Tackling one of the most volatile issues in contemporary politics, Martin Gilens's work punctures myths and misconceptions about welfare policy, public opinion, and the role of the media in both. "Why Americans Hate Welfare" shows that the public's views on welfare are a complex mixture of cynicism and compassion; misinformed and racially charged, they nevertheless reflect both a distrust of welfare recipients and a desire to do more to help the "deserving" poor.
"With one out of five children currently living in poverty and more than 100,000 families with children now homeless, Gilens's book is must reading if you want to understand how the mainstream media have helped justify, and even produce, this state of affairs." --Susan Douglas, "The Progressive"
"Gilens's well-written and logically developed argument deserves to be taken seriously." --"Choice"
"A provocative analysis of American attitudes towards 'welfare.'. . . Gilens] shows how racial stereotypes, not white self-interest or anti-statism, lie at the root of opposition to welfare programs." -"Library Journal"

International migration is a life-changing process, but do the migrants and their families fare economically better than those who stayed behind? Drawing on the largest database available on labour migration to Europe, this book seeks to shed light upon this question through an exploration of poverty outcomes for three generations of settler migrants spanning multiple European destinations, as compared with their returnee and stayer counterparts living in Turkey. As well as documenting generational trends, it investigates the transmission of poverty onto the younger generations. With its unique multi-site and intergenerational perspective, the book provides a rare insight into the economic consequences of international migration for migrants and their descendants.

For too long a conventional wisdom has held sway, suggesting that poor people in poor countries are not supportive of democracy and that democracies will be sustained only after a certain average level of wealth has been achieved. Evidence from 24 diverse countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America examined in this volume shows how poor people do not value democracy any less than their richer counterparts. Their faith in democracy is as high as that of other citizens, and they participate in democratic activities as much as their richer counterparts. Democracy is not likely to be unstable or unwelcome simply because poverty is widespread. Political attitudes and participation levels are unaffected by relative wealth. Education, rather than income or wealth, makes for more committed and engaged democratic citizens. Investments in education will make a critical difference for stabilizing and strengthening democracy.

Transnational corporations are one of the most important actors in the global economy, occupying a more powerful position than ever before. In their persistent battle to increase profits, they have increasingly turned to the developing world, a world that holds many attractions for them. But what is their impact on the poor? Now in its second edition, Big Business, Poor Peoples finds that these corporations are damaging the lives of millions of poor people in developing countries. Looking at every sector where transnational corporations are involved, this vital book is packed with detail on how the poor are affected. The book exposes how developing countries' natural resources are being ceded to TNCs and how governments are unwilling or unable to control them. The author argues that TNCs, answerable to no one but their shareholders, have used their money, size and power to influence international negotiations and taken full advantage of the move towards privatization to influence government policies; sovereignty is passing into corporate hands, and the poor are paying the price. But people are fighting back: citizens, workers, and communities are exposing the corporations and looking for alternatives. The first edition of this path-breaking book put the issue of transnational corporations and the poor firmly on the agenda. This second edition contains significant new and updated material and is an essential read for anyone who wants to know more about the effects of corporate power on the poor.

Poverty is South Africa's greatest challenge. But what is 'poverty'? How can it be measured? And how can it be reduced if not eliminated? In South Africa, human science knowledge about the cost of living grew out of colonialism, industrialization, apartheid and civil resistance campaigns, which makes this knowledge far from neutral or apolitical. South Africans have used the Poverty Datum Line (PDL), Gini coefficients and other poverty thresholds to petition the state, to chip away at the pillars of white supremacy, and, more recently, to criticize the postapartheid government's failures to deliver on some of its promises. Rather than promoting one particular policy solution, this book argues that poverty knowledge teaches us about the dynamics of historical change, the power of racism in white settler societies, and the role of grassroots protest movements in shaping state policies and scientific categories. Readers will gain new perspectives on today's debates about social welfare, redistribution and human rights, and will ultimately find reasons to rethink conventional approaches to advocacy.

Over recent years, tabloid readers have become familiar with the concept of the "white working class", those thought to have been "left behind" by globalization, including immigration. Such sentiments were weaponized by politicians on all sides to fuel the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Brexit campaign. And this racialized narrative has emerged repeatedly in mature democracies - in the political campaigns of Trump, Le Pen and others - and continues to gain traction in the guise of economic nationalism and populism. The need to understand the putative emergence of the white working class has become both intellectually significant and politically urgent. In Race and the Undeserving Poor, Robbie Shilliam does just this. He charts the development over the past 200 years of a shifting postcolonial settlement that has produced a racialized distinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, the latest incarnation of which is a distinction between a deserving, neglected white working class and "others" who are undeserving, not indigenous, and not white. Shilliam's analysis shows that the white working class are not an indigenous constituency, but a product of the struggles to consolidate and defend imperial order that have shaped British society since the abolition of slavery.

A sweeping intellectual history of the welfare state's policy-in-waiting. The idea of a government paying its citizens to keep them out of poverty-now known as basic income-is hardly new. Often dated as far back as ancient Rome, basic income's modern conception truly emerged in the late nineteenth century. Yet as one of today's most controversial proposals, it draws supporters from across the political spectrum. In this eye-opening work, Anton Jager and Daniel Zamora Vargas trace basic income from its rise in American and British policy debates following periods of economic tumult to its modern relationship with technopopulist figures in Silicon Valley. They chronicle how the idea first arose in the United States and Europe as a market-friendly alternative to the postwar welfare state and how interest in the policy has grown in the wake of the 2008 credit crisis and COVID-19 crash. An incisive, comprehensive history, Welfare for Markets tells the story of how a fringe idea conceived in economics seminars went global, revealing the most significant shift in political culture since the end of the Cold War.

In Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern seek to explain the substantial regional variation in rates of homelessness in cities across the United States. In a departure from many analytical approaches, Colburn and Aldern shift their focus from the individual experiencing homelessness to the metropolitan area. Using accessible statistical analysis, they test a range of conventional beliefs about what drives the prevalence of homelessness in a given city-including mental illness, drug use, poverty, weather, generosity of public assistance, and low-income mobility-and find that none explain the regional variation observed across the country. Instead, housing market conditions, such as the cost and availability of rental housing, offer a far more convincing account. With rigor and clarity, Homelessness Is a Housing Problem explores U.S. cities' diverse experiences with housing precarity and offers policy solutions for unique regional contexts.

As her little boy plays at a day care center across the street, Michelle, an unmarried teenager, is in algebra class, hoping to be the first member of her family to graduate from high school. Will motherhood make this young woman poorer? Will it make the United States poorer as a nation? That's what the voices raised against "babies having babies" would have us think, and what many Americans seem inclined to believe. This powerful book takes us behind the stereotypes, the inflamed rhetoric, and the flip media sound bites to show us the complex reality and troubling truths of teenage mothers in America today. Would it surprise you to learn that Michelle is more likely to be white than African American? That she is most likely eighteen or nineteen--a legal adult? That teenage mothers are no more common today than in 1900? That two-thirds of them have been impregnated by men older than twenty? Kristin Luker, author of the acclaimed Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood, puts to rest once and for all some very popular misconceptions about unwed mothers from colonial times to the present. She traces the way popular attitudes came to demonize young mothers and examines the profound social and economic changes that have influenced debate on the issue, especially since the 1970s. In the early twentieth century, reformers focused people's attention on the social ills that led unmarried teenagers to become pregnant; today, society has come almost full circle, pinning social ills on sexually irresponsible teens. Dubious Conceptions introduces us to the young women who are the object of so much opprobrium. In these pages we hear teenage mothers from across the country talk about their lives, their trials, and their attempts to find meaning in motherhood. The book also gives a human face to those who criticize them, and shows us why public anger has settled on one of society's most vulnerable groups. Sensitive to the fears and confusion that fuel this anger, and to the troubled future that teenage mothers and their children face, Luker makes very clear what we as a nation risk by not recognizing teenage pregnancy for what it is: a symptom, not a cause, of poverty.

As societies become more technically advanced and jobs require more expertise, young people are forced into a prolonged state of social marginality. Employment during adolescence could provide significant experiences for growth into later work roles, but most societies are not equipped to provide adolescents with meaningful work experience. In Youth Unemployment and Society, a group of historians, psychologists, economists and sociologists provide a cross-national examination of trends in youth unemployment and intervention strategies in the United States and Europe. Assessing the causes of aggregate societal unemployment rates, the authors address factors that make individuals more vulnerable to unemployment and consider the developmental consequences of this experience. The volume also examines how persistently high rates of youth unemployment affect society's values, beliefs, and institutions.

Music Downtown Eastside draws on two decades of research in one of North America's poorest urban areas to illustrate how human rights can be promoted through music. Harrison's examination of how gentrification, grant funding, and community organizations affect the success or failure of human rights-focused musical initiatives offers insights into the complex relationship between culture, poverty, and human rights that have global implications and applicability. The book takes the reader into popular music jams and music therapy sessions offered to the poor in churches, community centers and health organizations. Harrison analyzes the capabilities music-making develops, and musical moments where human rights are respected, promoted, threatened, or violated. The book offers insights on the relationship between music and poverty, a social deprivation that diminishes capabilities and rights. It contributes to the human rights literature by examining critically how human rights can be strengthened in cultural practices and policy.

WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION Chosen as a Book of the Year by New Statesman, Financial Times, Guardian, Observer, Rough Trade and the BBC Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize Longlisted for the Jhalak Prize 'Restlessly inventive, brutally graceful, startlingly beautiful ... a landmark debut' Guardian 'Oh my God, he's just stirring me. Destroying me' Michaela Coel 'A poet of truth and rage, heartbreak and joy' Max Porter 'Takes us into new literary territory ... impressive' Bernardine Evaristo, New Statesman (Books of the Year) 'It's simply stunning. Every image is a revelation' Terrance Hayes What is it like to grow up in a place where the same police officer who told your primary school class they were special stops and searches you at 13 because 'you fit the description of a man' - and where it is possible to walk two and a half miles through an estate of 1,444 homes without ever touching the ground? In Poor, Caleb Femi combines poetry and original photography to explore the trials, tribulations, dreams and joys of young Black boys in twenty-first century Peckham. He contemplates the ways in which they are informed by the built environment of concrete walls and gentrifying neighbourhoods that form their stage, writes a coded, near-mythical history of the personalities and sagas of his South London youth, and pays tribute to the rappers and artists who spoke to their lives. Above all, this is a tribute to the world that shaped a poet, and to the people forging difficult lives and finding magic within it. As Femi writes in one of the final poems of this book: 'I have never loved anything the way I love the endz.'

The Poverty Law Canon takes readers into the lives of clients and lawyerswho brought critical poverty law cases in the United States. These casesinvolved attempts to establish the right to basic necessities, as well asefforts to ensure dignified treatment of welfare recipients and to haltadministrative attacks on federal program benefit levels. They alsoconfronted government efforts to constrict access to justice, due process,and rights to counsel in child support and consumer cases, social welfareprograms, and public housing. By exploring the personal narratives thatgave rise to these lawsuits as well as the behind-the-scenes dynamicsof the Supreme Court, the text locates these cases within the socialdynamics that shaped the course of litigation. Noted legal scholarsexplain the legal precedent created by each case and set the case withinits historical and political context in a way that will assist students andadvocates in poverty-related disciplines in their understanding of theimplications of these cases for contemporary public policy decisions inpoverty programs. Whether the focus is on the clients, on the lawyers, oron the justices, the stories in Poverty Law Canon illuminate the centrallegal themes in federal poverty law of the late 20th century and the rolethat racial and economic stereotyping plays in shaping American law.

Baltimore was once a vibrant manufacturing town, but today, with factory closings and steady job loss since the 1970s, it is home to some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in America. "The Hero's Fight" provides an intimate look at the effects of deindustrialization on the lives of Baltimore's urban poor, and sheds critical light on the unintended consequences of welfare policy on our most vulnerable communities.

Drawing on her own uniquely immersive brand of fieldwork, conducted over the course of a decade in the neighborhoods of West Baltimore, Patricia Fernandez-Kelly tells the stories of people like D. B. Wilson, Big Floyd, Towanda, and others whom the American welfare state treats with a mixture of contempt and pity--what Fernandez-Kelly calls "ambivalent benevolence." She shows how growing up poor in the richest nation in the world involves daily interactions with agents of the state, an experience that differs significantly from that of more affluent populations. While ordinary Americans are treated as citizens and consumers, deprived and racially segregated populations are seen as objects of surveillance, containment, and punishment. Fernandez-Kelly provides new insights into such topics as globalization and its effects on industrial decline and employment, the changing meanings of masculinity and femininity among the poor, social and cultural capital in poor neighborhoods, and the unique roles played by religion and entrepreneurship in destitute communities.

Blending compelling portraits with in-depth scholarly analysis, "The Hero's Fight" explores how the welfare state contributes to the perpetuation of urban poverty in America."

Over the past twenty years more citizens in China and India have raised themselves out of poverty than anywhere else at any time in history. They accomplished this through the local business sector--the leading source of prosperity for all rich countries. In most of Africa and other poor regions the business sector is weak, but foreign aid continues to fund government and NGOs. Switching aid to the local business sector in order to cultivate a middle class is the oldest, surest, and only way to eliminate poverty in poor countries.

A bold fusion of ethics and smart business, "The Aid Trap" shows how the same energy, goodwill, and money that we devote to charity can help local business thrive. R. Glenn Hubbard and William Duggan, two leading scholars in business and finance, demonstrate that by diverting a major share of charitable aid into the local business sector of poor countries, citizens can take the lead in the growth of their own economies. Although the aid system supports noble goals, a local well-digging company cannot compete with a foreign charity that digs wells for free. By investing in that local company a sustainable system of development can take root.

This book discusses poverty reduction and inclusive development in China. The relevant research reports included here combine unique perspectives and thorough analysis, and include both comparative and empirical analyses. Although China is the first country to have achieved the UN's Millennium Development Goals, it still faces enormous problems and challenges in terms of narrowing the income gap, reducing poverty and attaining sustainable development. This book not only provides valuable theoretical material to help readers understand inclusive development and poverty reduction in today's China, but also offers relevant government authorities a solid theoretical and practical basis for informed decision-making.

Around 1.4 billion people presently live in extreme poverty, and yet despite this vast scale, the issue of global poverty had a relatively low international profile until the end of the 20th century. In this important new work, Hulme charts the rise of global poverty as a priority global issue, and its subsequent marginalisation as old themes edged it aside (trade policy and peace-making in regions of geo-political importance) and new issues were added (terrorism, global climate change and access to natural resources). Key updates for the new edition: evaluation of the post-2015 Development Agenda and the Rio+20 exploration of how Colombia and Brazil are pushing a sustainability agenda as a Southern perspective to challenge the aid focus of OECD post-MDGs interests examination and discussion of the gradual shift of power and influence to the BRICs and emerging regional powers (Indonesia, Turkey, South Africa) but the lack of change in global institutions exploration of Russia's lack of participation in the development agenda The first book to tackle the issue of global poverty through the lens of global institutions; this fully updated volume provides an important resource for all students and scholars of international relations, development studies and international political economy.

Comparing the effects of unemployment and inadequate employment relative to adequate employment, this text studies their effects on self-esteem, alcohol abuse, depression, and birth weight. Using longitudinal methods, it measures controls for reverse causation (selection) and studies a large representative sample of Americans from their late teens in 1979, to their early 30's in the last decade of the twentieth century through stages of different business cycles. The results point to a rethinking of employment status as a continuum.

This book explores the changing spatial distribution of the United States of America's poorest and most affluent counties over the 30 years from 1980 to 2010. While overall rates of poverty have changed somewhat during this period, the geography of counties where affluence and poverty rates are the highest have also shifted as economic fortunes wax and wane. The spatial understanding of poverty and affluence is an important dimension of addressing the complex economic and social contexts within which poverty occurs, and which vary substantially depending on several factors. While there has been significant focus on poverty in the United States, including some analysis of its spatial characteristics, since the 1960s there has been relatively little research on the concomitant geography of affluence. The geographies of poverty and affluence analyzed in this book give a view of spatial economic segregation. Spatial aspects of both the poorest and most affluent counties are focused on, as well as the changing gap and relative geographies between rich and poor over three decades.

Beggars, outcasts, urchins, waifs, prostitutes, criminals, convicts, madmen, fallen women, lunatics, degenerates-part reality, part fantasy, these are the grotesque faces that populate the underworld, the dark inverse of our everyday world. Lurking in the mirror that we hold up to our society, they are our counterparts and our doubles, repelling us and yet offering the tantalizing promise of escape. Although these images testify to undeniable social realities, the sordid lower depths make up a symbolic and social imaginary that reflects our fears and anxieties-as well as our desires. In Vice, Crime, and Poverty, Dominique Kalifa traces the untold history of the concept of the underworld and its representations in popular culture. He examines how the myth of the lower depths came into being in nineteenth-century Europe, as biblical figures and Christian traditions were adapted for a world turned upside-down by the era of industrialization, democratization, and mass culture. From the Parisian demimonde to Victorian squalor, from the slums of New York to the sewers of Buenos Aires, Kalifa deciphers the making of an image that has cast an enduring spell on its audience. While the social conditions that created that underworld have changed, Vice, Crime, and Poverty shows that, from social-scientific ideas of the underclass to contemporary cinema and steampunk culture, its shadows continue to haunt us.

For more than four decades, Hugh Segal has been one of the leading voices of progressive conservatism in Canada. A self-described Red Tory warrior who disdains "bootstrap" approaches to poverty, he has always promoted policies, especially a basic annual income, to help the most economically vulnerable. Why would a life-long Tory support something so radical? In this revealing memoir, Segal shares how his life and experiences brought him to this most unlikely of places, beginning with his childhood in a poor immigrant family in Montreal to his time as a chief of staff for Prime Minister Mulroney and to his more recent work as an advisor on a basic income pilot project for the Ontario Liberal government. This book is a passionate argument not only for why a basic annual income makes economic sense, but for why it is the right thing to do.

The stakes of the poor in trade policy are large: Free trade can help 500 million people escape poverty and inject $200 billion annually into the economies of developing countries, according to author William R. Cline. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the potential for trade liberalization to spur growth and reduce poverty in developing countries. It quantifies the impact on global poverty of industrial-country liberalization, as well as liberalization by the developing countries. Half or more of the annual gains from trade would come from the removal of industrial-country protection against developing-country exports. By removing their trade barriers, industrial countries could convey economic benefits to developing countries worth about twice the amount of their annual development assistance. By helping developing countries grow through trade, moreover, industrial countries could lower costs to consumers for imports and realize other economic efficiencies. The study estimates that free trade could reduce the number of people earning less than $2 per day by about 500 million over 15 years. This would cut the world poverty level by 25 percent. Cline judges that the developing countries were right to risk collapse of the Doha Round at the Cancun ministerial meeting in September 2003 by insisting on much deeper liberalization of agriculture than the industrial countries were then willing to offer. The study calls for a two-track strategy: first, deep multilateral liberalization involving phased but complete elimination of industrial-county protection and deep reduction of protection by at least the middle-income developing countries, albeit on a more gradual schedule; and second, immediate free entry for imports from "high risk" low-income countries (heavily indebted poor countries, least developed countries, and sub-Saharan Africa), coupled with a 10-year tax holiday for direct investment in these countries.

This open access book explores the historical, cultural and philosophical contexts that have made anti-poverty the core of Chinese society since Liberation in 1949, and why poverty alleviation measures evolved from the simplistic aid of the 1950s to Xi Jinping's precision poverty alleviation and its goal of eliminating absolute poverty by 2020. The book also addresses the implications of China's experience for other developing nations tackling not only poverty but such issues as pandemics, rampant urbanization and desertification exacerbated by global warming. The first of three parts draws upon interviews of rural and urban Chinese from diverse backgrounds and local and national leaders. These interviews, conducted in even the remotest areas of the country, offer candid insights into the challenges that have forced China to continually evolve its programs to resolve even the most intractable cases of poverty. The second part explores the historic, cultural and philosophical roots of old China's meritocratic government and how its ancient Chinese ethics have led to modern Chinese socialism's stance that "poverty amidst plenty is immoral". Dr. Huang Chengwei, one of China's foremost anti-poverty experts, explains the challenges faced at each stage as China's anti-poverty measures evolved over 70 years to emphasize "enablement" over "aid" and to foster bottom-up initiative and entrepreneurialism, culminating in Xi Jinping's precision poverty alleviation. The book also addresses why national economic development alone cannot reduce poverty; poverty alleviation programs must be people-centered, with measurable and accountable practices that reach even to household level, which China has done with its "First Secretary" program. The third part explores the potential for adopting China's practices in other nations, including the potential for replicating China's successes in developing countries through such measures as the Belt and Road Initiative. This book also addresses prevalent misperceptions about China's growing global presence and why other developing nations must address historic, systemic causes of poverty and inequity before they can undertake sustainable poverty alleviation measures of their own.

By focusing on Mamluk Cairo, Adam Sabra explores the attitude of medieval Muslims to poverty and the experience of being poor in an Islamic society. He also considers the role of pious endowments (waqfs) in sustaining the poor. In this way the book affords fascinating insights into a world far removed from elite society, hitherto the focus of Mamluk studies. This trend, in conjunction with comparisons offered between the Islamic world, Europe and China, will entice a broad range of scholars from within the field and beyond.