Anti-poverty Measures Research Articles

Poverty, deprivation and life satisfaction among Hong Kong older persons

ABSTRACTThis investigation examines the association of four measures of poverty (income-based, expenditure-based and asset-based poverty, and material deprivation) with life satisfaction. Perceived life satisfaction was measured among 1,410 older Chinese persons aged 65 and over. Besides life satisfaction and measures of poverty, the study assessed socio-demographic variables, financial strain, health indicators, and social and community resources. Those who faced expenditure-based poverty, material deprivation and asset-based poverty reported a significantly lower level of perceived life satisfaction, while the association between expenditure-based poverty and life satisfaction was found to be the strongest. Other factors that had an impact on life satisfaction included gender, education and marital status; financial strain; social support; the number of close family members and friends; self-rated health; functional capacity; perceived memory; pain; sleep quality; neighbourhood collective efficacy; and engagement in cultural and entertainment activities. From the theoretical perspective, the findings have strong implications for the understanding of the factors that shape the perception of quality of life in old age. Our results also have important policy implications for the official measurement of poverty, monitoring of the poverty situation and the development of anti-poverty measures to help older persons living in poverty to improve the quality of their lives.

The ‘living wage’ and low income: Can adequate pay contribute to adequate family living standards?

The success of the contemporary ‘living wage’ movement has been highlighted by the UK government’s decision to increase the statutory minimum wage for over-25s sharply, in the name of improving living standards. This breaks with neoliberal reluctance to intervene in labour markets, yet raises difficult issues centring around whether minimum hourly pay rates are suited to promoting adequate household incomes. At worst, ‘living wages’ could distract from other policies with this objective. This article acknowledges recent critiques of the living wage as an anti-poverty measure, but demonstrates that, in combination with other policies, wage floors can play a crucial role. It shows that low pay and inadequate working incomes overlap substantially. The article argues that governments promising that work will deliver adequate living standards need a clearer narrative in which pay, public transfers/subsidies and sufficient levels of employment combine to deliver minimum acceptable living standards for working families.

Insights on the role of private and public actors in food assistance provision: A literature review for High Income Countries

The recent increase in the number of people asking for food assistance and the expansion of the so-called ‘emergency food system’ in High Income Countries have given rise to an academic debate on both the re-emergence of food insecurity as a policy issue and the best solution to cope with it. When food/agriculture policy ignore household-level food security, welfare policy has the potential to intervene through anti-poverty measures. But when even these are not available for food insecure people, then the task of providing food assistance switches to charitable organisations. Even if they have been existing for many years, what is changing now is the scale and logistics of food assistance delivery. Food assistance initiatives differ greatly from each other in terms of eligibility criteria, food handling operations, amount and quality of food distributed, supplementary services offered and monitoring activities. Although, on the one side, this heterogeneity may imply place or community-based solutions, able to better respond to specific needs, several authors argue that they should not substitute for a governmental safety net. The question of what responsibilities for food security should reside within the state and the charitable organisations is raised by many, along with the necessity to adopt a right-to-food approach in dealing with it. This paper aims at analysing the academic debate on the allocation of responsibilities for food assistance. We did this through a literature review, in order to highlighting the various combinations of private and public actors and institutions, the nature of resources used and practices involved in food assistance programs.

Improving population health by reducing poverty: New York’s Earned Income Tax Credit

Despite the established relationship between adverse health outcomes and low socioeconomic status, researchers rarely test the link between health improvements and poverty-alleviating economic policies. New research, however, links individual-level health improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a broad-based income support policy. We build on these findings by examining whether the EITC has ecological, neighborhood-level health effects. We use a difference-in-difference analysis to measure child health outcomes in 90 low- and middle- income neighborhoods before and after the expansion of New York State and New York City’s EITC policy between 1997-2010. Our study takes advantage of the relatively exogenous source of income variation supplied by the EITC—legislative changes to EITC policy parameters. This feature minimizes the endogeneity problem in studying the relationship between income and health. Our estimates link a 15-percentage-point increase in EITC benefit rates to a 0.45 percentage-point reduction in the low birthweight rate. We do not observe any measurable link between EITC benefits and prenatal health or asthma-related pediatric hospitalization. The magnitude of the EITC’s impact on low birthweight rates suggests ecological effects, and an additional channel through which anti-poverty measures can serve as public health interventions.

Research of Anti-poverty System of Polycentric Governance in Northwest Destitute Areas

To accurate solve the problem of poverty of destitute areas is the key of the Chinese nation becoming well-off to achieve the great rejuvenation. To achieve this goal, we need to innovate poor governance model from both the theoretical and practice ways. After analyzed and excavated the traditional Anti-Poverty governance model, we find the shortcomings of it which had paternalistic, government monopoly and alone bear the responsibility of the single-site government. Based on Anti-Poverty governance current situation of destitute areas of Northwest Yunnan ,this article use polycentric governance theory to analysis and propose constructing polycentric collaborative governance systems and implement anti-poverty measures and suggestions that system take the local Government as the main body of Anti-Poverty governance and non-profit organizations, international and local poverty NGOs, community organizations, individuals , various inter-government departments to work together within it. The proposed of polycentric collaborative governance system has helped to enrich the local anti-poverty theory of governance, broaden the horizons of anti-poverty governance model, accelerate the rate of Contiguous destitute areas out of poverty.

The Impact of Social Grants on Poverty Reduction in South Africa

This paper analyses the impact of social grants as a social protection measure implemented by the South African government. Literature reviewed in this paper reveals that this anti-poverty measure ...

Equity, efficiency and effectiveness: an evaluation study of the urban minimum livelihood guarantee scheme in China

ABSTARCTPoverty alleviation has long been high on the political agenda of the Chinese government. The current research is intended to evaluate the urban Minimum Livelihood Guarantee Scheme (MLG) scheme, which is serving as the primary anti-poverty policy measure for individuals and families in China. In this article, we construct an evaluation framework, incorporating the concepts of equity, efficiency and effectiveness, which are the most essential factors in the performance evaluation in public sectors. Guided by this framework, a series of indicators were developed to scrutinize the design, implementation and impact of MLG scheme. On the whole, MLG plays an essential role in poverty alleviation among urban residents, however, faced with multifaceted needs of the recipients, urban MLG can only provide them a minimum income, but not guarantee the basic livelihood, especially for those who have to pay for healthcare and children’s education. It is suggested that the government should not limit itself in providing such a mean-tested cash transfer programme, and needy people’s basic livelihood cannot be guaranteed by solely implementing MLG. In addition to MLG, more social assistance programmes such as short-term medical assistance, temporary assistance and educational assistance, both in cash and in kind, are still necessary.

Antipoverty Measures: The Potential for Shaming and Dignity Building through Delivery Interactions

The special issue focuses on the impact of antipoverty measures—accounting for social and structural dimensions in the poverty experience and moving beyond an income-only focus—in five country cases: China, India, Norway, Uganda, and the United States. Particularly, we focus on the implications of shame in the delivery of antipoverty measures, as an individual and social phenomenon that relates to feelings of self-inadequacy, as well to a lack of dignity and recognition. We analyze delivery interactions through an analytic framework of rights, discretion and negotiation, as this enables us to parse out how policy delivery interactions presumed or enabled individual choice, ability, control, and voice. We suggest social citizenship can structure the relationships between welfare recipients and administrators. As a concept, it expands the objects of social rights beyond the materiality of human life (e.g., housing, pensions) to include intangible processual elements (e.g., dignity) in the construct of rights.

Making JFK Matter: Popular Memory and the Thirty-Fifth President by Paul H. Santa Cruz

Reviewed by: Making JFK Matter: Popular Memory and the Thirty-Fifth President by Paul H. Santa Cruz Emilie Raymond Making JFK Matter: Popular Memory and the Thirty-Fifth President. By Paul H. Santa Cruz. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2015. Pp. [xxiv], 363. $29.95, ISBN 978-1-57441-597-1.) Making JFK Matter: Popular Memory and the Thirty-Fifth President is the first book to analyze how various institutions and individuals have used popular memory of President John F. Kennedy to shape America’s political culture. While the book is somewhat incomplete, Paul H. Santa Cruz, an archivist at the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, does launch an important discussion. Santa Cruz emphasizes the “mixed blessing” of JFK’s popular memory, which is considerably more adulatory than scholars’ assessments (p. 130). The public has named JFK one of the top five American presidents, while scholars list him somewhere in the middle. Although the author obviously understands the gap between JFK’s captivating image and his actual record, Santa Cruz wisely refrains from laboring on those differences. Instead, Santa Cruz uses individual case studies of the city of Dallas, Texas, President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Robert F. Kennedy to show how the “practical quality” of public memory is often used for political ends (p. 7). Santa Cruz also warns against the possibilities of setting impossible standards and getting “used by” the same memory in the public realm (p. 114). In his discussion of Dallas, Johnson, and Robert Kennedy, Santa Cruz shows the motivations, execution, and results of their efforts to invoke JFK’s memory. Dallas civic leaders remade the city’s image from one of violent extremism tied to the Old South to one that was “moderate, progressive, [and] tolerant” (p. 38). City leaders also launched civic improvements while downplaying JFK’s actual murder in their city. A citizens’ memorial for the president was purposely located away from the site of his death, but public interest in his assassination—fueled in part by conspiracy theories—ultimately led to the establishment of the Sixth Floor Museum. President Johnson used the slain president’s memory to pass legislation, such as a tax cut and a civil rights bill that JFK had already introduced, to solidify his credentials as a liberal Democrat in anticipation of the 1964 election. However, soon after the election, Johnson distanced himself from JFK in order to sell his antipoverty measures and establish his own legacy. Johnson was only moderately successful, especially as growing social turmoil led many to wonder about what would have happened if JFK had lived. Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy used his brother’s memory much more deliberately in selling his political candidacies to the public, but with mixed results. His close working relationship with JFK surely helped Robert win a Senate seat in 1965, but it did not decisively boost his 1968 presidential bid. It possibly even undermined his candidacy, as he argued against his brother’s Vietnam policies and did not connect as well with working-class white voters. [End Page 485] The second half of the book, unfortunately, loses steam. Especially puzzling is the lack of a chapter about Jacqueline Kennedy. Santa Cruz states that her use of the term Camelot, which she introduced to Life magazine within two weeks of JFK’s death, did more than anything else to shape the president’s memory in popular culture. She dramatized JFK’s funeral and burial and played important roles in the construction of the Kennedy Space Center and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. These actions beg for the same kind of analysis as the other case studies. The final chapter, titled “Observations,” asserts that JFK had a positive vision and stirred civic engagement but also sensationalized American politics by contributing to a culture of celebrity. Perhaps Santa Cruz could have achieved a more innovative conclusion by consulting recent scholarship on public memory and on the conflation of Hollywood and politics. Nevertheless, his book provides a good starting point and will be especially useful to scholars interested in public history. Emilie Raymond Virginia Commonwealth University Copyright © 2016 The Southern Historical Association

Where the War on Poverty and Black Power Meet: A Right to the City Perspective on American Urban Politics in the 1960s

This paper looks at the U.S. American federal War on Poverty programs as a progressive attempt at rejuvenating local communities with citizen participation in the post-Civil Rights era. The anti-poverty measures set out to enhance the political empowerment of impoverished communities of color that by the late 1960s had become increasingly segregated and socially polarized. The federal programs did so by encouraging participatory democracy at the grassroots level and with recourse to the rights discourse. Both these aspects of the War on Poverty mobilized the targeted communities to fight for greater social justice and, eventually but unintentionally, to self-organize under the slogan of Black Power. As will be shown in this paper, both the federally-sponsored War on Poverty and Black Power activism, as dialectically related to each other, can be regarded as natural antecedents of the right to the city movements in the contemporary U.S.

A Rational Pondering on Women’s Human Poverty

With the emphasis placed on humanistic values and reasonable demands in the current era, women’s human poverty has gradually become a hot spot of social attention. A systematic analysis of a two-dimensional rational perspective, a philosophical perspective and a cultural perspective, reveals that obstacles to the attainment of freedom created by the loss of ontological rationality are the fundamental causes of women’s human poverty. In addition, in the multicultural and multi-perspective landscape of human survival, the multi-dimensional influence of culture presents a major predicament for research on the issue of women’s human poverty. The key to resolving this issue is philosophical concerns for women’s human poverty and discussions of anti-poverty measures in cultural construction.

The antipoverty effect of public rental housing in Hong Kong

This paper examines the antipoverty effect of public rental housing (PRH) in Hong Kong based on a comparison of estimated imputed rents from PRH through regression-based and stratified rental equivalence methods. Empirical analysis shows that stratified equivalence method tended to generate a larger effect of poverty rate reduction and smaller effect of poverty gap reduction than regression-based method. The study identified a trend towards upwardly biased estimate of public imputed rent in the implementation of stratified equivalence method in Hong Kong where limited strata was available for the estimation. The development of antipoverty measures may be misguided if the stratified equivalence method is used in its current form in Hong Kong. The paper suggests that the choice of estimation method has important implications for evaluating the pros and cons of PRH from both poverty reduction and budgetary perspectives.

A Measure to Target Antipoverty Policies in the European Union Regions.

The reformed cohesion policy (CP), which is the major investment tool in the European Union (EU) for delivering the Europe 2020 targets, will soon make available substantial funds to improve the quality of life of the EU citizens through supporting the economic and social development of the EU’s regions and cities. Because the reformed CP has intensified the emphasis on measuring results, also with respect to reducing poverty and social exclusion, this paper is about measuring poverty to better target EU local policies. We propose a measurement of poverty at the sub-national level in the EU by means of three poverty components describing absolute poverty, relative poverty and earnings and incomes. The core data source is the cross-sectional European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) micro-data, waves 2007–2009. Data reliability at the sub-national level is statistically assessed and the regional level is described whenever possible. To calculate the poverty components, an inequality-adverse type of aggregation is applied in order to limit compensability across indicators populating a component. No aggregation is, however, performed across the three components. In the computations of income-related indicators, individual disposable income adjusted for housing costs, used as a proxy for the costs of living, is used. Poverty is confirmed to be a multi-faceted phenomenon with clear within-country variability. This variation depends on the type of region likely linked to the urbanisation level and, consequently, to the costs of living. The proposed measure may serve to better target anti-poverty measures at the local, sub-national level in the EU.

Poverty and anti-poverty measures in China

During three decades of rapid economic development and governmental anti-poverty measures, China achieved considerable success in poverty alleviation. However, because poverty remains a severe problem, this research analysed the causes and implications of poverty as well as the associated social policies, based on official statistics and survey data. Three decades of successful anti-poverty measures, have largely reduced ‘absolute poverty’, yet ‘relative poverty’ is still severe and substantial challenges remain, caused by the changing socioeconomic circumstances. To enhance poverty alleviation, relevant social policies should be reformed, including changing the underlying approach from addressing absolute poverty to addressing relative poverty, increasing the beneficiary coverage and raising the level of benefits, increasing public funding and improving the relevant administrative systems.

THOSE WHO KNOW, THOSE WHO DON'T, AND THOSE WHO KNOW BETTER: BALANCING COMPLEXITY, SOPHISTICATION, AND ACCURACY ON TAX RETURNS

Refundable credits, particularly the earned income tax credit (EITC) and the child tax credit, serve an important anti-poverty measure for low-income taxpayers. Annually, millions of taxpayers who do not owe any federal income tax must file a tax return in order to claim these credits that are in the nature of social benefits. The eligibility requirements for refundable credits are complex, and these returns are particularly prone to audit: EITC audits comprise one-third of all individual income tax audits. Because of the large dollar amounts at stake, a taxpayer’s mistaken understanding of the eligibility requirements for these refundable credits can often result in a deficiency of several thousand dollars. Though studies indicate that taxpayer error is more commonly inadvertent than intentional, the section 6662 20% accuracy-related penalty applies once the deficiency reaches a statutory “understatement” threshold; it is imposed computationally and without regard to the taxpayer’s intent. By statute, taxpayers have the right to contest the accuracy-related penalty by demonstrating that there was reasonable cause for the underlying error and the taxpayer acted in good faith. Treasury regulations provide that such a circumstance might include “an honest misunderstanding of fact or law that is reasonable in light of all the facts and circumstances, including the experience, knowledge, and education of the taxpayer”. Yet for all of these reasons – lack of experience, lack of knowledge, and relative lack of education – the taxpayer is unlikely to have the knowledge or resources to raise the very defense that is meant to protect an unsophisticated taxpayer. Drawing comparisons between refundable tax credits and social programs administered by other agencies, this article calls upon the IRS to better differentiate between inadvertent error (“those who don’t know”) and intentional or fraudulent error (“those who know better”). The article argues that the current accuracy-related penalty approach is unduly punitive. It concludes by proposing solutions that the IRS might consider in light of Congress’s desire for the Service to administer these social benefits through the Internal Revenue Code.

The Development of Charity: Jurisprudential Lessons from History

This article describes the ancient legal practices, codified in Biblical law and later rabbinical commentary, to protect the needy. The ancient Hebrews were the first civilization to establish a charitable framework for the caretaking of the populace. The Hebrews developed a complex and comprehensive system of charity to protect the needy and vulnerable. These anti-poverty measures, including regulation of agriculture, loans, working conditions, and customs for sharing at feasts, were a significant development in the jurisprudence of charity. The article begins with a brief history of ancient civilizations, providing context for the development of charity by exploring the living conditions of the poor. The second half of the article provides a searching analysis of the rabbinic jurisprudence that established the jurisprudence of charity. This ancient jurisprudence is the root of the American modern philanthropic idea of charitable giving exemplified by modern equivalent provisions in the United States Tax Code.However, the author normatively concludes that American law has in recent times deviated from these practices to the detriment of modern charitable jurisprudence. A return to the wisdom of ancient jurisprudence will improve the effectiveness of modern charity and philanthropy.

Jobs Crisis: Moving Forward?

Jobs Crisis: Moving Forward?

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Targeted Public Distribution Scheme in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh: Complements or Substitutes?

The workfare scheme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), and the direct food subsidy programme, the Targeted Public Distribution Scheme (TPDS), represent two social safety nets instituted in India as anti-poverty measures. This paper examines whether from the point of view of individual households the two programmes are substitutes or complements, as this will shed light on the appropriateness of the design of the two programmes. Based on primary household data collected for the Indian states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh (MP), we show that, in Rajasthan, a large percentage of households consider TPDS and NREGS programmes to be substitutes for each other, while in MP the households often perceive the two programmes as complements. Thus it appears that the two programmes are better designed in MP since an incentive for participation in one programme has desirable side effects on participation in the other. Correlates of participation in the two states are identified and the paper advances several policy conclusions.

117th Constitution Amendment Bill, 2012- Efficiency and adequacy of the State Administration

I have read many Articles in the newspaper taking either of the side without even considering the real points. However, I have tried to highlight all those points which may deliberately left behind to frame such deteriorated picture of the Bill. Further, my point wise submission to the questions rose in the press and by the parties opposing the motion of the Bill, as follows: Reservation in general or in promotion as a concept is very wide. Different people understand reservation to mean different things. One view of reservation as a generic concept is that reservation is anti-poverty measure. There is a different view which says that reservation is merely providing a right of access and that it is not a right to redressal. Similarly, affirmative action as a generic concept has a different connotation. Some say that reservation is not a part of affirmative action whereas others say that it is a part of affirmative action.The words ‘consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration’ under Article 335 of the Constitution of India are capable of being read differently though have not been so read by the courts so far. In a mixed and diverse society as in India, representation of all sections of society in different walks of life creates an integral and, therefore, efficient society. Accordingly, representation of SC/STs which constitute about 24.4% as per Census 2011 of the total population of the country and whose representation in the State administration is small, if not totally absent, will lead to efficiency in the administration. So, the intention of the constitution makers directed that in consistency with the goal of maintenance of efficiency of administration of SC/STs must be duly represented in the State administration. It may also be argued that active inclusion of about such percentage of population into the category from which the administrators have to be selected creates wider choice must naturally lead to selection of better administrators. Thus the words ‘consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration are not the words of limitation but of guidance that in order to ensure maintenance of efficiency of administration the claim of SC/STs must be taken into consideration in making the appointments to services and posts qua the affairs of the Union and the States.

Labor Market Impacts of a Large-Scale Public Works Program: Evidence from the Indian Employment Guarantee Scheme

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in using public-works programs as anti-poverty measures in developing countries. This paper analyzes the rural labor market impacts of the Indian National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, one of the most ambitious programs of its kind, by using a regression discontinuity design. I find that private-sector wages increase substantially for women, but not for men, and that these effects are concentrated during the main agricultural season. In contrast, there is little evidence for negative private employment effects.