Poverty,Social Walfare and Public Policy

Abstract

Someone, we are not really sure who, said, “If you want peace, work for justice.” We would amend that to read, “work for economic justice.” The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the social problem of poverty. The world has certainly known “poor people.” Being poor is a condition that affects individuals and families Poverty, on the other hand, is a social structure, a component of the larger society. Hunger and deprivation and struggle for survival are older than recorded history. For most of human history and for many people of the earth today, life has been and continues to be a struggle to keep body and soul together even as modern technology produces abundance. What is new is the recognition of poverty as a social problem; a problem caused and maintained by social arrangements and one that has profound bearing on social solidarity, the peace of civil society, and the development and maintenance of democratic political institutions. That poverty brings aversive consequences for the poor is to state the obvious; it also touches and is closely related to other widely recognized social problems: disease, crime, delinquency, single parenthood, and substance abuse, to name a few. And poverty itself occasionally enters the political arena as candidates and political leaders declare war on it and attempt to deal with it.