Chapter 18 Textbook Flashcards
What is Earned Income Tax Credit?
A “negative income tax” that provides income to very poor individuals in lieu of charging them federal tax.
What is Means-tested Programs?
Government programs available only to individuals below the poverty line.
What is Progressive Tax?
A tax by which the government takes a greater share of the income of the rich than of the poor- for example, when a rich family pays 50 percent of its income in taxes and a poor family pays 5 percent.
What is Transfer Payments?
Benefits given by the government directly to individuals. Transfer payments may be either cash or transfers, such as Social Security payments and retirement payments to former government employees, or in-kind transfers, such as food stamps and low-interests loans for college education.
What is Income Distribution?
The “shares” of the national income earned by various groups.
What is Social Welfare Policies?
Policies that provide benefits to individuals, particularly to those in need.
What is Proportional Tax?
A tax by which the government takes the same share of income from everyone, rich and poor alike- for example, when a rich family pays 20 percent and a poor family pays 20 percent.
What is Feminization of Poverty?
The increasing concentration of poverty among women, especially unmarried women and their children.
What is Income?
The amount of funds collected between any two points in time.
What is Regressive Tax?
A tax in which the burden falls relatively more heavily upon low-income groups than upon wealthy taxpayers. The opposite of a progressive tax, in which tax rates increase as income increases.
What is Temporary Assistance to Needy Families?
Once called “Aid to Families with Dependent Children,” the new name for public assistance to needy families.
What is Wealth?
The amount of funds already owned. Wealth includes stocks, bonds, bank deposits, cars, houses, and so forth. Throughout most of the last generation, wealth has been much less evenly divided than income.
What is Poverty Line?
A method used to count the number of poor people, it considers what a family would need to spend for an “austere” standard of living.
What is Entitlement Programs?
Policies for which expenditures are uncontrolable because Congress has in effect obligated itself to pay X level of benefits to Y number of recipients. Each year, Congress’ bill is a straightforward function of the X level of benefits times the Y number of beneficiaries.
What is Social Security Act of 1935?
Law passed during the Great Depression that was intended to provide a minimal level of sustenance to older Americans and thus save them from poverty.
