Poverty & Public Policy

Scholarly Support for Social Security: A Political History of Prevailing Beliefs, and of the Growing Number of Works Demonstrating that the "Conventional" Often Is Not "Wisdom"

Max J. Skidmore — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:59:45 PST

Max J. Skidmore examines the current "conventional wisdom" regarding Social Security, and discusses a dozen of the growing number of books countering prevailing beliefs. He demonstrates that the "conventional" often is not "wisdom," but rather received dogma inspired by well-financed special interests.

Privatisation as Proxy of Distribution: Is it possible? (The Justice Shares Mass Privatisation Case of Iran)

Tohid Atashbar — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:59:42 PST

Through a privatisation scheme called the "Justice Shares Plan," the Iranian government has privatised many state-owned companies via dividing and distributing shares among low-income families. This study explains and evaluates the government’s plan from different aspects. The findings show that the share-based mass privatisation initiative hasn’t achieved its performance-enhancing goals in privatised companies. The study also finds that the plan has slightly reduced the income inequality. The plan eventually could not continue to disburse dividends to stock holders due to financial and legislative difficulties.

Social Security: A New Paradigm for Reducing American Poverty

Andrew W. Dobelstein — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:59:40 PST

Although not characterized as a program designed to address the problems of poverty, Social Security, the linchpin of America’s social welfare enterprise, impacts poverty more significantly than most of the usually identified anti-poverty programs. For examples, more children receive Social Security benefits than those on welfare, and Social Security payments are modified to provide low income earners with proportionately higher benefits than their higher earning counterparts.

Affirming the validity of Social Security the recent National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform represents a changed environment for Social Security policy development, and it has proposed several Social Security initiatives that would expand its reach more deeply into the jungle of poverty.

Recognizing the limitations of existing social welfare anti-poverty programs, collapsing the cash assistance functions of these programs into Social Security would contribute significantly to reducing poverty in the United States. Such an endeavor, however, would not only require a realignment of America’s social welfare programs, but would increase the fiscal burdens born by Social Security. Such proposals could reduce the poverty rate by 3 percent or more, but they also call further attention to the failure of the payroll tax to sustain not only current Social Security commitments, let alone satisfy any further obligations Social Security might assume by virtue of its expanded role.

This paper provides the gateway for further study of the poverty reducing potential of Social Security.

The Effects of Combined Marginal Tax Rates on the Working Poor: Evidence from the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation

Paul D. Trampe — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:59:37 PST

Most works that have been done concerning the effects on work effort of the income based phase-out of assistance programs have been specific to one program or another. Most theorists believe, however, that the primary issue is the marginal tax rates faced by those facing the phase-out of several programs at once. This paper examines data from the Current Population Survey from 1993-2006 and the first four phases of the Survey of Income and Program Participation from 1993, 1996 and 2001 to study the effect on hours worked for those losing benefits from several different programs as a percentage of additional income and in particular to look for a delayed effect. It finds a small but significant effect and also finds evidence that the effect is partially delayed as recipients become aware of their own marginal tax rates slowly over time.

Social Welfare Policy and the Psychological Needs of Low Income Women

Martha J. Markward et al. — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:59:34 PST

This manuscript analyzes policy that addresses the psychological needs of low income women, especially those on welfare. The sociopolitical model of policy analysis was used to examine the social, political, and economic context for addressing the psychological needs of low income women. Within the context of progressive physical and mental health enactments, the analysis examines the causes of psychological needs among poor women, the approaches that have been used to address the needs of poor women, and the need for policy that can result in service delivery systems and service provision to meet the psychological needs of low income women. The results of the analysis suggest the need for policy that allows for an umbrella approach to screening women on welfare for mental health issues and providing services that are not attached to financial eligibility or child welfare involvement.

Social Justice, Social Welfare and Devolution: Nationalism and Social Policy Making in Scotland

Gerry Mooney et al. — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:59:31 PST

Constitutional change in the UK in 1998 led to the establishment of devolution for Scotland, and the Scottish Parliament was reconvened in 1999 after a gap of nearly 300 years. Devolution promised the development of policies that were more in tune with ‘Scottish needs’, and was heralded as delivering ‘Scottish solutions for Scottish problems’. Now with a Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) Government in power in Edinburgh committed to greater devolution for Scotland and with a goal of full independence for Scotland, it is timely to assess the ways in which the SNP have approach the question of social policy – and more specifically poverty and inequality. While key areas of social welfare policy, notable in relation to benefits, employment policy and most areas of taxation remain reserved to the UK parliament in London, the Scottish Parliament enjoys powers over most areas of social policy as they affect Scotland: health, housing, education, community development, regeneration and criminal justice. This paper considers some of the main influences on SNP policy making, and in particular explores its concern to develop policies that promote solidarity, cohesion and fairness. However, these are secondary to a strategy which promotes economic growth and Scottish economic competitiveness. The paper also considers the importance of nationalism for the analysis of social welfare arguing that social policy making is often central to nation building, and particularly so in the context of multi-national devolution of the kind that has developed in the UK and elsewhere in recent times.

Social Theory and Poverty Reduction with Special Attention to Nigeria: Social-Institutional Explanation of Small-Scale Financial Institutions

Osaore Aideyan — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:59:28 PST

Do institutions and social capital provide a viable means for advancing the goals of poverty reduction programs in low capacity states? This question has particular importance for Nigeria and Africa as a whole because of the poor performance of poverty reduction programs despite domestic and global efforts to reduce poverty in the continent. In this paper, I assess the usefulness of the informational aspects of the new institutional economics and the social network method of social capital paradigm in reducing access, information and monitoring costs faced by the poor and service providers of micro-credit institutions in Nigeria. The general proposition of this paper is that poverty reduction can be promoted on the one hand, by designing programs to reflect some regularities (formal and informal rules and regulations) which best enhance benefits and mitigate costs faced by the poor for obtaining services, and on the other hand a mobilization of cohesive social relationships based on existing networks of semiautonomous units, that substitute for weak enforcement of contracts to reduce the service delivery costs to the poor.

How Do States' Safety Net Policies Affect Poverty?

Laura Wheaton et al. — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:59:24 PST

How do state safety net policies affect poverty? Safety net policies can dramatically reduce poverty. A full assessment requires use of a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) that adds near-cash benefits and tax credits to cash income, deducts necessary expenses, and uses up-to-date, geographically-sensitive poverty thresholds. This analysis implements the SPM in Georgia, Illinois, and Massachusetts to examine the effects of the key safety net programs on poverty. The results show that safety net policies in these three states have substantially different effects on poverty, but federal programs reduce poverty differences across the states.

Citizens or Objects: A Case Study in News Coverage of Poverty

Andrew R. Cline — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:59:22 PST

There exists in the minds of American newspaper journalists a group called the “general audience,” and it is this group that journalists believe they serve by covering the news. The general audience ostensibly includes all citizens -- the assumption being that all citizens are politically equal and are, therefore, served by a common understanding of the news created by a standardized reporting and writing process. But the needs of poor and working class are largely left out of the news because journalists see the utility of journalism in middle class terms and treat the poor as objects of reporting rather than as citizens. This essay explores the case of the Springfield News-Leader, a daily newspaper in the Gannett chain, serving Springfield, Missouri -- a small city in the southwest corner of the state -- for the purpose of discovering what opportunities exist as a part of normal news coverage to serve the poor and working class.

Editor's Letter

Max J. Skidmore — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:59:17 PST

Editor-in-Chief Max J. Skidmore shares his introductory thoughts about the fourth issue of PPP's Third Volume.

Book Review of A Dream Deferred: How Social Work Education Lost Its Way and What Can Be Done

Brij Mohan — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:39:33 PDT

Brij Mohan, Dean Emeritus at Louisiana State University and a member of Poverty and Public Policy's editorial board, reviews this book that is centered around the state of education in the social work field.

Assisting the Working Poor in the USA

Max J. Skidmore — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:39:31 PDT

Max J. Skidmore reviews Boosting Paychecks: The Politics of Supporting America’s Working Poor, by Daniel P. Gitterman.

Book Review of Rethinking Ecomomic Recovery: A Global Green New Deal

Mona M. Lyne — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:39:27 PDT

Mona M. Lyne reviews Rethinking Economic Recovery: A Global Green New Deal by Edward B. Barbier. The author examines the power of an extraordinary economic crisis to politically engage the winds of change in the realm of global energy dependence.

Provident Funds Pension Programs in English-Speaking Sub-Saharan Africa: A Look in the Rear Mirror and Lessons for the Future

Michael W. Kpessa — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:39:23 PDT

Pension reform has been on the social policy agenda in many countries throughout the world since the mid-1980s. The main debate has been whether to transform existing defined benefit pay-as-you-go (PAYG) social insurance programs into private pension plans based on defined contributions or maintains them. While many countries throughout the world especially those in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe have opted for private pensions involving the partial or full replacement of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) state pensions by systems of privately managed individual retirement accounts, pension reforms in English-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries have focused on converting post-independence defined contributions schemes known as provident funds into defined benefit PAYG social insurance schemes particularly from the 1990s. This paper analyzes the previous experience of English-speaking SSA countries with provident funds and show that pension plans that are designed on the principles of defined contribution are evidently venerable to several socio-economic and political factors especially in the context of developing countries. The paper provides useful lessons for countries like Ghana and Nigeria that have recently re-introduce defined contribution pension plans.

Does Paying Taxes Improve the Quality of Governance? Cross-Country Evidence

Yener Altunbas et al. — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:39:19 PDT

A growing economics literature argues that taxation can strengthen the quality of governance and public sector institutions by making governments more responsive and accountable to their citizens, building capacity, and improving public policy. In this paper, we provide some empirical support for this view. Using data on a cross-section of developed and developing countries, we find that taxation improves the quality of governance and that those taxes that are borne most directly by citizens are the most important in improving governance. Our results are robust to different estimation methodologies, to variations in the country sample, and to controlling for the influence of variables that have been identified as affecting the quality of governance. The results suggest that policies aimed at mobilizing tax revenues may be justified based on the greater accountability of government that may result.

A Human Basis for Sustainable Development: How Psychosocial Change at the Individual Level Promotes Development

Susan Pick et al. — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:38:59 PDT

Sociocultural and economic limitations often deprive individuals of the freedoms to make decisions regarding their lives, hindering development. This article presents the Framework for Enabling Empowerment (FrEE), a model that emphasizes the importance of psychosocial factors and the individual in accessing freedoms and promoting health, productivity, and sustainable human development. FrEE is theoretically based in Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach. Explaining the synergy between the context, the person, and psychosocial factors, FrEE provides a strategy to achieve the expansion of individual choice and freedoms. The authors present FrEE and its relationship to Sen’s theories and explain how FrEE makes the Capability Approach operative. Finally the authors draw on empirical program evaluations in Mexico to discuss FrEE’s potential impact on the field of human development.

Determining Eligibility for Poverty-Based Assistance Programs: Comparing the Federally Established Poverty Level with the Self Sufficiency Standard for Pennsylvania

Åsa Mukhopadhyay et al. — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:38:44 PDT

Because the official U.S. poverty level is too low to adequately assess need for assistance among low income households, assistance agencies set eligibility levels to multiples of the poverty level, such as 125 or 150 percent. The Self Sufficiency Standard provides an alternative measurement that accounts for many characteristics of modern society and geographical differences in cost of living. We use both measures to examine eligibility levels for customers seeking payment arrangements for their utility bill arrearage. Sensitivity analyses reveal that the two methods are in the greatest agreement when the poverty level is adjusted to 185 percent. We conclude that the Standard is a more accurate assessment of poverty and the need for assistance, but is unlikely to be politically feasible. Given this, we see it as a useful tool for determining the appropriate multiple of the official poverty level to use in setting eligibility levels for assistance programs.

Desperate or Deviant? Causes of Criminal Behavior among TANF Recipients

Lindsay M. Monte et al. — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:38:04 PDT

As state welfare rolls declined significantly throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, female criminality was on the rise. Under these circumstances, we examine the links between gender, welfare receipt, financial hardship and crime. We ask, did the 1996 welfare reform legislation affect the criminal behavior of current and former recipients? Does going off welfare increase the likelihood of committing an offense, as many critics of the reform argued that it would? Or is there more crime among women who remain on the rolls, as the culture of dependency argument suggests? Using the Illinois Families Study (IFS), a longitudinal study of individuals who were receiving welfare in Illinois in 1998, we explore trends in arrest by welfare receipt and employment. We find that financial hardship, in both the forms of unemployment and non-receipt of welfare, is significantly associated with an increased hazard of criminal behavior.

Measuring Poverty: The Official U.S. Measure and Material Hardship

Gesemia Nelson — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:37:42 PDT

Material hardship is a concept that is crucial to our understanding of inequality. I define it as: an inadequate consumption of goods or services that the public deems minimally necessary for decent human functioning. While quantitative poverty research purports to address this concept, it in fact does so only in part. Most discussions of poverty using the official poverty line say nothing about the material situation of the poor. This study rectifies this failing by making material hardship the centerpiece of the analysis. Data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) are used to compare hardship figures with official poverty statistics. Comparisons of the income poor with the hardship poor find that hardship is more prevalent than official poverty figures suggest. The groups who are the worst off according to income-poverty figures also do pretty poorly under hardship measures. But we also find that groups we generally think of as economically advantaged do suffer hardship at rates more similar to the traditionally disadvantaged groups. Non-senior adults, married-couple households, and workers all experience more hardship than official income rates lead us to believe. One important deviation involves seniors, who look much better off under hardship measures. Thus, the poor population that emerges under the hardship measures (younger, married, and working) looks closer to the U.S. mainstream than the official measure has led us to believe.

"Stand Up and Be Counted": The Politics of a Homeless Enumeration

Jean Calterone Williams — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:37:37 PDT

This study analyzes the methodological and political issues associated with homeless enumerations. While enumerations represent just one aspect of homeless politics in the United States, they incorporate many debates that are central to understanding homelessness. How to define homelessness and how to find and account for a transitory, stigmatized population are chief among the quandaries faced by counties undertaking enumerations; the extent of these difficulties calls into question the reliability of enumeration results. In studying one U.S. county's efforts to count the homeless in 2005 and 2009, this paper illuminates the obstacles faced by counties undertaking enumerations, and connects those challenges to broader debates about homelessness and homeless policy making in the United States.