Do the Poor Count?
Do the Poor Count?

Author: Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2015-11-05

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 027105056X

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Latin America’s flirtation with neoliberal economic restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s (the so-called Washington Consensus strategy) had the effect of increasing income inequality throughout the region. The aim of this economic policy was in part to create the conditions for stable democracy by ensuring efficient economic use of resources, both human and capital, but the widening gap between rich and poor threatened to undermine political stability. At the heart of the dilemma faced by these new democracies is the question of accountability: Are all citizens equally capable of holding the government accountable if it does not represent their interests? In this book, Michelle Taylor-Robinson investigates both the formal institutions of democracy (such as electoral rules and the design of the legislative and executive branches) and informal institutions (such as the nomination procedures of political parties and patron-client relationships) to see what incentives legislators have to pay attention to the needs of poor people and thereby adequately represent their interests.

Can the Poor Save?
Can the Poor Save?

Author: Mark Schreiner

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 2011-12-31

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 0202363112

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Many policymakers argue that the best poverty policy not only provides cash to the poor for subsistence but also incentives and structures that encourage long-term social and economic improvement. As part of this, they make the case for Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), a new policy proposal designed to help the poor save and to build assets. This book explores IDAs to determine their effectiveness. IDAs are matched savings accounts targeted on low-income, low-wealth individuals. Savings in IDAs are used for home ownership, post-secondary education, small business development, and other purposes. Do IDAs work? If they do, for whom? And does how an IDA is designed determine savings outcomes? This volume is the first analysis of matched savings by the poor to use data from monthly bank statements. It comes at a critical time, as debate rages over the merits of individual social security accounts. IDAs also respond to policy that is becoming more asset based and less inclusive of the poor. The authors argue for the efficacy of IDAs to counter this tendency. They find that while savings outcomes vary among participants, no characteristics (such as low income or public assistance) preclude saving. They examine effects of IDA design (the match rate, savings targets, and the use of automatic transfer) on savings results and analyze factors that influence varying rates of saving and spending over time. They conclude that financial education and other support services, though costly, improve savings performance. To address the issue of cost they suggest a two-tier system of IDA design, one with broad access and simple services and the other with targeted access and intensive services. Can the Poor Save? offers a wealth of lessons to those interested in saving and asset accumulation among the poor. It not only breaks new ground in the scientific study of savings behavior, but also offers concrete, evidence-based recommendations to improve policies designed to encourage the poor to save and how to make such policies more inclusive.

Nickel and Dimed
Nickel and Dimed

Author: Barbara Ehrenreich

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2010-04-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1429926643

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The New York Times bestselling work of undercover reportage from our sharpest and most original social critic, with a new foreword by Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity—a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. And now, in a new foreword, Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, explains why, twenty years on in America, Nickel and Dimed is more relevant than ever.

The Other America
The Other America

Author: Michael Harrington

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1997-08

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 068482678X

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Examines the economic underworld of migrant farm workers, the aged, minority groups, and other economically underprivileged groups.

The Book of the Poor
The Book of the Poor

Author: Kenan Heise

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781936863334

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"Collecting dozens of interviews conducted over 50 years to give voice to the 16 percent that live below the poverty line, journalist Kenan Heise ... addresses unemployment, prison, nutrition needs and hunger, the lives of impoverished children, panhandling, health-care struggles, the role of race in poverty, and Dumpster diving"--P. [4] of cover.

Poor Representation
Poor Representation

Author: Kristina C. Miler

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-09-20

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1108473504

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The poor are grossly underrepresented in Congress both overall and by individual legislators, even those who represent high-poverty districts.

Hand to Mouth
Hand to Mouth

Author: Linda Tirado

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2015-09-01

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0425277976

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The real-life Nickel and Dimed—the author of the wildly popular “Poverty Thoughts” essay tells what it’s like to be working poor in America. ONE OF THE FIVE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS OF THE YEAR--Esquire “DEVASTATINGLY SMART AND FUNNY. I am the author of Nickel and Dimed, which tells the story of my own brief attempt, as a semi-undercover journalist, to survive on low-wage retail and service jobs. TIRADO IS THE REAL THING.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, from the Foreword As the haves and have-nots grow more separate and unequal in America, the working poor don’t get heard from much. Now they have a voice—and it’s forthright, funny, and just a little bit furious. Here, Linda Tirado tells what it’s like, day after day, to work, eat, shop, raise kids, and keep a roof over your head without enough money. She also answers questions often asked about those who live on or near minimum wage: Why don’t they get better jobs? Why don’t they make better choices? Why do they smoke cigarettes and have ugly lawns? Why don’t they borrow from their parents? Enlightening and entertaining, Hand to Mouth opens up a new and much-needed dialogue between the people who just don’t have it and the people who just don’t get it.

Bangladesh
Bangladesh

Author: Shekhar Shah

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 1999-01-01

Total Pages: 86

ISBN-13: 9780821344149

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"Reducing poverty is the central development challenge in Bangladesh. This poverty assessment addresses several basic "counting the poor" questions: Who are the poor? How numerous are they? Where do they live? What are the characteristics of poor households? How should we measure poverty? Has poverty declined? Has inequality increased? In answering these questions this poverty assessment constructs a poverty profile for Bangladesh."Although poverty has declined in Bangladesh in the 1990s, the remaining challenges are enormous. This report is part of a long-term process of capacity building and mainstreaming of poverty analysis in Bangladesh. Its findings suggest five pillars of a possible poverty reduction strategy: • Accelerating economic growth • Promoting education for the poor • Investing in poor areas • Improved targeting of public expenditures and safety nets • Forming further partnerships with NGOs Discussions with stakeholders, NGOs, the government, poverty researchers, and other donors in Bangladesh arising from this report will help to build support for an action plan and more detailed policy and institutional changes for faster poverty reduction.

Putting Inequality in Context
Putting Inequality in Context

Author: Christopher Ellis

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2017-07-10

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0472130498

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Highlights the role of contextual factors, including class, in U.S. political inequality

The Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Poverty
The Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Poverty

Author: David Brady

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 937

ISBN-13: 0199914052

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The Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Poverty builds a common scholarly ground in the study of poverty by bringing together an international, inter-disciplinary group of scholars to provide their perspectives on the issue. Contributors engage in discussions about the leading theories and conceptual debates regarding poverty, the most salient topics in poverty research, and the far-reaching consequences of poverty on the individual and societal level.