participatory evaluation, poverty reducing growth, macro and micro levels of intervention, health, nutrition and population programs, social inclusion and the changing role of the civil society. The participants include major figures, including a Nobel Laureate as well as cutting edge policy makers. Poverty reduction is examined in innovative ways-utilizing state of the art techniques of the social and economic sciences. The editors and contributors emphasize "what works" in poverty reduction programs. They point to making interventions context specific with a holistic vision of the problem. Contributors emphasize social funds and safety nets, social services, crisis prevention, informal social security and insurance systems, anti-corruption programs, mobilization of the poor, and ultimately, the creation, where none existed in the past, of a workable civil society. In short, this volume lies at the intersection of development economics and political economy. It seeks to promote development effectiveness through social learning and problem solving. The volume is unabashedly focussed on pro-poor growth. It has its roots in a conference sponsored by the Operations Evaluation Department, an independent unit within the World Bank. The goals of evaluation are to learn from experience, to provide an objective basis for assessing the results of the Bank's work, and to provide accountability in the achievement of its objectives. Osvaldo N. Feinstein is a manager, and Robert Picciotto, director general of the Operations Evaluation Department. The World Bank is located in Washington, D.C. with offices throughout the developing world. |
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