Offers the latest research on poverty in the Graeco-Roman world, and unique insights suitable for social scientists as well as those studying ancient history and classical literature.

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.

Written with great empathy and Rauf's trademark humour, The Great (Food) Bank Heist is a moving story that gives a child's-eye view of the increasing problem of food poverty. On Thursdays, Nelson, Ashley and Mum head out to the bank. But not just any old bank - the food bank. With its shining tins and packets of food stacked from floor to ceiling, Nelson thinks it's the best kind of bank there is. But there's a thief in town, and the shelves of the food bank are getting emptier each day, leaving people hungrier than ever. For the sake of his family and everyone else's, Nelson needs to make them stop. But can he and his friends really be the ones to catch the bank robber?

Poverty comparisons - such as whether poverty has increased, or where it is greatest, are typically clouded in conceptual and methodological uncertainties. How should individual well-being be assessed in deciding who is poor? Is a household survey a reliable guide? Where should the poverty line be drawn, and does the choice matter? This monograph surveys the issues that need to be considered in answering these questions, providing an accessible introduction to the most recent literature. The strengths and weaknesses of past methods are discussed, and a summary of methodological recommendations is given. A number of new analytical tools are described which can greatly facilitate poverty comparisons, recognising the uncertainties involved.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Coming November 2020 as a major motion picture from Netflix starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close 'The political book of the year' Sunday Times 'A frank, unsentimental, harrowing memoir ... A superb book' New York Post 'I bought this to try to better understand Trump's appeal ... but the memoir is so much more than that. A gripping, unputdownable page-turner' India Knight, Evening Standard J. D. Vance grew up in the hills of Kentucky. His family and friends were the people most of the world calls rednecks, hillbillies or white trash. In this deeply moving memoir, Vance tells the story of his family's demons and of America ' s problem with generational neglect. How his mother struggled against, but never fully escaped, the legacies of abuse, alcoholism, poverty and trauma. How his grandparents, 'dirt poor and in love', gave everything for their children to chase the American dream. How Vance beat the odds to graduate from Yale Law School. And how America came to abandon and then condescend to its white working classes, until they reached breaking point.

First published in 1984, Toynbee Hall, The First Hundred Years is not just a centenary study, but a personal contribution to the continuing history of Toynbee Hall, which is the Universities' settlement in East London, and an institution that has inspired respect and affection. Its pioneering role as a residential community living and working in the heart of one of London's most deprived areas has been maintained. Called a 'social workshop' by its late chairman John Profumo, Toynbee Hall promotes ventures such as Free Legal Advice, the Workers Educational Association, and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The book looks at the social changes that have taken place over the 100 years since Toynbee Hall was founded in 1884, but also notes curious parallels, with persistent patterns of poverty, deprivation, squalor and racial separation which characterise the area. Questions about the facts and perceptions of poverty, the nature of community, the visual as well as the social environment, and the roles of voluntary, local and national statutory policy still require answers.

Knut Wicksell is arguably the greatest Swedish social scientist of all time, and poverty was a theme that occupied him all his life. Indeed, it was probably Wicksell's interest in poverty that was the critical factor in drawing him away from his purely mathematical background towards a greater understanding of the social sciences as a whole. In this outstanding volume, Mats Lundahl, one of the world's leading development economists, examines Wicksell's thinking in the area of poverty, and shows the importance of his contributions to this field.

The idea of giving cash, no-strings-attached, to the poor has become popular in the 21st century. While hardly a radical form of global redistribution, these cash grants, often known as unconditional cash transfers, claim to offer a new type of care that is less paternalistic than other forms of assistance. Caring Cash explores the caring practices that these grant experiments produced in the Nairobi ghetto of Korogocho. After receiving the grants, people there did not only look after themselves and their family, friends, lovers, clients and patrons, but also maintained the bonds that held them all together. Putting his interlocutors' lives in conversation with ideas around care, ethics and economies, Tom Neumark argues that for those in the ghetto, caring for relationships is as important as the care that takes place within relationships. Seeing care in this way reveals the importance of managing one's proximity, distance and detachment to others, and raises questions about the disquieting decisions that allow people to live together amidst violence and poverty.

There is a mutual dependence between poverty and academic achievement, creative pedagogies for low-income pupils, school models that 'beat the odds', and the resiliency of low-income families dedicated to the academic success of their children. This book examines the connection between poverty and literacy, looking at the potential roles and responsibilities of teachers, school administrators, researchers, and policymakers in closing the achievement gap and in reducing the effects of poverty on the literacy skill development of low-income children. There are numerous suggestions about how to improve schools so that they respond to the needs of low-income children; some argue for school reform, while others advocate social reform, and yet others suggest combining both educational reform and social reform. Without a strong foundation in literacy, children are all too often denied access to a rich and diverse curriculum. Reading and writing are passports to achievement in many other curricular areas, and literacy education plays an important role in moving people out of poverty toward greater self-sufficiency post-graduation. Schools and home environments share responsibility for literacy skill development; in school, literacy equals the acquisition of reading and writing skills, but it is also a social practice key to social mobility. The achievement gap between low-income, middle-class, and upper middle-class students illustrates the power of socioeconomic factors outside school. This book was originally published as two special issues of Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties.

Poverty in Contemporary Economic Thought aims to describe and critically examine how economic thought deals with poverty, including its causes, consequences, reduction and abolition. This edited volume traces the ideas of key writers and schools of modern economic thought across a significant period, ranging from Friedrich Hayek and Keynes to latter-day economists like Amartya Sen and Angus Deaton. The chapters relate poverty to income distribution, asserting the point that poverty is not always conceived of in absolute terms but that relative and social deprivation matters also. Furthermore, the contributors deal with both individual poverty and the poverty of nations in the context of the international economy. In providing such a thorough exploration, this book shows that the approach to poverty differs from economist to economist depending on their particular interests and the main issues related to poverty in each epoch, as well as the influence of the intellectual climate that prevailed at the time when the contribution was made. This key text is valuable reading for advanced students and researchers of the history of economic thought, economic development and the economics of poverty.

This book examines the effects of high and volatile food prices during 2007-08 on low-income farmers and consumers in developing, transition, and industrialized countries. Previous studies of this crisis have mostly used models to estimate the likely impacts. This volume includes actual evidence from the field as to how higher prices affected access to food and farm income among poor people. In addition to country and regional case studies, the book presents discussions of cross-cutting themes, including gender, risk management, violence, the importance of subsistence farming as a coping strategy, and the role of governments and markets in addressing higher prices.

With 2011 witnessing an unprecedentedly high level of food prices, the findings and policy recommendations presented here should prove useful to both scholars and policy makers in understanding the causes and consequences, as well as the policies needed to ensure food security in light of the skyrocketing cost of food.

This book was published as a special double issue of Development in Practice.

As in many developing countries, the prospects for land reform in Iran seemed promising. It was expected to improve rural poverty and stimulate agricultural development by replacing the traditional landlord-peasant system with more peasant-biased, modern farming. This book assesses the economic consequences of land reform, focusing particularly on its effect on the living standards of the rural poor. Amid describes a ?biomodal? system of large and small farms that emerged after the reform. Large farms, with government support, modernized and grew more profitable cash crops, whereas small farms found difficulty in obtaining credit and continued to rely on traditional techniques and staple food crops. Land reform was not, the author argues a success for the majority of the Iranian rural population who experienced virtually no improvement in living standards and a growth of rural inequality as a result.

First published in 1984, Toynbee Hall, The First Hundred Years is not just a centenary study, but a personal contribution to the continuing history of Toynbee Hall, which is the Universities' settlement in East London, and an institution that has inspired respect and affection. Its pioneering role as a residential community living and working in the heart of one of London's most deprived areas has been maintained. Called a 'social workshop' by its late chairman John Profumo, Toynbee Hall promotes ventures such as Free Legal Advice, the Workers Educational Association, and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The book looks at the social changes that have taken place over the 100 years since Toynbee Hall was founded in 1884, but also notes curious parallels, with persistent patterns of poverty, deprivation, squalor and racial separation which characterise the area. Questions about the facts and perceptions of poverty, the nature of community, the visual as well as the social environment, and the roles of voluntary, local and national statutory policy still require answers.

First published in 1976, this book deals with contemporary tensions between the West and the Third World, caused by hunger, malnutrition and poverty, perpetuated by an imbalance in the distribution of world resources. The book deals with the issue of malnutrition in the Third World, which owes much more to poverty and unemployment than to agricultural failure. The author also believes that population control can do little in the absence of a more equitable distribution of world resources and political power within and between countries involving a fundamental change in ideology and education. This is a challenging and critical book, whose arguments cannot be ignored by anyone concerned with the creation of a just and stable world order.

This incisive book addresses the history of poverty in the US, investigating how those in need have been understood and governed during the last 70 years. John Macnicol launches a multi-faceted analysis of government attitudes to welfare and 'dependency', highlighting the impact on the poorest groups of American society. Poverty in the US is explored through the eyes of prominent liberals, including Gunnar Myrdal, John Kenneth Galbraith and Michael Harrington, in times of economic growth and recession, from the New Deal to the rise of neoliberalism. Macnicol also examines the career and ascendancy of the leading conservative, Charles Murray, and his contention that America suffered a growing 'underclass' largely created by over-generous welfare. Through analysis of the mechanisms and output of leading conservative think-tanks in the late twentieth century, the author identifies the key features of historic and contemporary discussions related to poverty and dependency in the US and the dynamic changes of American attitudes to its poorest constituents. A timely discussion for a period of economic cynicism, this book is crucial reading for scholars of social policy, particularly those examining the history of impoverishment and debates relating to poverty and dependency. Students of social policy, sociology and economics will also benefit from its insights into historic US government attitudes and reactions to poverty.

Public discussion of global healthcare issues is dominated by those who believe that top-down, government-driven interventions are the solution to the myriad health problems suffered by people in less developed countries. This thinking is responsible for a plethora of harmful policies, ranging from a drive towards socialized healthcare systems, to calls for the centralization and semi-nationalization of pharmaceutical research and development, to impractical but grandiose UN-sponsored schemes for tackling HIV/AIDS and malaria.

In spite of the abysmal track record of top-down approaches, non-governmental organizations and UN agencies continue to promote them, to the detriment of the private sector, economic development, and human health. The resulting politicization of diseases such as HIV/AIDS has led to a diversion of resources away from more easily treatable diseases that affect more people. Meanwhile, cost-effective and simple interventions such as vaccination are being subordinated to other more politically correct diseases.

This centralizing mindset has also resulted in many governments in less developed countries attempting to plan and control universal healthcare systems, which has encouraged rationing, inequitable access, and entrenched corruption. It has also seriously undermined the effectiveness of overseas development aid. Moreover, the politicization of diseases such as HIV/AIDS has led to a diversion of resources away from more easily treatable diseases that affect more people. As a result, cost-effective and simple interventions are neglected by donors.

There has to date been little public discussion of the role of markets and their underlying institutions--property rights and the rule of law--in improving human health. Economic growth and globalization has led to unprecedented improvements in human health. The challenge is to enable the poorest countries to take part more fully in this process. This work demonstrates how current thinking is flawed and proposes practical ways of improving health in lower income countries.

Originally published 1974. Thousands of elementary schools for the children of the poor were founded during the nineteenth century, yet there is scarcely a published history of a single one of them. This volume is precisely such a history and the authors trace its story against the background of local and national change in education and society. On the basis of a unique collection of records the authors have pieced together a picture of the social composition of the school, its curriculum and teaching methods, and its administration and finance. They relate the history of the school to that of London and the church, to that of educational authorities and educational policy.

Written by a multi-disciplinary team of contributors, this collection explores the different dimensions of well being, poverty and inequality. A person's sense of well being is compounded of many elements including economic, political and social psychology. Poverty and inequality are aspects of a lack of well being in multiple dimensions and, this texts argues, development should be considered a process that overcomes these multiple deficiencies This book examines the advantages of analysing poverty and development by multi-discipline research. Economists, political sociologists and anthropologists put forward an idea of well being from their own perspective, using their own research material, while the editors argue in their introduction that bringing to bear of many disciplines can enrich the research output of all.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

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.

M. Riad El-Ghonemy argues that if current trends in government-led and market based land reforms persist the rural poor population in developing countries will continue to rise. Based on nearly half a century of academic and field research this valuable work presents compelling evidence on persistent rural poverty, hunger and increased inequality in developing countries over the last thirty years. The book furthers the debate with sixteen detailed case studies and looks beyond the typical views of the roles of the state and the market on land reform. The Crisis of Rural Poverty and Hunger contains comprehensive case studies including countries such as China, Korea and Honduras provides bases for discussions of government-mandated land reform, pro-active participation of NGOs and facilitated functions of the market mechanism. This book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in the fields of rural and agricultural development, development economics and geography.

Find out howand whylegislation has made economic rights more important than human rights Since 1996, politicians and public officials in the United States have celebrated the success of welfare reform legislation despite little, if any, evidence to support their claims. The Promise of Welfare Reform: Political Rhetoric and the Reality of Poverty in the Twenty-First Century presents articles from 23 community practitioners and researchers who challenge the reform that has turned public aid from a right to a privilege. The authors transcend conventional academic writing, offering careful and thoughtful analysis that examines the history of welfare reform, its connection to poverty, family issues, and the impact of racism on poverty and on the treatment of the poor. The Promise of Welfare Reform analyzes the consequences over the past ten years of legislative changes made to the public assistance program formerly known as Aid to Families with Dependant Children (AFDC). This powerful book examines the social, political, and economic context of welfare reform, including the elimination of poverty as a societal goal, how racial and ethic groups have been targeted, popular stereotypes about the poor and their work ethic, anti-immigrant hostility, the struggles of single mothers with children, domestic violence, and marriage as a realistic escape from poverty. The book's authors address the need for empathy and understanding to change public sentiments about welfare and poverty. Contributors to The Promise of Welfare Reform include: Elizabeth A. Segal and Keith M. Kilty, co-founding editors of the Journal of Poverty (Haworth) Frances Fox Piven, co-author of Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare Ann Withorn, co-editor of For Crying Out Loud: Women's Poverty in the United States Mimi Abramovitz, author of Under Attack, Fighting Back: Women and Welfare in the United States Joel Blau, co-author with Mimi Abramovitz of The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy Margaret K. Nelson, author of The Social Economy of Single Mothers: Raising Children in Rural America Gwendolyn Mink, co-editor of Welfare: A Documentary History of U.S. Policy and Politics Kenneth J. Neubeck, co-author of Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's Poor Lynn Fujiwara, author of Sanctioning Immigrants: Asian Immigrant Women and the Racial Politics of Welfare Reform Nancy C. Jurik, author of Bootstrap Dreams: U.S. Microenterprise Developments in an Era of Welfare Reform and much more! The Promise of Welfare Reform challenges current views on welfare reform and promotes alternative methods to alleviate poverty. It is an essential resource for sociologists, political scientists, economists, public policy and management specialists, social welfare and human services workers, and anyone else concerned about changes made to public assistance by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.