Anti Poverty Programs

5 Key excerpts on "Anti Poverty Programs"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Public Policy in the United States

  Challenges, Opportunities, and Changes

  • Mark E Rushefsky, Mark E. Rushefsky, Mark Rushefsky(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 1 come into full play in poverty policy.

  This chapter begins by addressing the question of what poverty is and what its causes are. A statistical profile of those experiencing poverty is then presented. A portion of the chapter explores how the United States has responded to the problem over the years, focusing on fundamental changes in the nature of the poverty debate since 1969. Beginning in that year, the heart of the debate shifted from the problem of poverty and what to do about it to welfare as the problem and, in some eyes, the cause of the poverty problem. By 1995, that perspective, welfare as a cause of poverty, dominated the policy agenda.

  ANTIPOVERTY POLICY GOALS AND TOOLS

  Policy Goals

  A major goal of welfare policy is, in its broadest sense, security (Stone 2012). It is an attempt to provide—temporarily or permanently—a minimal level of assistance to those deemed worthy. Included in the category of “worthy” are the elderly (permanent assistance) and the young (temporary assistance). Another term used for this policy area is income security ; the federal government uses this category in its budget documents. If we employ this broader term, then Social Security would also be included, as we discuss later in this chapter.

  A second goal is to assist those capable of working to become fully supportive of themselves. Thus, some programs provide cash and in-kind (noncash) assistance, while others provide job training and educational assistance. A related goal of welfare policy is the desire to discourage dependence on the part of those who should be self-supporting. The tug of war between these two major goals (security/assistance and fostering independence) has affected the makeup of welfare policy over the years, with first one and then the other dominating.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  World poverty

  New policies to defeat an old enemy

  • Townsend, Peter, Gordon, David(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Policy Press

    (Publisher)

  The first European anti-poverty programme (1975-80) included nine social reports on poverty and anti-poverty policy (EC, 1981). In several member states (for example Germany, Italy) these reports spurred a new national debate and contributed to the rediscovery of poverty, mentioned above (see, for example Hauser et al, 1981). The second European anti-poverty programme (1986-89) saw action programmes and the beginning of work on the long-term establishment of social indicators (that is, poverty indicators) by Eurostat. The third programme (1990-94) established the so-called ‘observatory’ on policies to combat social exclusion, which involved a network of researchers and complemented the other observatories that the EC had already established in the social field, dealing, for example, with family policy and policies in relation to older people and social security. This programme, ‘Poverty 3’, approved following a Resolution of the European Council in 1989, attempts a multidimensional approach to poverty. It was based on three key principles – multidimensionality of activities, partnership, and participation of the population – and involved 27 model projects and 12 innovative initiatives in Europe. However, the five-year budget of 55 million ECUs (albeit more than twice the budget of the second programme) worked out at less than 1 ECU for each poor person in the European Community. Within these EC poverty programmes, the poor have been defined as “persons whose resources (material, cultural and social) are so limited as to exclude them from the minimum acceptable way of life in the member states in which they live”. This reflects the relative conception of poverty that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s; poverty was to be considered relative to the resources and general standard of living of a particular society at a particular time.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  International Social Work

  Issues, Strategies, and Programs

  • David Cox, Manohar Pawar(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 4 are also very relevant to this chapter, both at the general level and as programs and strategies capable of being adapted to poverty alleviation goals. Readers should therefore keep the contents of that chapter in mind as they read this chapter.

  Poverty Alleviation in Context

  To place the main international social work role in poverty alleviation in context, let us briefly review the key components of antipoverty campaigns in recent decades. These campaigns were intended to eradicate poverty if possible, and the Copenhagen World Summit on Social Development in 1995 stated, “We commit ourselves to the goal of eradicating poverty in the world, through decisive national actions and international cooperation, as an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind.” Similarly, the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include a commitment to halve poverty by 2015 (Goal 1, Target 1: to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day—now revised to $1.25; World Bank, 2000–2001, p. 6; UNDP, 2003, 2010).

  The most widely adopted strategy for achieving poverty reduction was macroeconomic development. As an Asian Development Bank (1999, p. 20) report on poverty stated, “The critical role of economic growth in providing the employment opportunities and government revenues necessary to tackle poverty was recognized by all countries.” (On the links between income generation and poverty reduction, with examples from the Asia-Pacific region, see UN/ESCAP, 2005, 2008.)

  In addition to economic growth per se, economic policies relating to taxation, interest rates, and inflation control are clearly also significant for poverty reduction. However, another important aspect of macroeconomic development in this context is its global focus, including the use of export industries and negotiation of trade agreements.

  While, clearly, macroeconomic strategy has achieved considerable success in overall poverty terms in many places, it has done little to benefit poor countries, poor regions within countries, and many categories of poor people (UNDP, 2002, p. 2; UNRISD, 2010a).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  A Decade of Federal Antipoverty Programs

  Achievements, Failures, and Lessons

  • Robert H. Haveman(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  15 However, so stated, this conclusion may be misleading; it could be taken to imply the unqualified success of war on poverty policies. In the face of the largely negative evaluation of the effect of many of these programs on the incomes of participants (and in the case of education and child development programs, on cognitive achievement), such an inference would seem hardly warranted. 16 It would be more accurate to say that while planned antipoverty 1 4 Estimates by Timothy Smeeding indicate that, in 1972, benefits from these programs had a high target efficiency ratio of 85 percent, contributing $8 billion to the elimination of the poverty gap. See Timothy Smeeding, Measuring the Economic Welfare of Low Income Households, and the Anti-Poverty Effectiveness of Cash and Non-Cash Transfer Programs (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1975). 1 5 The study by Timothy Smeeding has corrected census data for income misreporting, misspecification of the family unit, and the failure to include the recipient value of in-kind transfers. The corrected data convey a quite different picture regarding the reduction of income poverty than do the official data. For 1972, for example, the official data places the poverty income gap at $12 billion—about the same figure as for the mid-1960s. Smeeding's data, however, indicate a poverty gap of $5.4 billion, about 45 percent of the official figure. Moreover, the corrected poverty gap has fallen by more than 35 percent since 1968. Because of the rapid increase in in-kind transfers in recent years, the corrected gap is likely to be less than $4 billion in 1975. Similarly Smeeding's data indicate a far more rapid reduction in the number of poor families than do the official figures. A rather different view of poverty reduction is obtained, however, if a relative definition is used instead of the official absolute standard.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Social Protection in Developing Countries

  Reforming Systems

  • Katja Bender, Markus Kaltenborn, Christian Pfleiderer, Katja Bender, Markus Kaltenborn, Christian Pfleiderer(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Evaluating Anti-poverty Programs, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper WPS3625, Washington, DC: The World Bank.

  Seekings, J. (2008) The ILO and Social Protection in the Global South, 1919–2005, Report: ILO Century Project.

  Skoufias, E. (2005) Progresa and Its Impacts on the Welfare of Rural Households in Mexico, Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

  Passage contains an image

  3     The political economy of social protection reforms in developing countries

  What is to be explained and how? Katja Bender

  Introduction

  Many low- and middle-income countries are currently pursuing reforms extending the coverage of their public social protection systems. Extension of coverage happens both in scope – by including previously excluded population groups – and in depth – by revising existing benefits. Prominent policy areas include the extension of social protection in health and social assistance, in particular the extension of cash transfers.

  This current reform wave originating in the 1990s and accelerating during the past decade differs from another – partially overlapping – wave dating back to the 1980s and 1990s, when debates on social policy were closely linked to debates on economic structural reforms. Then, reforms were primarily driven by cost considerations and the need to relieve burdens on fiscal budgets. The ‘liberal welfare agenda’ was characterised by shifting the balance between public and private sectors in both financing and provision towards private involvement; reorganising the public sector itself; and on targeting social spending to the most vulnerable groups, e.g. greater emphasis on basic social services, targeted anti-poverty programmes and social safety nets (Haggard and Kaufmann 2008: 183– 185). Prominent examples include the privatisation of pension reforms in Chile and its spill-over to other Latin American countries or the introduction of user fees for health services in many African countries.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book