Poverty in the US

11 Key excerpts on "Poverty in the US"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Poverty

  An International Glossary

  • Paul Spicker, Sonia Alvarez Leguizamón, David Gordon, Paul Spicker, Sonia Alvarez Leguizamón, David Gordon(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Zed Books

    (Publisher)

  Debates on poverty have been bedevilled by an artificial academic formalism, which has insisted that there must be an agreed core of meaning, that contradictory examples showed that certain uses were ‘right’ while others were ‘wrong’, and that disagreement was based not in a difference of interpretation or the focus of concern, but in a failure to understand the true nature of the problem. Poverty does not, however, have a single meaning. It has a series of meanings, linked through a series of resemblances.

  TWELVE DEFINITIONS

  In the social sciences poverty is commonly understood in at least twelve discrete senses. The senses overlap; many of the main protagonists in the debate take two or three positions simultaneously. They are discrete because they can be logically separated, so that circumstances which apply in one sense do not necessarily apply in others.

  POVERTY AS A MATERIAL CONCEPT The first group of definitions concern poverty as a material concept. People are poor because they do not have something they need, or because they lack the resources to get the things they need.

  NEED    The first set of definitions understands poverty as a lack of material goods or services. People ‘need’ things like such as food, clothing, fuel or shelter. Vic George writes:

  poverty consists of a core of basic necessities as well as a list of other necessities that change over time and place. (George 1988 : 208)

  Baratz and Grigsby refer to poverty as

  a severe lack of physical and mental well-being, closely associated with inadequate economic resources and consumption. (Baratz and Grigsby 1971 : 120)

  The factors which go to make up well-being include ‘welfare’ values, including self-esteem, aspirations, and stigma and ‘deference’ values, including aspects of status and power. These views stem from apparently opposed positions: George is advocating an ‘absolute’ view of poverty, Baratz and Grigsby a ‘relative’ view. But these are interpretations of the social construction of need, not different definitions of poverty. Both agree that poverty is a lack of something, and they are largely agreed on what is lacking. The main disagreement is about the source and foundation of the needs.

  A PATTERN OF DEPRIVATION    Not every need can be said to be equivalent to poverty, and there are several interpretations of what makes up poverty. Some interpretations emphasize certain kinds of need, like hunger and homelessness, as particularly important. Some emphasize the seriousness of the deprivations that are experienced: food and shelter are often seen as more important than entertainments and transport (though there may still be grounds to consider people who are deprived of entertainments and transport as ‘poor’). The duration of circumstances is potentially important: a person can be homeless because of a natural disaster, but still be able to command sufficient resources to ensure that needs are met, and met rapidly. Poverty generally refers not just to deprivation, but to deprivation experienced over a period of time (Spicker 1993

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Dollarisation of Poverty: Rethinking Poverty Beyond 2015

  Rethinking Poverty Beyond 2015

  • Palash Kamruzzaman(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Pivot

    (Publisher)

  1 but also a form of social and psychological deprivation occurring when people lack ownership, control or access to resources to maintain minimum levels of living (Like-Minded Group, 1990; McCarthy and Feldman, 1988). Poverty is neither a result of something for which the poor people are responsible, nor is it a natural fact; it is a social experience (Green and Hulme, 2005). Lewis (1962) observes that poverty has often seemed as a natural and integral part of a whole way of life, intimately related to poor technology and/or poor resources or both. Poverty may also involve class antagonism and a wide range of social problems but not necessarily define a class or any other ‘identity’ group based on shared territory or culture (Hickey and Bracking, 2005). It is also argued that poverty originates in social injustice rather than it being a mere consequence of scarcity of resources. When injustice is institutionalised in the social, political, legal and economic structures of a society and someone or a group of people become or stay poor, this refers to a structural social consequence (Ferge and Millar, 1987; Sobhan, 2002). Bearing these diverse backgrounds in mind, the following passages outline how poverty has been conceptualised by different scholars from assorted perspectives. For example, poverty can be perceived in monetary terms, comprising absolute and relative forms; through a capabilities approach; in terms of inequalities and social exclusion; chronic poverty can be distinguished from less severe poverty; there is a participatory approach; and then it can be described from a multidimensional perspective.

  2.2   Looking at poverty though multiple lenses

  Traditionally, the measurement, assessment and analysis of poverty are linked primarily with one’s income or consumption. This may be because such an approach enjoys the advantage of simplicity (Anand and Sen, 1997) based on the assumption that money is a universally convertible asset that can be translated into satisfying all other needs (Scott, 2002: 488; Ahuvia, 2008) – a view that is fundamentally different from the common saying of money cannot buy everything . However, it is observed that monetary approach to poverty is most widely used in development literature (Clarke, 2008). Other than its intuitive attractiveness, this is largely due to its long-term application, dating back to the earliest work on poverty in England during the 19th century. Monetary approach in understanding poverty can be applied both in absolute and in relative terms. An absolute measure of poverty is very popular. This refers to subsistence below a minimum, socially acceptable level, usually based on nutritional requirements and other essential goods. According to Roach and Roach (1972: 21–22), there will be little disagreement that persons who are so deprived that their physical survival is threatened are to be considered poor. Rowntree’s work has been described as the benchmark study of poverty in this regard (Laderchi et al., 2003; Alcock, 1993). Rowntree (1941) asserted poverty as not having enough to get by, and proposed a poverty line2

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Geography of United States Poverty

  Patterns of Deprivation, 1980-1990

  • Wendy Shaw(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  III United States Poverty and Its Definition and Measurement BACKGROUND Historical Poverty Levels

  Poverty is a persistent problem within the United States (Anon 1989; Rubinstein 1989; Ropers 1991) and, as both Peet (1972) and Plotnick (1975) comment, absolute poverty due to insufficient nutrition still exists within the nation. Hunger, as evidenced by breadlines, is faced by some citizens everyday within the general affluence of the United States (Kodras 1992). Despite overall affluence in terms of both resources and wealth, the achievement of such affluence has persistently eluded a significant segment of American society (Burton 1992). Herbert Hoover’s optimistic proclamation, made in 1928, that the day was “in sight” when poverty would be “banished in this nation” has proven to be far from reality some sixty five years later. This failure to banish poverty comes despite public awareness of the problem and the “War on Poverty” declared by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

  There has been considerable progress toward eradicating absolute poverty such as is relatively common in some of the world’s poorest countries. Absolute poverty is manifest in such things as severe malnutrition and lack of basic resources needed to sustain life. However, little progress has been made in addressing relative poverty. Relative poverty is defined by the values, norms, and general level of affluence of society, and people are considered poor when they fail to live at some generally accepted standard (Quibria 1991). Relative poverty is still widespread; moreover, it is only the growth of transfer payments that has prevented an increase (Smolensky 1981–82; Greenstein 1985). Since the political leadership in the 1980s with its ideological opposition to welfare curtailed many transfer payments, poverty is once more affecting increasing numbers of Americans (Dobelstein 1987; Tootle 1989). Moreover, it can be convincingly argued that many who live above the official poverty level experience extreme deprivation; thus the number of poor Americans may be even larger than official statistics suggest.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Social Assistance in Developing Countries

  • Armando Barrientos(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  These are the main themes of this chapter. The literature on poverty concepts and measurement is vast and growing, and the materials in this chapter provide a selective take on these. 4 The interest in this chapter is in what these notions of poverty entail for social assistance programmes in developing countries. Some of the materials are highly technical, but the presentation is aimed at a well-informed, interested readership. The additional notes in the Annex, and the references throughout the text, provide an entry point to readers interested in following up on the more technical literature. What is poverty? Poverty describes significant deficits in well-being considered unaccept- able in a given polity. Well-being, or welfare, is what makes our lives go well. There are competing perspectives on the informational basis of well-being. Some find it in the resources at the disposal of individuals or 3 On the importance of poverty measurement more broadly, the following is illuminating: ‘Booth’s description of poverty in a completely statistical way was, in a sense, conceptually liberating. His definition of poverty as an inadequate number of calories per day, based on a scientific analysis of the average adult’s daily energy need, allowed poverty to be identified, measured and possibly alleviated’ (Davis, 1979: 96). 4 For comprehensive treatments of poverty concepts and measurements, see Atkinson (1987), Chakravarty (2009), Duclos and Araar (2004), Haughton and Khandker (2009) and Sen (1997a). 46 Foundations households, or their monetary equivalent. Wealthier households are those with command over large quantities of resources or income. Households in poverty are those with low incomes. Some argue that the informational basis of well-being is utility – what people themselves consider to be valuable or to bring them happiness; this is usually referred to as a welfarist perspective (Sen and Williams, 1982).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Empowerment Series: An Introduction to the Profession of Social Work

  • Elizabeth Segal, Karen Gerdes, Sue Steiner, , Elizabeth Segal, Karen Gerdes, Sue Steiner(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  POVERTY AND ECONOMIC DISPARITY 73 be considered relatively poor. A relative scale begins with agreement about the level of economic resources the average person should have and then uses that standard to determine who has enough and who does not (see Box 3.1). An absolute line, once it is set, is easier to use than a changeable relative comparison. It is difficult to get people to agree about what things are ne-cessities and what things are extras. A person who has little income while he or she is attending college may be poor temporarily, but education and the attainment of a college degree may provide a wealth of future opportunities. A television may seem like a luxury, but for a poor elderly person who has no family or transportation, the entertainment and information on television can be essential to well-being. The Official Definition of Poverty The definition of poverty used by federal and state governments is an absolute measure. It is important because it is often used to determine eligibility for social service programs. The measure is referred to as the poverty threshold or the poverty line. Many assumptions went into developing the poverty threshold. The Social Security Administration (SSA), which at the time was responsible for oversee-ing social service programs designed to address the problem of poverty, set the line in 1963. The SSA tried to determine the minimum amount of income a family would need in order to maintain itself. Although there was an attempt to be objective and scientific, the SSA director responsible for the definition stated that “the standard itself is admittedly arbitrary, but not unreasonable. It is based essentially on the amount of income remaining after allowance for an adequate diet at minimum cost” (Orshansky, 1965, p. 4). Today, the poverty threshold is set by the US Census Bureau and is used for statistical purposes.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The SAGE Handbook of Measurement

  • Geoffrey Walford, Eric Tucker, Madhu Viswanathan, Geoffrey Walford, Eric Tucker, Madhu Viswanathan(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Social science can also provide the conceptual and technical tools to devise poverty thresholds that turn social realities into political ones. We believe that social scientists have an obligation so to do. Social science may also be able to help in the specification of polices most likely to be effective in reducing poverty. However, what social science can never do is to end the debate about what poverty is and what should be done about it. NOTES 1 Note, though, that a different question was asked of Americans. 2 The difference between hardship and well-being is discussed below. Suffice to say that the dimensions on which hardship is measured give greater weight to the concerns of those who define themselves to be in hardship. Empirically hardship and wellbeing are likely to be negatively correlated with each other. 3 Strictly ‘hardship’. 4 Limitations of space cause us to prioritise the role of time rather than space in shaping the nature of poverty. 5 Relative poverty lines used to be fixed in relation to mean income which proved to be very susceptible to high outliers. The mean is sometimes still used by the OECD since it imposes less stringent data requirements. 6 Atkinson (1995), though, prefers income to expenditure because he is concerned to promote the human right to adequate minimum resources rather than living standards per se. 7 This could be achieved by changing the distri-bution of primarily labour market income, (perhaps by a minimum wage or a cap on high salaries), secondary incomes by means of progressive direct and indirect taxation) or tertiary incomes via targeting services differentially towards people with low incomes. 8 Recession can have the opposite effect as happened in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 9 These composite measures are less sensitive to increasing inequality often associated with economic growth. 10 A proposal to do this is currently being developed by the authors.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Applied Developmental Science

  An Advanced Textbook

  • Richard M. Lerner, Francine Jacobs, Donald Wertlieb, Richard M. Lerner, Francine Jacobs, Donald Wertlieb(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  As we will see, different C H A P T E R lines of social science inquiry rely on different definitions of poverty, and we briefly consider these different definitions within our review. Next, we consider developmental mechanisms through which family economic hardship may translate into negative conse-quences for children, so that a template for different avenues of intervention can be clearly drawn from important emerging research. We develop a framework to con-sider ways in which the United States has attempted to address poverty’s effects on children through diverse family- and child-focused federal programs. We end by identi-fying several remaining obstacles to effective child poverty reduction programs. At the outset, we acknowledge that during recent years more of the responsibility for designing poverty reduction programs within federal mandates has devolved to individual states. Because no two states are alike in how they implement federal policies (Cauthen, Knitzer, & Ripple, 2000; Meyers, Gornick, & Peck, 2001), we focus herein on federal laws and programs so as to reflect the national priorities that guide state- and community-level programs. DETERMINING THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM: DEFINING AND OPERATIONALIZING POVERTY During recent years, there has been mounting controversy on the issue of how to define and measure poverty. The United States uses what is called an “absolute” measure of poverty in that there is an imaginary poverty “line” that demarcates the poor from the nonpoor. In contrast, European and other nations use a relative measure by which families are considered poor only in relation to the median income for their country. Complements to both of these standards are subjective measures that reflect how a given family’s standard of living compares with that of others in their country or region.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Ending Poverty As We Know It

  Guaranteeing A Right To A Job

  • William Quigley(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Temple University Press

    (Publisher)

  A New Definition of Poverty 45 fully inadequate because it does not reflect our national aspirations or commitments. I do not here propose a specific formula for a new definition of pov-erty. Poverty is not just numbers. While numbers will be involved, they must be numbers that reflect the basic realities of what it takes for people to support not only themselves but also their families. While specifics are important and will be as controversial as are all important ideas, there is opportunity enough to set the specifics after a new common national understanding of what it means to be poor emerges. There are, however, several basic elements that must be incorporated into any new understanding of poverty. First, our understanding must be built on a foundation of justice and fairness. Second, we must as a nation be willing to take our national aspira-tions and commitments seriously. Third, we must look at a general understanding of what is necessary in order for each of us to lead lives based on those principles. Fourth, we must exhibit a willingness to be resourceful and accept change in determining how these rights are to be implemented. Finally, and most important, we must recognize that if we truly be-lieve that all humans are entitled to human dignity, then each must be given a realistic opportunity to be self-supporting in order to become self-sufficient. A right to self-determination and a right to the means to self-suffi-ciency are consistent with our own national goals, with our declared international goals, and with our religious beliefs based on natural law. We can begin from the national goals that we all hold in common, ones that shaped us from the beginning.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The SAGE Handbook of Sociology

  • Craig Calhoun, Chris Rojek, Bryan S Turner, Craig Calhoun, Chris Rojek, Bryan S Turner(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  In other words, the poor will always be with us – but to greater or lesser degrees depending on how unequally income and wealth is distributed. This is one of the ways that wealth creates poverty – by ratcheting up the social definition of necessity. Theorists who are of the view that all poverty is relational have argued for the implementa-tion of relative measures of poverty, most fre-quently operationalized by considering anyone with less than one-half the median income to be poor alternatively, researchers use a cut-off of 40 per cent of the median income (Fuchs, 1967; see also Rainwater, 1974). This sort of measure has become standard in the literature on international comparisons of poverty rate, since it provides an obvious yardstick that is commensurable across nations. However, it really measures income inequality at the bot-tom half of the distribution. When using a poverty line set at 40 per cent of the median income of a given country, a comparison of poverty rates among developed nations reveals that the United States is indeed a laggard with respect to the rest of the devel-oped world. Just less than 11 per cent (10.7) of the US population enjoys incomes less than 40 per cent of the median. The next closest country is Australia, with a rate of 7 per cent, Canada at 6.6 per cent and the United Kingdom at 5.7 per cent (Smeeding et al., 2000: Table 2). (If we use the US poverty line and compare countries, we find that Australia and the United Kingdom have higher poverty THE CONCEPTUALIZATION AND STUDY OF THE POOR 329 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIOLOGY rates – 17.6 and 15.7 per cent, respectively, as compared to the 13.6 per cent figure for the US in the mid-1990s; Smeeding et al., 2000: Table 1). What is striking is that all of the countries that are the worst when it comes to relative income distributions are of Anglo origin – following cultural lines rather than geographical ones.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Economic Inequality and Poverty

  International Perspectives

  • Lars Osberg(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Summarizing, although welfare is theoretically the best basis for a poverty line definition, in practice both the measurement problems and the essentially subjective nature of welfare cause a new set of problems. To some extent, however, these latter problems are implicitly present in all poverty line definitions, and only made more explicit in poverty line definitions aiming to be a proxy for welfare. Human behavior, as well as the evaluation of one's situation in terms of welfare or utility, varies because of many reasons, not only because of differences in command over resources. Which of these reasons should be considered relevant for the purpose of a poverty definition? However this question is answered, every selection will result in a difference between the population of poor according to the criteria chosen and the population of poor according to their subjective welfare. In order to analyze this difference, it is therefore always advisable to obtain information on both subjective evaluations and objective conditions of households.

  1.4. Does the Choice of Definition Matter?

  In the paragraphs above the advantages and disadvantages of a number of poverty definitions are discussed. If, however, the differences between these poverty definitions in practical research are relatively small, this discussion would be only of theoretical value, without much relevance for poverty research or policy. In this section I will therefore review empirical studies in which the composition and size of the population of poor is compared, using different definitions of poverty.

  The relevance of the choice of money income versus a more comprehensive measure of economic status is demonstrated in work by Garfinkel and Haveman (1977a, 1977b). They compare the composition of the population of poor (both households and individuals) based on the current income poverty line to the composition of the poor based on their index of "earnings capacity."

  According to the current income poverty line, households in which the main breadwinner is black, full-time working, and has a low level of education are underrepresented, as are large families. Older people and farmers, on the other hand, are overrepresented in the population of poor according to the current income poverty line.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Society on the Edge

  Social Science and Public Policy in the Postwar United States

  • Philippe Fontaine, Jefferson D. Pooley(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  It was “too static, somehow locked up in the distant youth of the grandparental generation,” Townsend wrote. 59 Many of their American counterparts agreed. Notable among the issues singled out for criticism were the very features that made the Orshansky poverty line attractive to the research and planning officers at the OEO. One problem was that it was wedded to an old-fashioned concept of basic subsistence, leaving no room to acknowledge changing standards of living or need. Another was its failure to recognize the importance of a whole host of nonmonetary resources – education, benefits, capital assets, access to legal representation, and social services – that were increasingly part of the basic requirements of social citizenship, and were just as unequally distributed as income. Most problematic was its reliance on a concept of absolute rather than relative deprivation, creating the illusion that poverty was confined to an identifiable and stable class of people rather than itself a hazard of market economies, and ignoring the fact that it was rooted in inequitable distributions of income, resources, and power. 58 O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge, 182–85 and Huret, Experts’ War on Poverty, 131–44. 59 Townsend, “Introduction,” x. Poverty 163 Beneath the surface of these mostly under-the-radar debates were deepening tensions that could not be mapped onto the frequently referenced Fitzgerald/Hemingway divide: between those who continued to treat poverty as a problem that could be fixed within the existing distributional system and those who insisted that the problem was the system of distribution itself.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book