Eitzen13e.chapter7.lecture.ppt 193989

Editor's Notes

• #4: A significant portion of U.S. residents live in a condition of poverty (with a standard of living below the minimum needed for the maintenance of adequate diet, health, and shelter). Many millions are ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed. These same millions are discriminated against in the schools, in the courts, and in the job market. Discrimination has the effect of trapping many of the poor in that condition. The so-called American dream is just a dream for millions of Americans
• #5: Poverty line/threshold is based on the minimal amount of money required for a subsistence level of life The poverty line is determined by multiplying the cost of basic nutritional diet by 3 Chapter 7, Activity 2 Housing For this activity, you could have students do some research before class on the local costs of daycare, utilities, gasoline, etc. Bring in local newspapers (or print out online local listings) with a housing/for rent section. Have your students break into groups and give them the following assignment: They are a single parent with two children, ages 3 and 6.  Using your knowledge of your local city, you can define a specific area for them to look for housing. They must find adequate housing for their family in this area. Have each group make a list of all necessary and non-necessary items that families use and an estimated monthly cost for each. Are they going to allow this family to have a car? Are they going to allow this family to have any other non-necessities, like cable television or a cell phone? Have groups come up with an estimated monthly (and then yearly) budget for their family of three. What does this single parent need to make in income to survive at a minimum level of comfort? How does this compare to the poverty level?
• #6: To determine the poverty line, the Social Security Administration computed the cost of a basic, nutritionally adequate diet and multiplied that figure by 3. This multiplier is based on a government research finding that, in 1955, poor people spent one-third of their income on food. Since then, the poverty level has been readjusted annually , using the Consumer Price Index to account for inflation. 15.1 percent is the largest percentage of people living in poverty since the government began measuring the poverty. Poverty line is not an adequate measure of poverty because there is a wide variation in the cost of living by locality. The poverty line minimizes the true extent of poverty in the United States. Critics point out that the government measure does not keep up with inflation, that housing costs now take up a much larger portion of the family budget than food, and that the poverty line ignores differences in health insurance coverage and the medical care needs of individual families. Hard to know the true extent of poverty. The poor are more likely than other groups to be missed by the census. Illegal immigrants avoid the census. Despite problems, the government measurement of poverty is the best measurement we have. The following slides will focus on the demographic characteristics of the poor.
• #7: This is the largest number of people in poverty in the fifty-two years for which poverty estimates have been published
• #8: Poverty does not hit all groups equally. Chapter 7, Activity 3 Inequality Using the wealth quintile breakdowns in the United States, divide up the classroom and distribute students proportionately (e.g., 20 percent of students end up with 85 percent of classroom space). Ask students if they would be okay holding class this way every day, where the bottom 20 percent of students are crammed up against the wall and are forced to stand. After all, don’t all the students have what they need to do well in the class? They can all see, they can all hear, etc. Use this as a way to discuss relative inequality versus absolute deprivation. Have global and comparative country quintiles handy and have students move to represent those as well. Which one do they like best?
• #9: In 2010, 7.6 million of foreign-born individuals in the United States (19.9 percent of the foreign-born population) were poor. Of the poor foreign born, 44.0 percent were naturalized citizens and the remaining were noncitizens. Their poverty rates, of 11.3 and 26.7 percent, respectively, indicate that those individuals who became citizens had significantly lower rates of poverty.
• #10: Institutional sexism leads to more women in poverty than men. Women work in lower-wage fields with fewer benefits. Institutional sexism results in women earning 77 cents for every dollar earned by a male. Divorce, never married women with children, and the high cost of childcare contribute to the increasing number of women in poverty. Feminization of poverty is the phenomenon where an increasing number of women are in poverty. Women have always been more economically vulnerable than men, especially older women and women of color.
• #11: The nation’s poverty rate was 15.1 percent in 2010, but the rate was 22.0 percent for children under age 18. The younger a child is, the greater the probability of living in poverty, with the rate being 25.3 percent for children under age 6.
• #12: Persistent poverty counties are counties where 20 percent or more of the population lives below the poverty line. These counties are overwhelmingly rural and on the number is rising. Extreme-poverty neighborhoods, areas where 40 percent or more of the residents are in poverty, are also on the rise Compared with 2000, residents of extreme-poverty neighborhoods in the years from 2005 to 2009 were more likely to be White, native born, homeowners, and high school or college graduates. Poverty is greatest among the homeless. In 2012, about 636,000 were homeless.
• #14: People already struggling to make ends meet are faced with increased challenges during economic downturns.
• #15: In the past two decades, the new poor are people who have lost jobs due to changes from manufacturing- to service-oriented economy. Half of the newly unemployed were longtime workers. Hardest hit was the state of Michigan (14.6 percent), as a result of the collapse of the auto industry, and Nevada (13 percent), as a result of the housing and construction bust. As of June 2012, the unemployment rate has declined to 8.2 percent. The old poor are different from the new poor. The poor of the older generations expected to get out of poverty. If they didn’t, their children would. Unskilled workers in the past could make a good living by working hard. Those jobs don’t exist today. Hard physical labor is not needed in today’s society.
• #16: Housing foreclosures have made a group of “new poor.” Many who had been working their whole lives now find themselves living in poverty. The housing crash hit the middle class hard.
• #17: Despite working, people can remain poor because they hold menial, dead-end jobs that have no benefits and pay the minimum wage or below. In July 2009 the federal minimum wage was increased to $7.25 an hour—roughly $14,500 a year (before taxes) for full-time work (falling almost $3,000 short of the poverty threshold for a family of three). The working poor do work the majority of Americans would not want to do. They live in substandard housing, near underfunded schools. They are poor, but do not qualify for many government assistance programs, because they make too much money.
• #18: The near poor are people with family incomes at or above the poverty threshold but below 125 percent of the threshold. The near poor are one accident, one illness, one job loss away from severe poverty. 6.7 percent of the population is severely poor. Since 1979, the number of severely poor has dramatically increased. The increase occurred because Many of the severely poor live in rural areas that have prospered less than other regions. A decline in marriage has resulted in a substantial increase in single mothers. Public assistance benefits, especially in the South, have steadily declined since 1980.
• #23: What should be the government’s role in caring for its less-fortunate citizens? Much of the debate on this important issue is based on erroneous assumptions and misperceptions.
• #24: 10.6 million poor people worked in 2010, and 2.6 million of them worked full time but were still under the poverty threshold. They hold menial, dead-end jobs that have no benefits and pay the minimum wage (many actually less than the minimum wage). A minimum-wage worker earns roughly 83 percent of the poverty level for a family of three (in 1968 a family of three with one minimum-wage earner had a standard of living 17 percent above the poverty line). The main increase in the number of poor since 1979 has been among the working poor. According to a 2012 report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, it is not possible to work 40 hours per week at minimum wage and afford a two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent in any state.
• #25: People state “just get a job” to the poor. However, having a job in many areas still means not being able to afford housing.
• #26: The amount per hour that workers have to earn to afford housing at Fair Market Rents in each state.
• #27: PRWORA Passed in 1996. Reformed welfare in the following ways: It shifted welfare programs from the federal government to the states. It mandated that welfare recipients find work within two years. It limited welfare assistance to five years. It cut various federal assistance programs targeted for the poor by $54.5 billion over six years. TANF Welfare was now temporary. It had time limits and cut assistance in some areas. Prior to 1996 Welfare accounted for about one-fourth of the income of poor adults; nearly half of their income came from some form of work activity. About three-fourths of the poor received some form of noncash benefit (Medicaid, food stamps, or housing assistance); about 40 percent received cash welfare payments. Although the pre-reform welfare system was much more generous than now, it was inadequate to meet the needs of the poor. The average poor family of three on welfare had an annual income much below the poverty line. Why the Change? To promote employment over cash assistance to the poor and get people off welfare. Assumptions of policymakers: Welfare was too generous Easier to stay on welfare than to work Encouraged unmarried women to have children Has It Worked? Proponents say yes because the welfare rolls have decreased significantly. A comparison of poor families in 1996 to families in 2006 shows Families are relying more on earnings than in the past Average earnings of families have not increased Government support for families has dropped off Families struggling with fewer resources Welfare versus Wealthfare We assume money goes to the poor, when in fact, most of the money goes to the non-poor (wealthfare). Most (about three-fourths) of the federal outlays for human resources go to Children, in the form of public education The elderly , in the form of Social Security and Medicare Corporations, banks, agribusiness, and the defense industry, in the form of tax loopholes , direct subsidies, and credit assistance
• #28: The common belief : Giving the poor help makes them dependent on the system and discourages them from working. Changes in welfare policy: The key word is temporary (Temporary Aid for Needy Families).
• #29: The urban poor find that their money does not go as far in the inner city. Examples: Food and commodities cost more because supermarkets, discount stores, outlet malls, and warehouse clubs have bypassed inner-city neighborhoods. Because many inner-city residents do not have transportation, they must buy from nearby stores, giving those businesses monopoly power (a similar situation to those poor in rural communities) Hospitals typically charge more to those without health insurance than those who have insurance. Check-cashing centers prey on those without bank accounts by charging 10 percent to cash a check, turning a $300 check into $270. Sales taxes are regressive.
• #34: Who or what is to blame for poverty and lack of upward mobility? There are two very different answers: The poor are poor because of some deficiency. They are biologically inferior. Their culture promotes character traits that impede their progress in society. Society has failed to provide equality of opportunity.
• #35: Spencer argued that the poor were poor because they were unfit. The strong flourish and the weak eventually die out. Governments should not help the poor, as aid impedes the natural progression of evolution. Government aid encourages laziness and slows down the elimination process. Darwinism has generally lacked support from the scientific community for 50 years. But many individuals still use this rationale. Jensen argued that 80 percent of IQ is inherited; 20 percent is environmental. Source of differences in IQs are genetic as well as environmental. Concluded that whites were more mentally endowed than African Americans. Herrnstein theorized about meritocracy and hereditary castes based on intelligence. Mental ability is inherited. Success (prestige of job and earnings) depends on mental ability. Herrnstein and Murray: The Bell Curve Wealth and other positive social outcomes are increasingly distributed across society according to intelligence (as measured by IQ tests), rather than social background. Although their work has come under fire in the scientific community, arguments regarding the role of biological inferiority continue to surface. Theories of innate deficiency blame the victim. Theories of innate deficiency do not take into account lack of resources, including unequal education Theories of innate deficiency, by associating intelligence so closely with genetics, leave out the advantages many “intelligent” people have from birth. Theories of innate deficiency assumes poverty is inevitable and inequality is rationalized so that little will be done to help victims. Relationship of IQ tests to self-fulfilling prophecy. If a child is seen as “bright” or “slow,” the child will be treated as such by his or her teachers. The kind of education the child receives as a result of IQ testing influences his or her future IQ.
• #36: The effects of Head Start show an increase in test scores, but only until sixth grade. Other programs show more promising effects.
• #37: The poor, in adapting to their deprived condition, are found to be more permissive in raising their children less verbal more fatalistic less likely to defer gratification less likely to be interested in formal education Deviant cultural pattern is transmitted from generation to generation. Strong implication that poverty is perpetuated by defects in the lifestyle of the poor. These ideas were behind the welfare reform of 1996. The 2007–2009 economic recession may have an effect on people’s attitudes toward poverty as more and more people have found themselves vulnerable in a struggling economy, and individuals might turn to structural theories to explain poverty.
• #38: When the customary ways of doing things, prevailing attitudes and expectations, and accepted structural arrangements work to the disadvantage of the poor, it is called institutional discrimination. This type of discrimination traps the poor in poverty. Children of the poor are usually geographically in the same area. Thus, the schools in poor areas lack resources and funding to prepare children for continued education. Most jobs require a college degree. Children of the poor cannot afford college and don’t always have the secondary education to prepare them for college. A self-fulfilling prophecy in education that the poor won’t perform well in school leads teachers to teach differently and “prove” they were right about school and poverty. Low-end jobs paying minimum wage do not allow a worker to rent a two-bedroom apartment in any state at a Fair Market Rent. Without preventative medicine, healthy diets, and exercise, the poor get sick more often and stay sick longer. This puts a huge burden on those without health insurance. Chapter 7, Activity 1 Star Power Obtain the simulation game Star Power and run the simulation in class. The resulting conversation should naturally turn to issues of meritocracy and inequality.
• #39: Employers are successful at paying workers the least possible wage: millions of people who work full time are below the poverty line. A surplus of workers keeps wages low and provides an obvious category of people to be laid off from work in economic downturns. Reduction in cost by switching to machines that can do the job “cheaper.” The fundamental assumption of capitalism is individual gain without regard for what the resulting behaviors may mean for other people. The capitalist system, then, should not be accepted as a neutral framework within which goods are produced and distributed but rather as an economic system that perpetuates inequality.
• #40: The capitalist system in the United States, according to the Occupy Movement, has created a system of inequality where 1 percent of the population controls the country.
• #45: The concentration of poverty in certain areas has been linked to myriad problems: Crime lack of education health problems unaffordable housing more This section looks at four of the costs of poverty.
• #46: Poverty damages families. Poor couples are twice as likely to divorce as more affluent couples. Jobless people are three to four times less likely to marry than those with jobs. Two-thirds of teenagers who give birth come from poor or low-income families, and their children are more likely to be poor.
• #47: Poverty and health problems create a cycle. Being poor leads to health problems and the cost of health problems can make you poor. The uninsured are more likely to use emergency medical services than family practitioners, because emergency rooms cannot refuse service due to lack of insurance. The infant mortality rate in some poor urban neighborhoods exceeds the rate in developing countries. The United States has a higher infant mortality rate than most other industrialized countries. Infants born to African American mothers are twice as likely to die before their first birthday than infants of White mothers.
• #48: Children in the poorest families are six times as likely as their affluent counterparts to drop out of high school. Poor children have less qualified teachers, fewer school resources, and inadequate education facilities. Living in a neighborhood with a high poverty rate translates to graduation rates as much as 20 percentage points lower than those in more advantaged communities.
• #49: $500 billion is the cost associated with childhood poverty. This comes from inevitable consequence of reduced productivity and economic output by the poor, increased criminal behavior, and poor health Is the economic cost of poverty a powerful enough motivator to put the end to poverty? Can we call ourselves a “civilized society” when so many of our residents are poor?
• #55: This chapter focused on the costs of poverty to society. The costs are to extensive to ignore. The United States could reduce its defense budget ($712.7 billion for fiscal year 2009), by many billions of dollars without threatening national security. We could spend $200 billion less a year and still be number one militarily. The resulting savings, called the Peace Dividend, could be committed to bringing people in the United States above the poverty line. Is it lack of money and power or the maintenance of deviant values and lifestyles? This question is fundamental because the answer determines the method for eliminating poverty.
• #56: The United States could reduce its defense spending by billions and still be effective.
• #57: Private enterprise efforts will never by themselves eliminate poverty. In other words, private profit will tend to subvert human needs that are of public concern; businesses will not provide jobs that they consider unnecessary or not immediately profitable nor will they voluntarily stop activities that are profitable. The private sector, with its emphasis on profit (and therefore efficiency), will not generate the new jobs needed to eliminate poverty. The common assumption is that a growing economy will help everyone, however there aren’t jobs (even in good times) for those without adequate education and skills. There are two problems with leaving poverty to charities: Since 1980, the money received by charities and the number of adults volunteering their services to charities has declined. These declines occurred at a time of increasing need by the poor. Because charities are voluntary, the poor in many communities will be denied adequate food, clothing, healthcare, and shelter. Only a national program will ensure that the needs of every poor person are met. Poverty must be addressed at the federal level to ensure that the poor throughout the nation will receive equal benefits and services. Poverty must be attacked nationally to deal with the structural problems that cause poverty.
• #58: Bush’s proposal allowed faith-based charities to compete for $8 billion annually. How was the money used?