Exam Flashcards
What are the 3 points of argument your book uses to support the structural nature of poverty?
Inability of the labor market to provide a supply of decent paying jobs
Ineffective social safety net to reduce poverty
Systemic nature of poverty (generational aspects)
What disconnect exists between anti-poverty policies and the labor market?
What has been the nature of job growth for the last three decades?
In 2013, what percent of American workers were engaged in low income work?
Anti poverty policy typically focuses on labor supply side
—-Programs address individual human capital issues
What is missing is ::
policy that focuses on labor demand side
*Programs designed to create quality jobs
*The majority of our jobs are SERVICE(college) not MANUFACTURING (high-school degree/ Labor job)
-For the last 3 decades job growth has been principally low wage and part time nature
25% of American workers are engaged in low income work
Less than 65% the median wage – roughly $8.60 an hour in 2013
How has the use of welfare come to be perceived as something deviant?
The use of welfare has come to be viewed as deviant in US society
• It is highly stigmatized
• The stigmatization is tied to the belief by most that the poor are not deserving of such assistance
• This is made worse by the public perceptions that only minorities, drug and alcohol abusers,illegitimate families and long term defendants use the system.
What are the two different forms of welfare benefits (know examples of such programs by form)?
- In kind benefits
1. Food stamps, Medicaid, and housing assistance - Cash
1. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and supplemental security income (SSI)
What is SNAP:
What percentage of households have received SNAP benefits
What is the maximum SNAP allotment for a household of three
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
Nov. 2014 = 14.2%
Households may have 2250 in countable resources, such as a bank account, or 3250 in countable resources if at least one person is age 60 or older, or is disabled
What is Medicaid:
What is the income qualification for a family of four with children
The principle means by which low income individuals have access to health care
• It is the largest source of health care coverage in America
For a family of FOUR: ??
Income for a household of 4 (a month)
- 2584 Gross
- 1988 Net
What is TANF:
What was the significance of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act?
How many families receive such benefits?
What is the median monthly amount received for a family of 3?
Describe the recipients of TANF
–responsibility is featured prominently in the title of this act. Much of the emphasis in this bill and its reauthorization has been to encourage individual responsibility with regard to welfare, work, and family. The concept of responsibility remains fundamental to the ideological and political debates that surround the issue of poverty.
- 1.7 million families
- the median amount a family receives for a family of 3 is 427 a month
Single mothers
How does poverty affect the health care costs for all members of society?
What was the per capita spending on health care in the United States (how does it compare to other
developed nations)?
The existence of poverty cost all members of society
• Health care cost
-children in poverty are more likely to have been born prematurely
-median cost of treatment for premature low-birth weight child was 50,000 and lifetime medical cost estimated at 500,00
-hospitals absorb cost by charging MORE for services
-insuance pays more and pass that cost on to consumers of insurance
The United States spends more per capita on health care than any other country in the world (Mullahy and Wolfe, 2001). In 2000, total expenditures for health care were $ 1.3 billion, or $ 4,481 per person annually (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002d). Clearly, this is an area that exerts a strong impact upon the “average” American.
What percent of households has at least one member working fulltime yet the household income is not above the
poverty threshold
How is this figure different for a one-parent household?
9.4%
We can clearly see that the jobs that one-parent family heads were working at were much less able to sustain families above the level of poverty than were the jobs held by heads of all types of families combined.
***** NOT SURE THIS IS CORRECT??
What does the reported unemployment rate for the United States fail to capture?
Define what is meant by the term “discouraged worker.”
What the unemployment rate doesn’t capture are those known as “discouraged worker”
• Not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work I the 4 weeks preceding the BLS SURVEY
• Including them the unemployment rate for July 2016 would be 6.3%
How would you characterize the wages for those jobs that have the highest employment?
Low wage / part time nature
How does the U.S. stack up compared to other developed nations on the matter of welfare spending as a
percentage of GDP.
Compared to other Western industrialized countries, the United States devotes far fewer resources to programs aimed at assisting the economically vulnerable (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1999). In fact, the United States allocates a smaller proportion of its GDP to social welfare programs than any other industrialized country except Japan (Gilens, 1999).
Just 10% of federal budget
What is the single largest expenditure when it comes to welfare funding?
Healthcare\medicaid
How does welfare spending compare to other spending in the federal budget (percentages)?
- Defense spending accounted for 22%
- Health care (Medicare and Medicaid) 27%
- Pensions 26%
Welfare is 10%
What are the responses to those that say welfare spending to alleviate poverty has not produced impressive
returns?
- The changes to our economy
- The programs are designed more to alleviate the experience of living in poverty not so much pull one out of poverty
- The availability benefits have not really kept up with the cost of living increases
