Income inequality is an increasingly pressing issue in the United States and around the world. This book explores five critical issues to introduce some of the key moral and empirical questions about income, gender, and racial inequality:
-Do we have a moral obligation to eliminate poverty?
-Is inequality a necessary evil that's the best way available to motivate economic action and increase total output?
-Can we retain a meaningful democracy even when extreme inequality allows the rich to purchase political privilege?
-Is the recent stalling out of long-term declines in gender inequality a historic reversal that presages a new gender order?
-How are racial and ethnic inequalities likely to evolve as minority populations grow ever larger, as intermarriage increases, and as new forms of immigration unfold?

Leading public intellectuals debate these questions in a no-holds-barred exploration of our New Gilded Age.

Income inequality is an increasingly pressing issue in the United States and around the world. This book explores five critical issues to introduce some of the key moral and empirical questions about income, gender, and racial inequality:
-Do we have a moral obligation to eliminate poverty?
-Is inequality a necessary evil that's the best way available to motivate economic action and increase total output?
-Can we retain a meaningful democracy even when extreme inequality allows the rich to purchase political privilege?
-Is the recent stalling out of long-term declines in gender inequality a historic reversal that presages a new gender order?
-How are racial and ethnic inequalities likely to evolve as minority populations grow ever larger, as intermarriage increases, and as new forms of immigration unfold?

Leading public intellectuals debate these questions in a no-holds-barred exploration of our New Gilded Age.

This original and topical book tells the untold stories of migrants' experiences of, and responses to, financial exclusion in London. Breaking important new ground, it offers an insight into migrants' lives which is often overlooked, yet is increasingly vital for their broader integration into advanced financialised societies. Adopting a holistic focus, Migrants and their Money investigates migrants' complex financial lives which extend far beyond remittance sending, exploring their banking, saving, credit and debt related practices. It highlights how migrants negotiate the complex financial landscape they encounter and the diverse formal and informal ways in which they manage their money in the financial capital of the world. Drawing upon a rich evidence base, this book will be of particular interest to academics, local authorities, policy makers and the financial services industry.

This book offers a critical analysis on employing a universal understanding of poverty and suggests ways forward for poverty reduction for developing countries in a post-2015 era. Taking specific country-contexts into account, the author argues that national poverty lines should be the benchmark for future anti-poverty policies.

"Well-being Ranking" tells the story of the development of assessment methods since the rise of wealth ranking in the 1980s.It looks at the results of well-being ranking exercises and how they help identify important differences within communities and monitor changes in well-being over time and describes the successful use of ranking tools over large populations and the value of using multi-dimensional models of well-being.Wealth-ranking is a participatory tool enabling people to group their fellows into wealth bands, and thus identify the very poor. Now the method has been developed to include the broader aspects of well-being such as social standing and health that people value as much as material wealth. The book suggests that understanding differences within communities is essential for good development aid work and briefly explores the ideas used to make assessments of well-being at national levels. This book is essential reading for everyone interested in participatory methods, from researchers and students of international development, to field workers and staff of international development agencies."

First published in 1979, Urban Poverty in Britain 1830-1914 examines the plight of the poor in towns as a direct result of industrialization. This valuable study examines the major causes of poverty - low pay, casual labour, unemployment, sickness, widowhood, large families, old age, drink and personal failings - and society's response to the problem. It also pays attention to the changes in food consumption brought about by migration to the urban areas. Detailed accounts of specific problems and specific situations are combined with a look at the broader questions, and subsequently provides a thorough account of urban poverty in this period.

""Poverty and Discrimination" provides a wide-ranging discussion of all the aspects of social policy that are related to economic disadvantage, from welfare programs to education to labor markets, with a particular emphasis on discrimination. The text provides an excellent overview of facts, of research results, and of policy debates. Interspersed in this discussion are many good lessons in data analysis and research methodology. This book is a great reference and review of many areas and will work as an excellent text for undergraduate and graduate-level courses on poverty, inequality, or discrimination."--Rebecca M. Blank, University of Michigan

"Kevin Lang's new textbook on poverty and discrimination is at once lucid, rigorous, and topical. He shows how the conceptual insights of modern economic theory can be combined with state-of-the-art statistical techniques in order to answer the questions, 'What do we know about poverty and how do we know it?' This elegant, learned, and highly accessible book will, I predict, exert a major and beneficial influence in the years ahead on the study of poverty and discrimination in the United States."--Glenn C. Loury, author of "The Anatomy of Racial Inequality"

"Kevin Lang is engaging and always thought-provoking, and he covers a lot of ground. I don't agree with him on all issues, but that is really the point of the book--to show that reasonable people can differ on some of the most important social issues of our day and then give students the tools to assess arguments critically and make their own decisions. This book is an excellent resource for any class on poverty issues."--Janet M. Currie, author of "The Invisible Safety Net: Protecting the Nation's Poor Children and Families"

"This volume will be an extraordinarily helpful tool for anyone teaching in the field of poverty and discrimination. It assembles the latest data, weaves it together with competing theories, and highlights the policy options and dilemmas that we struggle with in the United States. We have not had a textbook like this in decades and it will be a tremendous asset to students and faculty alike."--Katherine S. Newman, author of "Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market"

"This book provides a theoretically grounded and empirically up-to-date review of both economic research and economic policies related to poverty and discrimination. It is a welcome contribution reflecting Kevin Lang's broad knowledge of both the massive academic literature and current policy debates."--Joshua D. Angrist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The greatest problems facing humanity today are climate change, poverty, and the increasing separation between the rich and poor. The aim of this book is to examine the social constructions that have led to these breakdowns, and provide potential solutions that are based on a fundamental change in the structure of society and the values on which a new and better social system can be built. Unless we as a society set a drastically different course soon, human life as we know it will suffer greatly, perhaps even cease altogether. Excess consumption is becoming anti-social as the effects of global warming and increasing poverty become apparent. What, then, will form the new social values on which society replaces the present emphasis on work and material consumption that now prevail? This book's answer to that question is accomplishment and aesthetic consumption. This proposed refocused existence will necessitate a new economic order that provides access to a livelihood beyond the market system. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, leisure studies, political science, and social work.

This landmark study provides the first comprehensive assessment of the nature and associations between the three main forms of social disadvantage in Australia: poverty, deprivation and social exclusion. Drawing on the author's extensive research expertise and his links with welfare practitioners, it explains the limitations of existing approaches and presents new findings that build on the insights of disadvantaged Australians and views about the essentials of life, providing the basis for a new deprivation-based poverty measure.

Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty has long been portrayed as the most potent symbol of all that is wrong with big government. Conservatives deride the War on Poverty for corruption and the creation of "poverty pimps," and even liberals carefully distance themselves from it. Examining the long War on Poverty from the 1960s onward, this book makes a controversial argument that the programs were in many ways a success, reducing poverty rates and weaving a social safety net that has proven as enduring as programs that came out of the New Deal.

The War on Poverty also transformed American politics from the grass roots up, mobilizing poor people across the nation. Blacks in crumbling cities, rural whites in Appalachia, Cherokees in Oklahoma, Puerto Ricans in the Bronx, migrant Mexican farmworkers, and Chinese immigrants from New York to California built social programs based on Johnson's vision of a greater, more just society. Contributors to this volume chronicle these vibrant and largely unknown histories while not shying away from the flaws and failings of the movement--including inadequate funding, co-optation by local political elites, and blindness to the reality that mothers and their children made up most of the poor.

In the twenty-first century, when one in seven Americans receives food stamps and community health centers are the largest primary care system in the nation, the War on Poverty is as relevant as ever. This book helps us to understand the turbulent era out of which it emerged and why it remains so controversial to this day.

Although the absolute number of poor people in the world has declined significantly in recent decades, poverty reduction continues to be a very important issue. There still are very large numbers of poor people, relative poverty is an increasingly concerning problem, and progress on poverty reduction varies enormously from one part of the world to another. Factors contributing to poverty reduction include economic growth, economic integration, and specific poverty-reduction programs, which are often initiated by Western countries. This book considers poverty reduction from a global perspective. Development and Poverty Reduction looks at a wide range of specific subjects, across all continents. It highlights in particular how the issues are perceived from a non-Western perspective and especially how the rise of China is both having a profound impact on poverty reduction globally and also changing the overall way in which development and poverty reduction are approached.

This book is about family life in areas of concentrated poverty and social problems - areas where it is difficult to bring up children and where surrounding conditions make family life more fraught and more difficult. The book is based on a long-run UK study of neighborhood conditions as they affect parents raising their children. The book draws on the lives of 200 families that the authors interviewed annually over a 10 year period. It examines the future prospects of families living in low income urban areas that suffer multiple problems of deprivation. It provides a unique insight into: what families need, what works and doesn't work, what helps or hinders, what is left to do, and which new approaches may be helpful. (Series: CASE Studies on Poverty, Place and Policy)

This book is about family life in areas of concentrated poverty and social problems - areas where it is difficult to bring up children and where surrounding conditions make family life more fraught and more difficult. The book is based on a long-run UK study of neighborhood conditions as they affect parents raising their children. The book draws on the lives of 200 families that the authors interviewed annually over a 10 year period. It examines the future prospects of families living in low income urban areas that suffer multiple problems of deprivation. It provides a unique insight into: what families need, what works and doesn't work, what helps or hinders, what is left to do, and which new approaches may be helpful. (Series: CASE Studies on Poverty, Place and Policy)

This important book makes a vital academic and political statement in the cause of social justice. It begins with an appreciation of the seminal contributions of Peter Townsend (1928-2009), and applies them to contemporary policy debates. It brings together many of the leading contributors to current debates in this field and provides a compelling manifesto for change for students and researchers in the social sciences, policy makers and practitioners, and everybody with an interest in creating a more equal and socially just society.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is about being disabled and being poor and the social, cultural and political processes that link these two aspects of living. Environmental barriers, limited access to services and discriminatory attitudes and practice are among key elements that drive disabled people into poverty and keep them there. 'Disability and poverty' explores the lived realities of people with disabilities from across the developing world and examines how the coping strategies of individuals and families emerge in different contexts.

This landmark study provides the first comprehensive assessment of the nature and associations between the three main forms of social disadvantage in Australia: poverty, deprivation and social exclusion. Drawing on the author's extensive research expertise and his links with welfare practitioners, it explains the limitations of existing approaches and presents new findings that build on the insights of disadvantaged Australians and views about the essentials of life, providing the basis for a new deprivation-based poverty measure.

This book provides new empirical evidence on access to and use of ICTs and their effect on poor households in four East African countries--Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda--along with experiences from other countries in Southern Africa. "ICT Pathways to Poverty Reduction" presents a conceptual framework to analyze how poverty dynamics change over time and to shed light on whether ICT access benefits the poor as well as the not-so-poor. Overall, the study concludes that ICTs make a difference to the livelihoods of the poor and contribute to reducing both financial and non-financial dimensions of poverty.Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been proven to promote economic growth, but do we know that ICTs can reduce poverty? This book addresses the questions: Under what conditions do women benefit economically from using ICTs? How are the livelihoods of rural users affected? Which ICTs are being used by low-income entrepreneurs? "ICT Pathways to Poverty Reduction" is essential reading for policymakers, researchers, and academics in international development or ICT for development, as well as staff of development agencies working on livelihoods for the poor.

Unemployment and the state in Britain offers an important and original contribution to understandings of the 1930s. Through a comparative case study of south Wales and the north-east of England, the book explores the impact of the highly controversial means test, the relationship between the unemployed and the government and the nature of some of the largest protests of the interwar period. This study will appeal to students and scholars of the depression, social movements, studies of the unemployed, social policy and interwar British society. -- .

This collection offers a timely reassessment of viable ways of addressing poverty across the globe today. The profile of global poverty has changed dramatically over the past decade, and around three-quarters of the poor now live in middle income countries, making inequality a major issue. This requires us to fundamentally rethink anti-poverty strategies and policies, as many aspects of the established framework for poverty reduction are no longer effective. Featuring contributions from Latin America, Africa and Asia, this much-needed collection answers some of the key questions arising as development policy confronts the challenges of poverty and inequality on the global, national and local scale in both urban and rural contexts. Providing poverty researchers and practitioners with valuable new tools to address new forms of poverty in the right way, Poverty and Inequality in Middle Income Countries shows how a radical switch from aid to redistribution-based social policies is needed to combat new forms of global poverty.

The People of the Abyss (1903) is a work of nonfiction by American writer Jack London. Written after the author spent three months living in London's poverty-stricken East End, The People of the Abyss bears witness to the difficulties faced by hundreds and thousands of people every day in one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Inspired by Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) and Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives, London hoped to expose the indignities faced by those left behind by industrialization. In 1902, Jack London traveled to England to live in the slums of London's East End. Hoping to learn about the lives and experiences of the city's working class, he spent three months staying in workhouses, sleeping on the streets, and lodging with a poor family in the area. Drawing on his own experience as a working-class American, and informed by his dedicated understanding of socialism, London recorded what he saw of the lives of London's poor, the hundreds of thousands of humans held back from the nation's progress toward modernization. The People of the Abyss was a popular and critical success upon publication and would inspire the young George Orwell to conduct his own research on poverty and urban life, which he recorded in his groundbreaking work Down and Out in Paris and London. Although he is known more for his contributions to fiction, London was a talented journalist whose experiences as a world traveler and worker allowed him to capture the deprivations of impoverished life while preserving a sense of humanity and advocating for much needed change. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Jack London's The People of the Abyss is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

This book represents a truly innovative and empowering approach to social problems. Instead of focusing solely on a seemingly tireless list of major problems, Sara Towe Horsfall considers how select key issues can be solved and pays particular attention to the advocate groups already on the front lines. Horsfall first provides a r

Poverty alleviation is a major objective of development. More than a fifth of the world's population lives in absolute poverty, and the majority of the poor live in rural areas. This volume studies what can be done for alleviating rural poverty. Four chapters address the measurement of poverty and inequality, including the use of household expenditure surveys and intra-household income distribution. Evidence is presented for India, Mauritania, Cte d'Ivoire and China. Other chapters present case studies on strategies for rural development: provision of rural credit in Bangladesh and India; technical change in Philippine agriculture; contract farming in Thailand; and banana growers in the Windwards. The contributions introduce the problems of rural development and show that effective rural development is assisted by investment in education and secure access to credit; that equity is important for incentives but not directly related to poverty; and that technical and institutional reform are essential, but require careful design and implementation.

This volume is an in-depth study of global food security, focused at the household level. Filled with dozens of revealing figures, charts, and tables, including a food security index that ranks developing countries in terms of their vulverability to hunger, the work provides a basic introduction to issues of food security. The work illustates that a micro-economic, grassroots approach, rooted in the self-help capacities of the poor, is not only feasable, but a productive means of enhancing food security for all.

The People of the Abyss (1903) is a work of nonfiction by American writer Jack London. Written after the author spent three months living in London's poverty-stricken East End, The People of the Abyss bears witness to the difficulties faced by hundreds and thousands of people every day in one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Inspired by Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) and Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives, London hoped to expose the indignities faced by those left behind by industrialization. In 1902, Jack London traveled to England to live in the slums of London's East End. Hoping to learn about the lives and experiences of the city's working class, he spent three months staying in workhouses, sleeping on the streets, and lodging with a poor family in the area. Drawing on his own experience as a working-class American, and informed by his dedicated understanding of socialism, London recorded what he saw of the lives of London's poor, the hundreds of thousands of humans held back from the nation's progress toward modernization. The People of the Abyss was a popular and critical success upon publication and would inspire the young George Orwell to conduct his own research on poverty and urban life, which he recorded in his groundbreaking work Down and Out in Paris and London. Although he is known more for his contributions to fiction, London was a talented journalist whose experiences as a world traveler and worker allowed him to capture the deprivations of impoverished life while preserving a sense of humanity and advocating for much needed change. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Jack London's The People of the Abyss is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

This book explores the informal (political) patronage relations between the urban poor and service delivery organisations in Mumbai, India. It examines the conditions of people in the slums and traces the extent to which they are subject to social and political exclusion. Delving into the roles of the slum-based mediators and municipal council