Poverty and Deep Poverty
Leaders: Linda Burton, Kathryn Edin, David Grusky
The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) reveals substantial post-1970 reductions in poverty under a constant (i.e., “anchored”) threshold, but this trend masks worrisome developments at the very bottom of the distribution. Although the overall SPM has trended downward since 1970, the SPM for households with less than half of the anchored threshold level (i.e., “deep poverty”) has remained stable since 1968. Even more worrying, the most extreme forms of poverty, such as living on less than $2 per day (per person), have in fact increased over the last two decades. The main tasks of our Poverty and Deep Poverty RG are to describe trends in poverty and deep poverty, to assess the effectiveness of current anti-poverty programs, and to examine the likely payoff to introducing new anti-poverty programs. We present a sampling of relevant projects below.
Frequent Reporting Project: Why are unemployment statistics reported monthly whereas poverty statistics are reported only once a year (and with such a long lag)? The CPI is hard at work solving this problem.
California Poverty Project: The CPI, in collaboration with the Public Policy Institute of California, issues the California Poverty Measure (CPM) annually. There are plans afoot to make it an even more powerful policy instrument.
Ending Poverty in California: Is it possible to substantially reduce poverty in California by relying entirely on evidence-based programs? It indeed is.
The National Poverty Study: The country’s one-size-fits-all poverty policy ignores the seemingly profound differences between suburban poverty, immigrant poverty, reservation poverty, rural white poverty, deindustrializing poverty, and the many other ways in which massive deprivation plays out in the U.S. The National Poverty Study, which will be the country’s first qualitative census of poverty, takes on the problem.
Income supports and deep poverty: The U.S. does not rely heavily on unconditional cash transfers in its poverty programming. Is this a mistake? The CPI is assisting Y Combinator in providing the first U.S. evidence on unconditional income support since the negative income tax experiments of the 1970s.
Disability and deep poverty: The country’s disability programs are an important anti-poverty weapon. In evaluating their effectiveness, it is important to determine whether the low employment rates among program recipients reflects an underlying (low) capacity for employment, as opposed to the labor-supply effects of the programs themselves. Although it’s long been difficult to assess such labor-supply effects, now there’s a way forward.
Evictions and deep and extreme poverty: Are evictions an important cause of deep and extreme poverty? This line of research examines the extent to which deep and extreme poverty can be reduced with a “housing first” policy that ramps up federal housing programs.
Deep poverty and TANF add-ons: The country is implicitly running hundreds of experiments on how best to structure TANF programs, but it hasn’t had the capacity to evaluate them. Are administrative data the answer?
Featured Examples
Poverty - CPI Research
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Poverty, Pregnancy, and Birth Outcomes: A Study of the Earned Income Tax Credit | Rita Hamad, David H. Rehkopf |
Poverty, Pregnancy, and Birth Outcomes: A Study of the Earned Income Tax CreditAuthor: Rita Hamad, David H. RehkopfPublisher: Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology Date: 09/2015 Economic interventions are increasingly recognised as a mechanism to address perinatal health outcomes among disadvantaged groups. In the US, the earned income tax credit (EITC) is the largest poverty alleviation programme. Little is known about its effects on perinatal health among recipients and their children. We exploit quasi-random variation in the size of EITC payments to examine the effects of income on perinatal health. We find that EITC payment size is associated with better levels of several indicators of perinatal health. Instrumental variables analysis, however, does not reveal a causal association between household income and these health measures. |
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Poverty and Deep Poverty in California | Christopher Wimer, Marybeth Mattingly, Sara Kimberlin, Caroline Danielson, Sarah Bohn |
Poverty and Deep Poverty in CaliforniaAuthor: Christopher Wimer, Marybeth Mattingly, Sara Kimberlin, Caroline Danielson, Sarah BohnPublisher: Date: 06/2015 |
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Reducing Poverty in California...Permanently | Conway Collis, David B. Grusky, Sara Kimberlin, Courtney Powers, Sandra Sanchez |
Reducing Poverty in California...PermanentlyAuthor: Conway Collis, David B. Grusky, Sara Kimberlin, Courtney Powers, Sandra SanchezPublisher: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality Date: 05/2015 What if we decided to go beyond the usual lip-service commitments to reducing poverty and actually tried to do something big? Learn more about a new plan to reduce poverty—substantially and permanently—in California. |
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Why Isn't the Hispanic Poverty Rate Rising? | Marybeth J. Mattingly, Juan M. Pedroza |
Why Isn't the Hispanic Poverty Rate Rising?Author: Marybeth J. Mattingly, Juan M. PedrozaPublisher: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality Date: 05/2015 It is often assumed that, as the size of the undocumented population grows, poverty rates among Hispanics will increase. But in fact poverty rates have proven to be stable. Why? |
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Why is There So Much Poverty in California? The Causes of California's Sky-High Poverty and the Evidence Behind the Equal Opportunity Plan for Reducing It | David B. Grusky, Marion Coddou, Erin Cumberworth, Jonathan Fisher, Jared Furuta, Jasmine Hill, Sara Kimberlin, Molly King, Yana Kucheva, Ryan Leupp, Marybeth Mattingly, Natassia Rodriguez, Charles Varner, Rachel Wright |
Why is There So Much Poverty in California? The Causes of California's Sky-High Poverty and the Evidence Behind the Equal Opportunity Plan for Reducing ItAuthor: David B. Grusky, Marion Coddou, Erin Cumberworth, Jonathan Fisher, Jared Furuta, Jasmine Hill, Sara Kimberlin, Molly King, Yana Kucheva, Ryan Leupp, Marybeth Mattingly, Natassia Rodriguez, Charles Varner, Rachel WrightPublisher: Date: 05/2015 |
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poverty - CPI Affiliates
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John R. Logan |
Professor of Sociology, Director, Research Initiative on Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences |
Brown University |
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Julie E. Brines |
Associate Professor of Sociology |
University of Washington |
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Larry Bumpass |
Norman B. Ryder Professor of Sociology, Emeritus; Member, US National Academy of Sciences |
University of Wisconsin - Madison |
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Mario Luis Small |
Grafstein Family Professor, Department of Sociology |
Harvard University |
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Markus Gangl |
Professor of Sociology |
Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main |
Pages
Poverty - Other Research
Title | Author | Media | |
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Job Loss at Mid-life: Managers and Executives Face the “New Risk Economy | Ruby Mendenhall, Ariel Kalil, Laurel J. Spindel,... |
Job Loss at Mid-life: Managers and Executives Face the “New Risk EconomyAuthor: Ruby Mendenhall, Ariel Kalil, Laurel J. Spindel,...Publisher: Social Forces Date: |
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Halving Global Poverty | Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess |
Halving Global PovertyAuthor: Timothy Besley and Robin BurgessPublisher: Journal of Economic Perspectives Date: |
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One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All | Mark R. Rank |
One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us AllAuthor: Mark R. RankPublisher: Oxford University Press Date: Despite its enormous wealth, the United States leads the industrialized world in poverty. One Nation, Underprivileged unravels this disturbing paradox by offering a unique and radically different understanding of American poverty. It debunks many of our most common myths about the poor, while at the same time provides a powerful new framework for addressing this enormous social and economic problem. Mark Robert Rank vividly shows that the fundamental causes of poverty are to be found in our economic structure and political policy failures, rather than individual shortcomings or attitudes. He establishes for the first time that a significant percentage of Americans will experience poverty during their adult lifetimes, and firmly demonstrates that poverty is an issue of vital national concern. Ultimately, Rank provides us with a new paradigm for understanding poverty, and outlines an innovative set of strategies that will reduce American poverty. One Nation, Underprivileged represents a profound starting point for rekindling a national focus upon America's most vexing social and economic problem. |
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An Outline of a Theory of the Matching of Persons to Jobs | Aage B. Sørensen and Arne L. Kalleberg |
An Outline of a Theory of the Matching of Persons to JobsAuthor: Aage B. Sørensen and Arne L. KallebergPublisher: Academic Press Date: |
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The Deindustrialization of America | Bluestone, Barry, and Bennett Harrison |
The Deindustrialization of AmericaAuthor: Bluestone, Barry, and Bennett HarrisonPublisher: New York: Basic Books. Date: |
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Poverty - Multimedia
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