Have you or a member of your immediate family been laid-off from work during the

past year?

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Poverty can be defined as a condition of deprivation due to economic circumstances that is severe enough that the individual in this condition cannot live with dignity in his or her society.

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During a recession, poverty rates may be higher. A recession is a period of economic decline lasting half a year or more.

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The administration of Lyndon Johnson established a wide range of anti-poverty programs in the 1960s.

These included programs for education, job training and placement, housing, all as a part of the “War on Poverty.”

Within just a few years, many of these programs, and the whole ideology behind them, had come under attack.

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At the core of the debate about poverty in America is the

question of whether poverty is the cause of social ills such as

crime, poor educational outcomes, divorce, and so on, or whether it is their result.

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Almost 60 million people are in the working-poor or underclass

Geography-poor cluster in the south, living in rural areas Race/ethnicity-11% of white Americans, 26% of African

Americans and Latinos Education-high school dropouts have highest rates. Sociologists have coined the term “feminization of poverty”-

the trend by which women represent an increasing share of the poor” (head 53% of poor families). Single-mothers are the most at-risk and divorce raises the chances significantly.

Children are more likely to live in poverty than adults or elderly. 1 in 6 white children and 1 in 3 African American and Latino children. 14 million children live in poverty

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“The big question, 10 years later, is whether things have improved or worsened for those in the bottom third of the income distribution, the people who clean hotel rooms, work in warehouses, wash dishes in restaurants, care for the very young and very old, and keep the shelves stocked in our stores. The short answer is that things have gotten much worse, especially since the economic downturn that began in 2008.”

~Barbara Ehrenreich

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDgFiW2xtf0

Perverse incentives are reward structures that lead to suboptimal outcomes by stimulating counterproductive behavior. For example, some argue that welfare encourages people not to work.

Unintended consequences are results of a policy that were not fully anticipated at the time the policy was implemented, particularly outcomes that are counter to the intentions of the policymakers.

Heritage Foundation video

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCoTo7umZZo

The culture of poverty theory argues that poor people adopt certain practices, which differ from those of middle-class, “mainstream” society, in order to adapt and survive in difficult economic circumstances

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5b_FwR5HU&feature=related

Check cashers:

Charge high fees— up to 5 percent of the check amount for example it would cost you 12.50 to cash a $250 check;  and usually it costs $3 for a money order. Average fees for users are more than $800 a year!

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Pay day loans are usually made to people who are desperate, need money right away, and plan to pay it back with their next paycheck.

Lenders usually offer amounts up to $500 for short periods of time such as one to four weeks.

  Loan fees range between $15 and $70, depending on the loan

amount. If you don’t pay off the loan within the agreed amount of time, the lender renews the loan and adds on late fees. Over 90% of payday borrowers end up paying more than the initial fees. The Center for Responsible Lending found that the average payday borrower ends up paying over $700 for a $325 loan!

  Also, payday loans aren't considered real loans, so no matter

when you pay them off, they don't help you build a credit history. Without a credit history it is difficult to get a loan from a bank, get a credit card, or buy a car.

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The average rent-to-own customer spent $1,200 in 2009. That means that typical customer, because she doesn’t have a credit card, paid an extra $700 above and beyond the normal cost of an item.

But ours is a country where so many middle-class people proved willing to mortgage the future for a new bathroom or a large flat-screen TV.

The point is that for the security guard making $25,000 a year or the home health aide making $20,000, they’re typically paying two and a half times as much for that same item. 

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For all those scraping by on less than $20,000 a year—the assistant manager at a

fast-food restaurant, say, or a Wal-Mart associate or a home-health-care worker—that works out to annual poverty tax of at least 10

percent.

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“The people peddling poverty products have figured out the there is a strain of Americans who are the financial equivalent of drug addicts. They will pay any price, fee, or interest rate as long as they can get an immediate fix. They don't care about tomorrow. They just want money today.”

Gary Rivlin ~ Broke USA

There are credit card companies catering to those with a credit score below 600—but those people will pay dearly for the privilege of carrying that plastic in their pocket. For instance, there’s the First Premier credit card, which charges both an annual fee ($45) and a $6.50 monthly fee for a card carrying an APR of 49.9 percent on carried balances. 

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More typically, the working poor carry a prepaid debit card. That often entails an initial activation fee of up to $30 and also a fee of between $10 and $20 that first time to put money on the card. Direct deposit is typically free but otherwise you pay to load money on a card just as you pay each time you withdraw cash at an ATM. Many prepaid debit cards charge a monthly fee of between $3 and $10, yet they still charge a few dollars extra if a customer wants a monthly statement—and they charge for customer-service calls and balance inquiries. 

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Those with lousy credit also pay more for a car loan—much more. These days those with good credit can get a car loan carrying an annual interest rate of around 5 percent. The subprime customer, though, is hit with rates four or five times that amount, paying interest rates of 18 or 20 or 25 percent. 

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Auto insurance is also more expensive if you live in a lower-income community, according to a 2007 study by the Brookings Institution. 

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At least with a car you can shop at the better supermarkets and discount stores like Walmart. Otherwise, you’re hauling groceries on a bus, paying cab fare, or paying extra at the corner grocer that

charges $3.99 for the gallon of milk you can get for $2.99 at Walmart.

While it may be true that reliance on welfare generates a sense of helplessness and dependency in some people, there are also structural reasons why it can be difficult to transition from welfare to work.

PERVERSE INCENTIVES: Rising benefits make not working attractive.Makes marriage unattractive.

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Sociologist William Julius Wilson turned the focus from welfare to factors such as deindustrialization, globalization, suburbanization, and discrimination as causes of urban poverty.

In the past 20 to 30 years, policies to combat poverty have focused on encouraging work and offering benefits that directly serve children.

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In her book What Money Can’t Buy, sociologist Susan Mayer writes that she found very little evidence to support the widely held belief that parental income has a significant effect on children’s outcomes.

What do you think?

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In The Bell Curve, Charles Murray and Richard Hernstein argued that it’s not poverty or education or parenting that ultimately has the most impact on children’s outcomes, but simply genes.

What do you think? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCoTo7umZZo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S9Qv29fOLY&feature=related

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James Rosenbaum’s study of the Gautreaux Assisted Living Program in Chicago and the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) study began in 1994. designed to see if moving to less impoverished

communities might affect quality of life. MTO study in particular seemed to show that

living in a quieter, less stressful environment did have very positive effects on children

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Absolute poverty is the point at which a household’s income falls below the necessary level to purchase food to physically sustain its members.

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The official poverty line in the United States is calculated using a formula developed in the 1960s by Mollie Orshansky. estimates food costs for minimum food

requirements to determine whether a family can “afford” to survive

can be problematic, as the cost of food has decreased but the cost of living (rent, utilities, etc.) have increased

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Relative poverty is a measurement of poverty based on a percentage of the median income in a given location.

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The United States has a much broader range of inequality (our rich are much richer than our poor) than any other developed nation in the world, as well as higher poverty rates (a larger percentage of the population is below the poverty line).