Economic Inequality and Economic Crisis: A Challenge for Social Workers

The Social Work Grand Challenge to reduce economic inequality is one of 13 Grand Challenges guiding future practice, research, and education. This article on the Grand Challenge to reduce extreme economic inequality documents the problem, probes the mechanisms by which inequality continues and deepens, and proposes approaches for addressing this problem so interwoven into our economy and society. This article describes economic inequality in the U.S. context as well as social work–oriented responses. It briefly compares the inequality level of the U.S. with that of other countries. It explores the distinctions between poverty and economic inequality and the particular ways in which economic inequality is maintained and grows in the U.S. It also explores the kinds of policy and program initiatives addressing this grand challenge, the barriers to and potential benefits of such ideas, and the roles for social workers and the social work profession in reducing extreme economic inequality in our society.

Several OECD democracies face serious challenges to the health of their systems of representational government and accountability because of a combination of factors: high and growing inequalities in income and wealth, the ability of elites corruptly to exert undue influence that undermines democratic processes and skews public policy in their favour, and the increasing alienation of a significant class of citizens who feel politically disenfranchised and economically marginalized. The paper examines the links between income inequality, political inequality, corruption and democracy in this group of countries, with a particular focus on the situation in two major democracies – the US and UK. It presents evidence that corruption is an important factor, among others, that may be exacerbating the adverse impact of economic and political inequality on democracy by weakening the accountability and legitimacy of democratic institutions. In 26 of the 34 OECD countries, political parties are seen by the public as a corrupt institution. While there is a danger of exaggerating the role of corruption in undermining democracy, there is equally a danger of ignoring or minimising the role of corruption, both in diagnoses of, and the formulation of policy responses to, the problems of political and economic inequality. There is a risk of pursuing commendable agendas for reducing economic and political inequality while ignoring an issue that is serious enough to derail those agendas. Curbing the role of money in politics should be a key element of an anti-inequality agenda.

Is inequality harmful for economic growth? Is the underdevelopment of Latin America related to its unequal distribution of wealth? A recently emerging consensus claims not only that economic inequality has detrimental effects on economic growth in general, but also that differences in economic inequality across the American continent during the 19th century are responsible for the radically different economic performances of the north and south of the continent. In this paper we investigate this hypothesis using unique 19th century micro data on land ownership and political office holding in the state of Cundinamarca, Colombia. Our results shed considerable doubt on this consensus. Even though Cundinamarca is indeed more unequal than the Northern United States at the time, within Cundinamarca municipalities that were more unequal in the 19th century (as measured by the land gini) are more developed today. Instead, we argue that political rather than economic inequality might be more important in understanding long-run development paths and document that municipalities with greater political inequality, as measured by political concentration, are less developed today. We also show that during this critical period the politically powerful were able to amass greater wealth, which is consistent with one of the channels through which political inequality might affect economic allocations. Overall our findings shed doubt on the conventional wisdom and suggest that research on long-run comparative development should investigate the implications of political inequality as well as those of economic inequality.

As a profession that has historically emphasized the Person in Environment (PIE), financial capability and the understanding of how the economy works is fundamental for social work. As the largest context in which social work operates, the economy – and in this context, financial social work – has arisen to address this important and yet often forgotten piece of PIE. As the social work profession has emerged, it has focused upon the issues of economic inequality and poverty. From Hull House to the National Consumers League to the 1938 Fair Labor and Standards Act, the earliest social workers were involved in solving economic issues. Throughout this chapter, the authors use experiential exercises including gamification to help illustrate the important role social work education plays in helping students learn about the impact of extreme economic inequality and building financial capability for all.

Social crises such as the corona crisis and the war in Ukraine do not leave social work untouched. On the one hand, these crises transform society and the social work; on the other hand, they reinforce social and economic inequalities. Since the Covid 19 pandemic, the issue of digitalisation has become more im-portant. Since the first lockdown in 2020, a shift into the digital space can be observed. So, processes of digitalisation poses new questions and challenges for social work - both for the professionals and the cli-ents. In our paper, we will examine and discuss the reflections of social workers on digitalisation in social work practice. For this purpose, we were conducting a survey with professionals of social work on digitalisation in the neighbourhood, e.g. the effects of the pandemic and the Ukraine crisis on social processes in the neighbourhood. Our research questions are: What impact does the pandemic have on the use of digital media in the neighbourhood? How do community work professionals assess the current digital and social changes for their work and their clients? Which competences in the use of digital tools have professionals and inhabitants developed? The pandemic has led to an increased need for digital media and methods in community work. Most professionals have expanded their digital skills during the pandemic in order to overcome the challenges of virtual communication and collaboration. Besides, the Ukraine crisis has in-creased social inequalities. Migrants, refugees and single parents in particular were hit harder by the con-sequences of the crisis; e.g. financial worries and discrimination also became more prevalent. In this paper the findings about the knowledge and reflections of the professionals regarding the chal-lenges and opportunities of digitalisation and migration in social work practice will be presented.

Debating Capital and Ideology: An introduction to the special issue.

This article explores Adam Smith's attitude toward economic inequality, as distinct from the problem of poverty, and argues that he regarded it as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, as has often been recognized, Smith saw a high degree of economic inequality as an inevitable result of a flourishing commercial society, and he considered a certain amount of such inequality to be positively useful as a means of encouraging productivity and bolstering political stability. On the other hand, it has seldom been noticed that Smith also expressed deep worries about some of the other effects of extreme economic inequality—worries that are, moreover, interestingly different from those that dominate contemporary discourse. In Smith's view, extreme economic inequality leads people to sympathize more fully and readily with the rich than the poor, and this distortion in our sympathies in turn undermines both morality and happiness.

There and Back Again: A Commentary on Social Welfare Policy in the Wake of 2020

“Who gets what?” is arguably the most important question of political contestation. The answer to this question determines equality and inequality in society. Of course there are many forms of inequality. Political inequality, racial inequality, social inequality, power inequality, and economic inequality, to name a few, have received attention from journalists, pundits, and social commentators, as well as scholars from a variety of academic disciplines (Danziger and Gottschalk 1995, Harris et al. 2004, Johnston 2007, Keister 2000, McCarty et al. 2006, Page and Simmons 2000). While various forms of inequality are almost certainly interconnected, this book explicitly examines one specific form of inequality – economic inequality. I focus on income distribution as a primary indicator of economic inequality. The amount of inequality present in the income distribution presents an empirical answer to the question of “Who gets what?” I assess the (national) government role, the actions and policies by which government balances – or unbalances – the scales of equality. Much of the story of equality and inequality must be a tale of changes in a market economy. But an important and often neglected part of the story concerns government and how policies benefit some people at the expense of others. That is my focus. When Richard Nixon took the oath of office in 1969, he inherited an economy in which American incomes were more equal than when his predecessor took office, more equal in fact than ever before.

There is an extensive empirical literature on economic inequality, yet few studies examine its political underpinnings. This article contributes to the nascent literature in this area by developing and analyzing a new measure of political inequality. Drawing on a comprehensive provincial-level dataset on local government leadership in the Philippines, this article develops a political inequality index based on the concentration of elective positions among political dynasties. It then empirically examines the possible links among economic inequality, political inequality, and development outcomes across Philippine provinces. This study finds that economic inequality displays a nonlinear relationship with indicators of human development—there is a positive correlation at lower levels of human development, and a negative correlation at higher levels. On the other hand, unlike economic inequality, political inequality seems to be associated with weaker development outcomes, regardless of the level of development the province is in. This finding emphasizes how future research on political inequality could yield new insights into the persistence and depth of poverty, human development, and other forms of social and economic inequality.

Reviewed by: Whisper by Chang Yu-Ko Sean Guynes Chang Yu-Ko Whisper Trans. Roddy Flagg. Handforth, UK. Honford Star. 2021. 294 pages. HORROR FILMS FROM East Asia (especially South Korea and Japan) have impacted the cinematic genre for decades and made big business through both international releases and English-language remakes. East Asian horror fiction, by contrast, is almost nonexistent in the anglophone literary market. This mirrors a larger disjuncture between anglophone consumption of East Asian visual media and translation of fiction. But a few gems have appeared in recent years, including Mariko Koike’s The Graveyard Apartment (1993; Eng. 2016), Hye-Young Pyun’s The Hole (2016; Eng. 2017), and Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police (1994; Eng. 2019), the tip of a wave of intense literary horror fiction that continues now with indie publisher Honford Star’s release of Taiwanese writer Chang Yu-Ko’s English-language debut, Whisper—a gruesome yet thoughtful novel of ghosts, vengeful spirits, historical mystery, extreme inequality, and violent colonial pasts. Whisper opens on a sour note, following a day in the life of husband-and-wife pair Shih-sheng and Hsiang-ying as they drudge through shitty, low-paying jobs that offer no financial security but plenty of stress. Shih-sheng drives a taxi and spends all his money on booze and cigarettes, and his free time on abusing his wife, who works multiple jobs to make ends meet. Stuck in poverty after getting into a debt cycle specific to Taiwan’s medical and legal system, the couple sets the tone for a grim exploration of economic and social inequalities that Chang explores through the stark, nonmoralizing language of realism; until the spooky stuff starts, with Hsiang-ying tortured by a voice and visions that drive her life into disrepair and ruin. Stuck with debt, guilty over abusing his wife, and depressed by his social isolation (caused by his own behavior), Shih-sheng discovers that his wife’s hallucinations were caused by a ghost—one that has killed anyone who hears it for nearly a century. Chang’s novel is a realist noir whose entirely unlikable stand-in detective pursues a historical mystery that involves his own family and the colonization of Taiwan, first by Chinese, then Japanese imperial powers, resulting in the brutal murder of Indigenous peoples like the Bunun. In addition to Shih-sheng, Chang brings in perspective characters like Hsiang-ying’s social-climbing sister, a disturbing Buddhist priestess, and a social worker, who all collide with Shih-sheng in his frantic search for answers as he too becomes pursued by the ghost. Chang draws on Taiwan’s complex internal history as well as a mix of Chinese, Japanese, and Bunun folklore, and Buddhist and Shinto beliefs, allowing Whisper to reflect on how history undergirds contemporary social and economic inequalities, quite literally haunting the present. As a horror novel, Chang elevates the already familiar realist look at the neoliberal violence of daily life in contemporary East Asia with a deft interweaving of history-telling, personal narrative, and scenes of supernatural encounter that move between the tense and the terrifying with alarming ease. Though Chang is unknown in the anglophone world, Shih-sheng’s horrendous encounter with hallucinations of a Japanese woman contorted into an insect-like monstrosity, hanging on ceilings and pursuing him through the woods, will impress even diehard readers of the genre. Few authors are able to do so much with such a short novel, and to do justice to all the generic and critical elements at play (though I do think Chang’s B-plot about Chen-shan was rather weak). Not much scares me, but Whisper gave me a night of restless sleep, and I’m hopeful that its success will lead to more translations of East Asian horror and a long career for author Chang Yu-Ko. Sean Guynes Michigan State University Copyright © 2022 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

This chapter will focus on the Grand Challenge of extreme economic inequality and the ways in which it manifests in older age groups. Extreme economic inequality refers to considerable imbalances between the highest economic strata and the lowest in the distribution of both wealth and income in a nation. The chapter begins with a description of the contributing factors to extreme economic inequality in the United States, including political, social, and economic factors. The relationship between extreme economic inequality over the lifespan and income security in retirement is discussed. Strategies for mitigating the effects of long-term poverty are presented. Finally, the chapter highlights international models that could be applied to the United States and makes recommendations for policy changes that could be spearheaded by social workers to reduce extreme economic inequality and enhance income security in retirement.

A great deal of attention has been paid to the consequences of economic inequality on political participation, yet only few empirical studies address the macro-micro relationship between income in-equality and individual engagement. Furthermore, empirical indications diverge and give rise to competing theoretical arguments to be tested. This article seeks to fill this gap and to do so by using the latest round of the European Social Survey (ESS). The contribution is twofold: on the one hand, it establishes a direct link between measures of economic and political inequality - albeit of a particular type. On the other, it provides an up-to-date picture on participatory trends in Europe. In more details, income inequality is found to depress overall political participation and, most importantly, to increase the participatory gap between rich and poor for all unconventional forms of engagement.

We investigate how economic inequality can persist in Latin America in the context of radical falls in political inequality in the last decades. Using data from Colombia, we focus on a critical facet of democratization—the entry of new politicians. We show that initial levels of inequality play a significant role in determining the impact of political entry on local institutions, policy and development outcomes, which can impact future inequality. A vicious circle emerges whereby policies that reduce inequality are less likely to be adopted and implemented in places with relatively high inequality. We present evidence that this is caused both by the capture of new politicians and barriers to institution and state capacity building and by the fact that politicians committed to redistribution are less likely to win in relatively unequal places. Our results, therefore, help to reconcile the persistence of economic inequality with the new political context.

We investigate how economic inequality can persist in Latin America in the context of radical falls in political inequality in the last decades. Using data from Colombia, we focus on a critical facet of democratization - the entry of new politicians. We show that initial levels of inequality play a significant role in determining the impact of political entry on local institutions, policy, and development outcomes, which can impact future inequality. A vicious circle emerges whereby policies that reduce inequality are less likely to be adopted and implemented in places with relatively high inequality. We present evidence that this is caused both by the capture of new politicians and barriers to institution and state capacity building, and also by the fact that politicians committed to redistribution are less likely to win in relatively unequal places. Our results, therefore, help to reconcile the persistence of economic inequality with the new political context.