USA. Social research into poverty - changes in workers, family budgets, estimates of the number of poor, standards of adequacy, income distribution, characteristics of the poor, poverty among Blacks, school leavers and rural workers, living conditions and health of the poor, relation between poverty and unemployment, financing of assistance. References as footnotes. Statistical tables.
Poverty is being rediscovered as a major issue in capitalist societies. The recent emphasis on economic growth is being superseded by a concern about the distribution of income and wealth and the large and ever increasing disparities between rich and poor. The authors argue that poverty amidst affluence is both economically and politically unacceptable.This important new book attempts to provide a theoretical and empirical basis for understanding poverty issues in Britain and America. It addresses four major questions. First, how much poverty is there in Britain and the US today and how have the numbers and proportions of the poor changed during the last 30 years? Second, why are there so many people in poverty? Which of the various theories offer the best explanation? Third, why is the extent of poverty higher in the US than in Britain despite its higher economic affluence? Fourth, what kind of policies are necessary to reduce substantially the numbers of the poor? How likely are these policies to be introduced in the 1990s?Poverty Amidst Affluence offers a serious challenge to social policy in the 1990s. As the most up-to-date study of social deprivation, it will be essential reading for all students of social policy, sociology and political science interested in this very important problem.
Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.
The two leading sociologists of social stratification in Japan argue that most Japanese have attained a level of income in which they no longer suffer from poverty and starvation, a situation in which Japan has achieved an equalization of basic wealth.
The ethical question implied by discreparcies between the distribution of income and the economic foundations of our country is at the heart of much of today's political debate. The answer according to the left-and often the mainstream media-would require major changes in the way our economy functions so as to further redistribute income among households. Higher tax rates on the upper middle class and rich, more restrictive corporate regulations (including higher taxes), more centralized economic planning, in short more governmental intervention into the free market, would all be in our future-and their deleterious effects would soon begin working their way into American life, according to Paul Ryscavage in Rethinking the Income Gap. This book is written by an economist who has spent his career studying and analyzing income inequality. News reports of mushrooming fortunes, most recently among CEOs and hedge fund managers, alongside reports of a struggling middle class and an intractable poverty class, have been common topics for the nation's media. Ryscavage asserts that the media has misused many of the facts surrounding the increase in income inequality. He calls for a reexamination of the facts and what they mean and do not mean-and ultimately shows that, contrary to media reports, income inequality can no longer be used as a measure of economic fairness. He also writes that, notwithstanding the economic downturn of 2008, the "real" news that the media have not reported is the expansion in recent decades of our nation's middle class, especially the upper middle class. Ryscavage argues that we must reexamine what the income gap means. Its relevance as a measure of economic fairness has diminished significantly in recent years. Instead, the income gap is now linked to a variety of economic problems confronting the nation and used as a rhetorical device for stirring up social concern and advancing political agendas. Rethinking the income gap is overdue. This book does just that.
