Reference
- PovertyPoverty is deprivation of material essentials such as food, shelter, drinking water, and clothing. It is also associated with the lack of education, freedom, and dignity. The uneven distribution of poverty at various scales, from the global to the household, via the national, regional, and local, suggests the importance of geographic factors in explaining its prevalence and understanding its nature.
- CONTEXTUAL POVERTYMost poverty research is about the poor – that is, their numbers, their characteristics, their modes of life, their spending patterns, and so on. This kind of research and policy orientation casts the poor as set off from the rest of society, which, in important ways, they are. Hence, the notions of MARGINALITY, participation blockages and EXCLUSION are significant for thinking about poverty. Another way of understanding poverty is to analyse it in relation to a society’s cultural, economic and political structures. In contextual poverty analysis the non-poor world and its institutions and their role in creating, sustaining and reducing poverty, are as important to understand as an insulated world of the poor. Within this perspective, the interaction between the poor and the non-poor is brought into focus, and poverty is seen as it is formed and treated by the non-poor world and its institutions. This important perspective has been largely neglected in research, thereby obscuring causes and processes involved in the production and continuance of poverty.
- CHILD POVERTYChild poverty should be defined and measured independently from adult, family or household poverty, yet this is rarely achieved (Middleton et al. 1997). It differs from adult poverty in that the impact of even brief spells of severe poverty can cause children permanent damage physically and mentally, stunt and distort their development and destroy opportunities for fulfilment, including the roles they are expected to play successively as they get older in family, community and society (CHIP 2004; UNICEF–IRC 2005).
Child poverty is often understood in terms of family poverty, where the child suffers poverty as a consequence of sharing the circumstances of others within the household. The issue of family poverty depends on an understanding of the position of the child in the family. The presence of children can have a substantial impact on the lifestyle of the household, partly because children have needs which have to be met from limited resources, and partly because the process of childrearing makes it difficult for some parents, particularly mothers of young children, to participate in the labour market. - POVERTY GAP INDEX (PGI)The poverty gap index has been defined as the proportionate poverty gap normalized to the total population size.
The poverty gap index includes both the incidence of poverty, the head-count index H, and the depth of poverty, the poverty gap I. The value of the index ranges between zero (nobody is poor) and H (all incomes of the poor are zero). The poverty gap index can also be interpreted as a manifestation of the potential for eliminating poverty by targeting transfers to the poor.
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Perspectives
When Helping Hurts
With more than 225,000 copies sold, When Helping Hurts is a paradigm-forming contemporary classic on the subject of poverty alleviation and ministry to those in need. Emphasizing the poverty of both heart and society, this book exposes the need that every person has and how it can be filled. The reader is brought to understand that poverty is much more than simply a lack of financial or material resources and that it takes much more than donations and handouts to solve the problem of poverty. While this book exposes past and current development efforts that churches have engaged in which unintentionally undermine the people they're trying to help, its central point is to provide proven strategies that challenge Christians to help the poor empower themselves. Focusing on both North American and Majority World contexts, When Helping Hurts catalyzes the idea that sustainable change for people living in poverty comes not from the outside-in, but from the inside-out.
Bridges Out of Poverty
"Bridges Out of Poverty is a unique and powerful tool designed specifically for social, health, and legal services professionals. Based in part on Dr. Ruby K. Payne's myth shattering A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Bridges reaches out to the millions of service providers and businesses whose daily work connects them with the lives of people in poverty. In a highly readable format you'll find case studies, detailed analysis, helpful charts and exercises, and specific solutions you and your organization can implement right now to: Redesign programs to better serve people you work with Build skill sets for management to help guide employees Upgrade training for front-line staff like receptionists, case workers, and managers; Improve treatment outcomes in health care and behavioral health care; Increase the likelihood of moving from welfare to work. If your business, agency, or organization works with people from poverty, only a deeper understanding of their challenges-and strengths-will help you partner with them to create opportunities for success"
Poverty: An International Glossary
Provides an exhaustive and authoritative guide to technical terms used in contemporary scholarly research on poverty.
The Idealist
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Bloomberg * Forbes * The Spectator Recipient of Foreign Policy's 2013 Albie Award A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end global poverty nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; nbsp;"The poor you will always have with you," to cite the Gospel of Matthew 26:11. Jeffrey Sachs--celebrated economist, special advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, and author of the influential bestsellernbsp;The End of Poverty--disagrees.nbsp; In his view, poverty is a problem that can be solved. With single-minded determination he has attempted to put into practice his theories about endingnbsp;extremenbsp;poverty, to prove that the world's most destitute people can be lifted onto "the ladder of development." nbsp; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; In 2006, Sachs launchednbsp;the Millennium Villages Project,nbsp;a daring five-year experiment designed to test his theories in Africa.nbsp;The first Millennium village was in Sauri, a remote cluster of farming communities in western Kenya. The initial results were encouraging.nbsp;With his first taste of success, and backednbsp;by one hundred twenty million dollars from George Soros and other likeminded donors,nbsp;Sachs rolled out a dozen model villages in ten sub-Saharan countries.nbsp;Once his approach was validated it would be scaled up across the entire continent. At least that was the idea. nbsp; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; For the past six years, Nina Munk has reported deeply on the Millennium Villages Project, accompanying Sachs on his official trips to Africa and listening in on conversations with heads-of-state, humanitarian organizations, rival economists, and development experts. She has immersed herself in the lives of people in two Millennium villages: Ruhiira, in southwest Uganda, and Dertu, in the arid borderland between Kenya and Somalia. Accepting the hospitality of camel herders and small-hold farmers, and witnessing their struggle to survive, Munk came to understand the real-life issues that challenge Sachs's formula for ending global poverty.nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; THE IDEALIST is the profound and moving story of what happens when the abstract theories of a brilliant, driven man meet the reality of human life.
The Minimum Wage and Labor Market Outcomes
The introduction of a search and bargaining model to assess the welfare effects of minimum wage changes and to determine an "optimal" minimum wage. In The Minimum Wage and Labor Market Outcomes, Christopher Flinn argues that in assessing the effects of the minimum wage (in the United States and elsewhere), a behavioral framework is invaluable for guiding empirical work and the interpretation of results. Flinn develops a job search and wage bargaining model that is capable of generating labor market outcomes consistent with observed wage and unemployment duration distributions, and also can account for observed changes in employment rates and wages after a minimum wage change. Flinn uses previous studies from the minimum wage literature to demonstrate how his model can be used to rationalize and synthesize the diverse results found in widely varying institutional contexts. He also shows how observed wage distributions from before and after a minimum wage change can be used to determine if the change was welfare-improving. More ambitiously, and perhaps controversially, Flinn proposes the construction and formal estimation of the model using commonly available data; model estimates then enable the researcher to determine directly the welfare effects of observed minimum wage changes. This model can be used to conduct counterfactual policy experiments--even to determine "optimal" minimum wages under a variety of welfare metrics. The development of the model and the econometric theory underlying its estimation are carefully presented so as to enable readers unfamiliar with the econometrics of point process models and dynamic optimization in continuous time to follow the arguments. Although most of the book focuses on the case where only the unemployed search for jobs in a homogeneous labor market environment, later chapters introduce on-the-job search into the model, and explore its implications for minimum wage policy. The book also contains a chapter describing how individual heterogeneity can be introduced into the search, matching, and bargaining framework.
Poverty and the Government in America: A Historical Encyclopedia
The most comprehensive encyclopedia available on the U.S. government's responses to poverty from the colonial era to the present day.
Latino Poverty in the New Century
Understand the social factors that challenge this fast-growing community The Latino community will soon be the largest minority population in the United States. Although Hispanics have been part of the American scene since before independence, their issues have only recently drawn the attention of the mainstream. Latino Poverty in the New Century takes a clear look at the reasons why poverty and inequality are still major concerns for Hispanic citizens and residents. This keen analysis examines how apparently neutral, even well-meaning social and educational policies can have a devastating effect. The interlocking consequences of language problems, educational problems, gangs, poverty, and illness become a vicious cycle. Despite pervasive patterns of discrimination and subtle barriers to achievement, the Latino community still displays its power. Latino Poverty in the New Century reveals how a faith-based community organization succeeded in adapting indigenous networks and culturally relevant sources of support and power to create a strong community presence.Latino Poverty in the New Century offers a rich, detailed analysis of the challenges that face Hispanics in the United States: the implications of US immigration policy for immigrants, refugees, and native-born Latino citizens the language barriers that can prevent Latinos from full participation in both society and educational programs health care policies and the sometimes tragic consequences of the lack of medical insurance the role of extracurricular activities in keeping Latino students in school the twin calamities known as gentrification and urban blightThis comprehensive book provides social workers and policymakers with wide-ranging analyses of some of the pressing issues and social policies that affect Hispanics in the United States. Latino Poverty in the New Century explores ways to keep Latino youth in high school, promote community organization, encourage Latinos to vote, and increase your understanding of migration dynamics. Containing current research and case studies, this valuable book will help you comprehend the challenges that Latinos face in this country and respect the gains they have made in spite of the obstacles in their way.
Poverty and Homelessness
The National Alliance to End Homelessness states that there are 564,708 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the U.S. The primary source writings in this anthology have been selected to provide your readers with a broad range of viewpoints on poverty and homelessness, including whether government assistance is working or making things worse. The essays in each chapter of this book represent contrasting viewpoints on government social assistance programs and income inequality. Students are encouraged to see the validity of divergent opinions, crucial to the development of critical thinking skills. An important question about the topic is presented in each chapter, and the viewpoints that follow are organized based on their response to the question. Fact boxes summarize important information for researchers, and an extensive bibliography is included.
Fighting Poverty Together
In this hard-hitting polemical Karnani demonstrates what is wrong with today's approaches to reducing poverty. He proposes an eclectic approach to poverty reduction that emphasizes the need for business, government and civil society to partner together to create employment opportunities for the poor.
Out of Poverty
In this impassioned and iconoclastic book Paul Polak, entrepreneur, inventor, and "pioneer of pro-poor technologies" (CNN.com) tells why mainstream poverty eradication programs have fallen so sadly short and how he and the organization he founded, International Development Enterprises, developed an approach that has already succeeded in lifting 17 million people out of poverty. Drawing on his more than twenty-five years of experience, Polak explodes what he calls the "Three Great Poverty Eradication Myths" and lays out an alternative- providing the dollar-a-day poor with innovative, low-cost tools that allow them to use the market to improve their lives. Polak tells fascinating and moving stories about the people he and IDE have helped, especially Krishna Bahadur Thapa, a Nepali farmer who went from barely surviving to becoming solidly upper middle class. Out of Poverty offers a new and promising way to end world poverty, one that honors the entrepreneurial spirit of the poor themselves.
MIT-Living Wage Calculator
- MIT-Living Wage calculatorFamilies and individuals working in low-wage jobs make insufficient income to meet minimum standards given the local cost of living. We developed a living wage calculator to estimate the cost of living in your community or region based on typical expenses. The tool helps individuals, communities, and employers determine a local wage rate that allows residents to meet minimum standards of living.
Waging Change
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WAGING CHANGE shines a light on an American struggle hidden in plain sight: the women-led movement to end the federal tipped minimum wage for restaurant workers, with a special section on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of people serving food in U.S. restaurants are paid a federal sub-minimum wage of only $2.13 an hour and are forced to depend on tips to feed themselves and their families. Women, who hold two-thirds of all tip-based jobs, are especially affected. Their reliance on tips leads to pervasive gender discrimination, sexual assault, and sexual harassment at the hands of customers, coworkers, and bosses - and leaves them with very little ability to speak up.
Online Articles
- The Ethics of the Living Wage: A Review and Research AgendaTo date, business ethicists, corporate social responsibility scholars as well as management theorists have been slow to provide a comprehensive and critical scrutiny of the Living Wage concept. The aim of this article, therefore, is to conceptualize the living wage (LW) in its philosophical as well as practical dimensions in order to open up the ethical implications of its introduction and implementation by companies. We set out the legal, socio-institutional and economic contexts for the debates around the LW and review arguments for, and against, it...
- The Living Wage - Policy And PracticeA recent development in addressing the longstanding problem of low pay in the United Kingdom has been the emergence of a social campaign for a ‘living wage’. Using a case study approach this article explores an employer's decision to pay the living wage that, in turn, provided both challenges and opportunities for the unions in their dealings with contractors.
- The living wage gap—a quantitative measure of poverty in global supply chainsThis paper explores the definition of fairness and reviews recent developments for methods, data and models for the social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) fair salary subcategory indicator. The living wage gap (LWG) is proposed as a new indicator for quantifying poverty in global supply chains, with particular relevance to sustainable development goal (SDG) 1 no poverty. Methods Ethical theories and existing S-LCA fair salary methods are reviewed to define arguments and limitations for defining a fair salary. The LWG is then expressed as a S-LCA fair salary subcategory indicator following existing typologies. The computational structure of the LWG is defined using existing methods for the living wage, value added and the Leontief price model...
- The Rise of American Minimum Wages, 1912–1968This paper studies the judicial, political, and intellectual battles over minimum wages from the early state laws of the 1910s through the peak in the real federal minimum in 1968. Early laws were limited to women and children and were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court between 1923 and 1937. The first federal law in 1938 initially exempted large portions of the workforce and set rates that became effectively obsolete during World War II.
- Standard of Living as a Right, Not a Privilege: Is It Time to Change the Dialogue from Minimum Wage to Living Wage?Dating back to the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued that workers were entitled to a wage that allowed them to enjoy a decent standard of living—a conviction that led the president to propose the first federally‐mandated minimum wage. Mr. Roosevelt’s proposal was met with highly partisan resistance in congress and the courts—reactions not different in kind from the highly partisan resistance former President Obama experienced in his proposal to increase the federal minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 per hour.
Socioenvironmental Maps—Poverty
Paycheck to Paycheck
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowFilmed in Chattanooga, TN, PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK: THE LIFE & TIMES OF KATRINA GILBERT is a personal journey that follows a year in the life of Katrina Gilbert, a 30-year-old woman earning just above the minimum wage as a certified nursing assistant.
Katrina never expected to be a single mother of three young children, living paycheck to paycheck and barely scraping by. But after leaving her husband Jeremy - whose addiction to painkillers destroyed their marriage and gutted their finances - Katrina finds herself living in a trailer and providing sole support to her children: Brooklynn, Lydia and Trent. Overworked, underpaid and uninsured, Katrina's saving graces are a budding relationship with Chris, a single father facing similar circumstances, and the Chambliss Center, a subsidized day-care center that provides affordable daycare.
Online Resources
- About Poverty in the U.S. PopulationFollowing the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Statistical Policy Directive 14, the Census Bureau uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is in poverty. If a family's total income is less than the family's threshold, then that family and every individual in it is considered in poverty.
- History of Changes to the Minimum Wage LawEarly in the administration of the FLSA, it became apparent that application of the statutory minimum wage was likely to produce undesirable effects upon the economies of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands if applied to all of their covered industries. Consequently on June 26, 1940, an amendment was enacted prescribing the establishment of special industry committees to determine, and issue through wage orders, the minimum wage levels applicable in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The rates established by industry committees could be less than the statutory rates applicable elsewhere in the United States.
- History of Federal Minimum Wage Rates Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 - 2009The table of federal minimum wage rates under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 - 2009 is also available in a PDF Version . In order to view and/or print PDF documents you must have a PDF viewer (e.g., Adobe Acrobat Reader v5 or later ) available on your workstation.
- Minimum WageThe federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees is $7.25 per hour.
Many states also have minimum wage laws. In cases where an employee is subject to both the state and federal minimum wage laws, the employee is entitled to the higher of the two minimum wages. - United States Census: America CountsStories about Poverty
The Line: Poverty in America
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowPoverty in America is probably not what you think. Emmy Award-winning producer Linda Midgett shows us in this groundbreaking documentary a new face of poverty in America. About 50 million people in the United States live below the poverty line (In 2014- $23,850 for a family of 4) and one in four American children lives in poverty. But what is poverty in America? What defines "the line" and how can the church and community make a difference?