Kaplan's Quarterly

Volume 1, Edition 1 Spring 2015

Preamble

Among The Contributors

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was
and Irish statesman, author, and
philosopher. He served for many
years in the House of Commons
of Great Britain, and his
remembered for his support of
the cause of the American
Revolutionaries. He said,
"Those who don't know history
are destined to repeat it."

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
was an American Founding
Father, the principal author of
the Declaration of Independence,
and the third president of the
United States. He said,
"Nothing can stop the man with the
right attitude from achieving his
goal; nothing on earth can help the
man with the wrong mental attitude."

William T Vollmann (1959-present)

is an American novelist, journalist,

war correspondent, short story

writer, and essayist. He won the 2005

National Book Award for Fiction. He
believes that "life is a process of
trading hopes for memories."

Friedrich List (1789-1846) was a leading
19th-century German-American
economist who developed the National
System of Innovation. He said, "The
more a person learns how to use the forces
of nature for his own purposes, by means
of perfecting the sciences and the
invention and improvement of machines,
the more he will produce."

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

was an American politician , author,

naturalist, soldier, explorer, and

historian who served as the 26th

president of the United States. He

said, "If you could kick the person in

the pants responsible for most of your

trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month."

François Villon (1431-1463) is the

best known French poet of the

Middle Ages. He is especially famous

for his collection of poems Le Testament.

He said, "Necessity makes people

misunderstand and brings out the wolf

of the wood."

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

was a major English Romantic poet,

who helped to launch the Romantic

Age in English literature. He said,

"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow

of feelings; it takes its origin from

emotion recollected in tranquility."

Jean-Baptise Du Tertre (1610-1687)

was a French author, botanist, missionary,

author, and artist. In his works, he focused

on describing the indigenous people, the

animals and the plant world.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

was an American statesman and

political leader who served as the

32nd President of the United States.

He led the country through a time of

economic depression and war. He said,

"It isn't sufficient just to want - you've

got to ask yourself what you are going

to do to get the things you want."

Robert Hughes (1938-2012) was an

Austrian-born art critic, writer, and

producer of television documentaries.

Raising criticism to the level of art, his

writing was noted for its power and

elegance. He once said, "confidence is

the prize given to the mediocre."

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890- 1969)

was the 34th President of the United

States, and a five-star general in

the United States Army during World

War II. He once said, "Neither a wise

man nor a brave man lies down on

the tracks of history to wait for the

train of the future to run him over."

Anne Hathaway (1982-present) is an

American actress, singer, and producer.

She has earned an Academy Award

nomination for Best Actress, and is one

of 23 people to win an Academy Award,

a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, a Screen Actors

Guild Award, and a Critics Choice award for

a single role.

Anne Frank (1929-1945) is

one of the most discussed Jewish

victims of the Holocaust. She is

most famous for her wartime diary,

The Diary of A Young Girl . She said,
"No one has ever become poor by giving."

Jacob Riis (1849-1914) was

a Danish social reformer, journalist,

and social documentary photographer.

He is known for using his journalist and

photography talents to attempt to alleviate

the bad conditions of the NYC poor by

exposing those bad conditions to the

upperand middle classes. He said, "Some

defeats are only installments to victory."

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

was an English cleric and scholar,

influential in the fields of political

economy. He is well known for his

work, An Essay on the Principal of

Population. He said, "The power of

population is indefinitely greater than

the power in the earth to produce

subsistence for man."

Gustave Doré (1832-1883)

was a French artist , printmaker,

illustrator, and sculptor. He is known for

his illustrations of the English bible.

Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794)

was a French lawyer and politician . He

was also one of the most influential

figures of the French Revolution. He was

a member of the Estates-General, the

Constitute Assembly, and the Jacobin club

Mother Theresa (1910-1997) was a Roman

Catholic religious sister and missionary . She

founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman

Catholic religious congregation. She was also

the recipient of multiple honors such as the

1979 Noble Peace Prize. She once said, "This

is the meaning of true love, to give until it hurts."

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was

a Polish author. He is regarded as

one of the greatest English novelists,

even though English wasn't his first

language. He is also considered an

early modernist, and profoundly

explored the human psychology.

Voices in Time

A Destitute Mother
Dorothea Lange
1936

"We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty."

- Mother Theresa

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· The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Dorothea Lange on May 22, 1964. The interview took place in New York City, and was conducted by Richard K. Doud for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

· Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) was a photographer in California, and worked on FSA photograph project during the Depression.

RICHARD K.DOUD: This is part of your growth. Well, how was it, if you were working with the problem of say, the lower one-third, how then did it happen that you became aware of what these people in Washington were trying to do along these lines?

DOROTHEA LANGE: I assure you that I don't say that this is the way it was. This is the way it seemed to me it was. And of course there were many things that were going on that I, in California, was not aware of. But I had made some photographs of the state as people, in an area of San Francisco, which revealed how deep the depression was. It was at that time beginning to cut very deep. This is a long process. It doesn't happen overnight. Life, for people, begins to crumble on the edges; they don't realize it. But this particular section was not far from the place where my studio was and I observed some things that were happening. My powers of observation are fairly good, and I have used them; I like to use them. Sometimes I'm aware of what's going on behind me, you know. My angle of vision was almost 360º. That's training. But I have done some photographs of this. One of them is my most famed photograph. I made that on the first day I ever went out in an area where people said, "Oh, don't go there." It was the first day that I ever made a photograph on the street. I made the old man with the tin cup first, but that was life.

RICHARD K. DOUD: These migratory projects you were doing and perhaps other people were doing, have always impressed me perhaps more than some of the other areas that were covered. I seem to feel more of an empathy, perhaps, with the people photographed. I can see how close perhaps I came to being one of these people, and I can understand my strong attachment or attraction to these pictures. I'm not sure I can quite understand how someone who was born and raised in a city could do as sensitive and powerful a job of photographing these people as you did. I'm very sensitive to what you did, but I can't understand how you could have been as sensitive to the situation as you obviously were.

DOROTHEA LANGE: Well now the problems are enormous. There is no place for people to go to live on the land any more, and they're living. That's a wild statement, isn't it? And yet, it begins to look as though it's true in our country. We have, in my lifetime, changed from rural to urban. In my lifetime, that little space, this tremendous thing has happened. These people on that rainy afternoon in April were the symbol; they were the symbol of his tremendous upheaval like an earthquake. Now of course, the job is just to photograph rural life. Those photographs don't exist. That what I want to set up if I can.

RICHARD K. DOUD: It's part of the picture. An important part of the picture.

RICHARD K. DOUD: Was this the "Golden Age" of photography - the 1930's?

DOROTHEA LANGE: No, no. It wasn't the "Golden Age" but something was done about it. The record was made. We're not doing that now. Young photographers are jumping onto civil rights and it's a bandwagon, like jumping onto the bandwagon. And poverty. That is the big thing everybody's photographing now, it's almost a new style because the President's program to abolish poverty. All the young photographers are coming to me- "how do you photograph poverty now?" You know it's pathetic.

RICHARD K. DOUD: Well, why don't these pictures they're taking now, why don't these pictures that certainly should mean more to me than pictures of something that is long since gone, why aren't these pictures reaching me the way your pictures did? Is it because I feel there's a deliberate attempt to exploit the thing, or is it bad management, poor captions perhaps or is it- what is it? I see the pictures that people are taking of the distressed areas through the Appalachians, and I'm a little disgusted I think. I'm not touched with the poor that are shown, or I'm not moved by the conditions in which thy live. The pictures are more disgusting than they are, well, appealing to my sense of charity or something. Why aren't they successful? Maybe they are to other people; maybe I'm directly comparing them to something else.

DOROTHEA LANGE: I feel the same way. There's no bridge. I feel it many times. I suppose I would answer you, but it would be such a long answer, and such a difficult one. I'd like to postpone that answer. If I come to it so I can clearly state it to you, I'll write it to you sometime.

RICHARD K. DOUD: Well I'd like to know, because-

DOROTHEA LANGE: If I can do it. I have the answer in me, I have it in me. But if I try to do it now, it'll come up in so many words that I'd want to take back. You see I'll be feeling it out, and I have to some time on that.

RICHARD K. DOUD: I will write you and remind you that I have this problem that you're going to answer for me.

DOROTHEA LANGE: I have it too, and that is the importance of recognizing that we have that problem, that we share it with millions of others. It takes a lot to get full attention to a picture these days, because we are bombarded by pictures every waking hour, in on form or another, and transitory images seen, unconsciously, in passing, from the corner of our eyes, flashing at us, and this business where we look at bad images- impure. I don't know why the eye doesn't get calloused as your knees get calloused or your fingers get calloused, the eye can't get…

RICHARD K. DOUD: I hope were not losing any of our sensitivity.

DOROTHEA LANGE: I think we are. I think we are. We are misusing the language of picture, and I tell you, it's an exploited medium. It is not a developing medium; it's being destroyed. That's what I meant.

RICHARD K. DOUD: Well I think it's the responsibility of people like yourself to do something about it.

DOROTHEA LANGE: Well I'd like to. I'd be willing, if I had the ability and the strength to do it. I'm going to try.

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"Mechanizing man's work had changed but not lightened his toil. But it has not been noticed that

mechanizing the home has laid another load on the laborer's back: it has made simple poverty impossible. No household today can remain without the conveniences, beginning with the telephone and other utilities (as they are called), and going on to the car, radio, and television. Needed for holding one's job or socially imposed by the neighbors and one's children, they are part of an oppressive "standard of living." For some families this means moonlighting or perpetual debt; for others, who refuse the struggle, it is abject poverty instead of the tolerable life that an earlier age might have afforded" (Barzun 603-604).

-From Dawn To Decadence

The Wanton Dying in Poverty
James Northcote
1796

PROVERBS, CHAP. XXXI. v. 20.

She stretches out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.’

PROVERBS, CHAP. V. v. 11, 12, 13.

And thou mourn at the laſt, when thy flesh and thy body are conſumed.

And say, how have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof!

And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me.

THE scenes, which we have hitherto contemplated, have progressively led us to one of the most affecting nature, in which we at length behold the unhappy victim of vice and delusion arrived at a catastrophe as miserable as the tenor of her life has been erroneous: such indeed as is the natural effect of the conduct we have before witnessed, and such as on a moment's recollection we shall perceive to be more immediately the consequence of the unhappy state of riot and debauchery in which we last left her.

The splendor of vanity, the intemperance of laughter, the feverish triumph of presumption and heedless arrogance, are ceased. While the wanton flew headlong and irrevocably through the paths which pleasure has strewed with blossoms torn rudely from the stalk, she was not aware that poverty and disease lurked on her way; they have assailed her, they have seized her, they have laden her with anguish, which she was equally unprepared and unable to support, and the sufferings of a distempered frame are at last about to be closed in death.

The preſent scene exhibits the poor friendless prostitute in the agonies of expiring life, destitute of every means of relief, and wanting all those consolations and supports, which in this awful period attend the virtuous. An outcast from society, which she has dishonoured; banished from that humanity and benevolence, whose protection she has forfeited; to whom in this hour of extreme necessity does she consign herself, to watch the painful moments of her dissolution? The minister of this charge, ‘fit watch in such a night,’ is before us. A wretch, in whom, hardened by being a continual witness of such scenes of misery, every vestige of feeling appears to be finally extinguished. Callous to the anguish she was hired to relieve, instead of attending to the pitiable object of her care, assiduously inquiring her wants, or administering comfort to her laſt moments, her only solicitude appears to have been habitually directed to herself. Her body sweltering and bloated with gluttony, the dram and cordial "standing rubrick" on her cheek, this miſcreant, wholly inebriated, snores over the exhauſted flaggon, while the lamentable victim of more fatal imprudence, dropping the phial of unavailing medicine, expires unnoticed at her feet. — Such is inevitably the miserable exit of those, whom a disgraceful and an illspent life leaves disregarded and forlorn in death.

In a gloomy chamber, near whose door a rope, suspended from the roof, reminds us of ſome former sufferer, who has sought relief in suicide, we behold our unfortunate heroine, lying on a ruined floor, with no other bed than a little straw, while the fragments of a wretched meal and the tattered remnants of her former gaiety, a faded feather, hat, and cloak, are strewed on the ground around her, and at her ſide a poor little innocent, ignorant of its pitiable situation, embraces with filial tenderness his cold and lifeless mother, on whose ear the last sounds that vibrated, were the cries of this her now destitute and helpless orphan.

From objects, the one so affecting, the other so disgusting, we should shrink at once with terror, if our attention were not more pleasingly drawn to the engaging and now doubly-interesting appearance of the former amiable friend and companion, who, though too late to afford the relief that would have gratified her tender heart, has ſought out the gloomy retreat of poverty and shame; and, overcome with grief at the ſight which preſents itself to her, wipes from her eyes the tears that fall for the sufferings of a fellow-creature; ‘"Tears, from sweet Virtue's source, benevolent to all."’

Prepared to offer every means of assistance, she has filled her frugal purse with the savings of her own industry, and the larger bounty which her entreaties, ever the ready advocates of distress, have obtained from the worthy and benevolent housekeeper. In the hurry of taking her purse from her pocket, she has dropped her housewife; which being observed by the little messenger of gluttony, just returning to the old nurſe with a fresh supply of her favourite cordial, accustomed to watch the opportunities of knavery, he is artfully employed in drawing it, by means of a crooked stick, towards the door, behind which he hides himself during the commission of the theft. A melancholy presage of that ruinous course of life, which must bring him to the most fatal and disgraceful end.—The principal intention of the scene, exhibited to us in this picture, may be more forcibly impressed by the following lines:

How could I once look up or heave the head,

Who, like a foolish pilot, have shipwreck'd

My vessel, trusted to me from above!

— Thou bear'ſt

Enough, and more, the burthen of that fault;

Bitterly hast thou paid and still art paying

That rigid score.

Diligence and Dissipation: or the progress of a modest girl and a wanton

- James Northcote

1796

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Poor People's March on Washington
-Gary May
1968

“It is time to mark clearly the aim of the Revolution and the end toward which we wish to move; it is time to take stock of ourselves, of the obstacles which we still face, and of the means which we ought to adopt to attain our objectives. What is the goal for which we strive? We wish in a word to fulfill the requirements of nature, to accomplish the destiny of mankind, to make good the promises of philosophy. The glory of all free peoples that have existed, become the model of all nations.... That is our ambition; that is our aim. The splendor of the goal of the French Revolution is simultaneously the source of our strength and of our weakness. It rallies against us all vicious men, all those who in their hearts seek to despoil the people.

Virtue without which terror is murderous, terror without which virtue is powerless. Terror

is nothing else than swift, severe, indomitable justice; it flows, then, from virtue" (Robespierre).

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"The hour-long glimpse I had of the rubble-hill and the destitute people stooping and wandering upon it haunts me more and more. As I think upon its sickening implications . . . my mind swings back to Michelle, who was a likeable enough person. You should never complain life is unfair to you, [she said,] and she never did. If she lacked compassion, well, just what was she supposed to do for those people? For that matter, what had I done? I threw a little money and some attention at a random few, then departed the premises."


-William T. Vollmann







Sold off Siblings 

-Bettmann Corbis

 1948

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"Poverty is deeply                                                                                            "Happiness lies not in             

entwined with a more                                                                                           mere possession of                 

poetic inquiry into                                                                                               money; it lies in the               

happiness. On the table                                                                                        joy of achievement,              

is not just poverty, but                                                                                                   in the thrill of                          

questions of community,                                                                                            creative effort."                      

fate and perspective."                                                                                    -Franklin D. Roosevelt,               

-Publishers Weekly                                                                                        First Inaugural Address           

                                                                                                                              (March 4, 1933)                
















"It has been said that the great question is now at issue, whether man shall henceforth start forwards with accelerated velocity towards illimitable, and hitherto un-conceived improvement; or to be condemned to a perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery, and after every effort rain still at an immeasurable distance from the wished-for goal."



An Essay on the Principal of Population

-Thomas Robert Malthus

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The Day Book

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers

1914

The Day Book

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers

1914

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"Overcoming poverty is not a
task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty
is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the
actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU
can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom."

-Nelson Mandela

Unemployed
- Ben Yu
1941

People of color have higher poverty rates than
Whites; women have higher poverty rates than men; and children have higher
poverty rates than adults. The elderly are one “success story” of poverty.
Largely due to increased spending on Social Security and Supplemental Security
Income, the poverty rate of the elderly dropped by about 25 percentage points
from about 35 percent in 1960 to 10 percent in 2000.

People of color have not experienced dramatic
declines in economic hardship. In 2002, about 24% of African Americans lived in
poverty, as did about 22% of Latinos, 10% of Whites, and 10% of Asian
Americans. While the poverty rates of Black and Latinos were comparatively low
in 2002, these groups were still over twice as likely as Whites to live in
poverty. Blacks and Latinos had poverty rates almost three times those of
Whites in 1992 and 1993. Several factors exacerbate economic hardship among
people of color: racial segregation in housing, which is often associated with
lower quality education; low human capital and structural shifts in the economy
away from manufacturing jobs. Likewise, employment discrimination continues,
evidenced by research on employers’ stereotypes about unequal treatment of
workers of color and by research on minorities’ reports of unequal treatment.
These factors increase unemployment rates and poverty; even during the economic
boom of the late 1990s, workers of color had unemployment rates twice those of
Whites.

A good deal of research explores the “feminization
of poverty,” or the trend by which women represent an increasing proportion of
the poor. While in recent decades, non-elderly women’s representation among the
poor has not increased faster than that of men’s, women have always had higher
poverty rates than men. In 2002, women’s poverty rates were almost 3 percentage
points higher than those of men – 12.5 percent compared to 9.9 percent. Persistent
inequalities in labor markets such as sex gaps in pay, promotion, and
authority, the sex segregation of jobs, and discrimination against women all
contribute to the sex gap in poverty. While human capital differences explain
some portion of labor market inequalities, gender gaps in education and
experience have narrowed substantially over the past decades. This suggests
that factors other than human capital contribute to gender inequality in
employment. Some note that women’s greater likelihood of poverty lies in their
parenthood as well as gender status; indeed, mothers’ earnings are consistently
lower than those of female non-mothers, and mother have higher poverty rates
than female non-mothers. Not only do mothers need more money to provide for
their children, most also take time out of the labor force to care for them,
thus decreasing their earnings. Female-headed households are particularly
susceptible to poverty, given the gender inequalities in labor markets
mentioned above, combined with the economic (and many non-pecuniary) challenges
in raising children on one’s own. In 2002, 35 percent of female-headed
households with children under 18 lived in poverty.

A multiracial feminist perspective emphasizes the
ways in which multiple social locations interact to affect women of color.
Women of color have higher poverty rates than men of color and White women; for
example, in 2002, 24 percent of Black women lived in poverty compared to 20
percent of Black men and 11 percent of White women. Households headed by women
of color have astronomical poverty rates – 42 percent in 2002. These high
poverty rates reflect marked economic disadvantage due to race/ethnicity,
gender, and single parenthood.

The Poverty Line Forty Years Later: Alternative
Poverty Measures and Women's Lives

- Karen
Christopher

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-Jacob Riis

"Necessité fait gens méprendre

Et fait jaillir le loup du bois.”

-François Villon

"Necessity makes people misunderstand

And brings out the wolf of the wood. "

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Musée Carnavelet
Paris, 1790

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The Barnyard
- Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre
1667

"When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it."

-Jacob Riis

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Old Man
-Liraco

I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;

And he was seated, by the highway side,

On a low structure of rude masonry

Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they

Who lead their horses down the steep rough road

May thence remount at ease. The aged Man

Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone

That overlays the pile; and, from a bag

All white with flour, the dole of village dames,

He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;

And scanned them with a fixed and serious look

Of idle computation. In the sun,

Upon the second step of that small pile,

Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,

He sat, and ate his food in solitude:

And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,

That, still attempting to prevent the waste,

Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers

Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,

Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal,

Approached within the length of half his staff.

Him from my childhood have I known; and then

He was so old, he seems not older now;

He travels on, a solitary Man,

So helpless in appearance, that for him

The sauntering Horseman throws not with a slack

And careless hand his alms upon the ground,

But stops,--that he may safely lodge the coin

Within the old Man's hat; nor quits him so,

But still, when he has given his horse the rein,

Watches the aged Beggar with a look

Sidelong, and half-reverted. She who tends

The toll-gate, when in summer at her door

She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees

The aged beggar coming, quits her work,

And lifts the latch for him that he may pass.

The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o'ertake

The aged Beggar in the woody lane,

Shouts to him from behind; and if, thus warned,

The old man does not change his course, the boy

Turns with less noisy wheels to the roadside,

And passes gently by, without a curse

Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.

He travels on, a solitary Man;

His age has no companion. On the ground

His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along

'They' move along the ground; and, evermore,

Instead of common and habitual sight

Of fields with rural works, of hill and dale,

And the blue sky, one little span of earth

Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day,

Bow-bent, his eyes for ever on the ground,

He plies his weary journey; seeing still,

And seldom knowing that he sees, some straw,

Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track,

The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left

Impressed on the white road,--in the same line,

At distance still the same. Poor Traveller!

His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet

Disturb the summer dust; he is so still

In look and motion, that the cottage curs,

Ere he has passed the door, will turn away,

Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,

The vacant and the busy, maids and youths,

And urchins newly breeched--all pass him by:

Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.

But deem not this Man useless.--Statesmen! ye

Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye

Who have a broom still ready in your hands

To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud,

Heart-swoln, while in your pride ye contemplate

Your talents, power, or wisdom, deem him not

A burthen of the earth! 'Tis Nature's law

That none, the meanest of created things,

Or forms created the most vile and brute,

The dullest or most noxious, should exist

Divorced from good--a spirit and pulse of good,

A life and soul, to every mode of being

Inseparably linked. Then be assured

That least of all can aught--that ever owned

The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime

Which man is born to--sink, howe'er depressed,

So low as to be scorned without a sin;

Without offence to God cast out of view;

Like the dry remnant of a garden-flower

Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement

Worn out and worthless. While from door to door,

This old Man creeps, the villagers in him

Behold a record which together binds

Past deeds and offices of charity,

Else unremembered, and so keeps alive

The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years,

And that half-wisdom half-experience gives,

Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign

To selfishness and cold oblivious cares.

Among the farms and solitary huts,

Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages,

Where'er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,

The mild necessity of use compels

To acts of love; and habit does the work

Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy

Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul,

By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued,

Doth find herself insensibly disposed

To virtue and true goodness.

Some there are,

By their good works exalted, lofty minds

And meditative, authors of delight

And happiness, which to the end of time

Will live, and spread, and kindle: even such minds

In childhood, from this solitary Being,

Or from like wanderer, haply have received

(A thing more precious far than all that books

Or the solicitudes of love can do!)

That first mild touch of sympathy and thought,

In which they found their kindred with a world

Where want and sorrow were. The easy man

Who sits at his own door,--and, like the pear

That overhangs his head from the green wall,

Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young,

The prosperous and unthinking, they who live

Sheltered, and flourish in a little grove

Of their own kindred;--all behold in him

A silent monitor, which on their minds

Must needs impress a transitory thought

Of self-congratulation, to the heart

Of each recalling his peculiar boons,

His charters and exemptions; and, perchance,

Though he to no one give the fortitude

And circumspection needful to preserve

His present blessings, and to husband up

The respite of the season, he, at least,

And 'tis no vulgar service, makes them felt.

Yet further.----Many, I believe, there are

Who live a life of virtuous decency,

Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel

No self-reproach; who of the moral law

Established in the land where they abide

Are strict observers; and not negligent

In acts of love to those with whom they dwell,

Their kindred, and the children of their blood.

Praise be to such, and to their slumbers peace!

--But of the poor man ask, the abject poor;

Go, and demand of him, if there be here

In this cold abstinence from evil deeds,

And these inevitable charities,

Wherewith to satisfy the human soul?

No--man is dear to man; the poorest poor

Long for some moments in a weary life

When they can know and feel that they have been,

Themselves, the fathers and the dealers-out

Of some small blessings; have been kind to such

As needed kindness, for this single cause,

That we have all of us one human heart.

--Such pleasure is to one kind Being known,

My neighbour, when with punctual care, each week

Duly as Friday comes, though pressed herself

By her own wants, she from her store of meal

Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip

Of this old Mendicant, and, from her door

Returning with exhilarated heart,

Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven.

Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!

And while in that vast solitude to which

The tide of things has borne him, he appears

To breathe and live but for himself alone,

Unblamed, uninjured, let him bear about

The good which the benignant law of Heaven

Has hung around him: and, while life is his,

Still let him prompt the unlettered villagers

To tender offices and pensive thoughts.

--Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!

And, long as he can wander, let him breathe

The freshness of the valleys; let his blood

Struggle with frosty air and winter snows;

And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath

Beat his grey locks against his withered face.

Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness

Gives the last human interest to his heart.

May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY,

Make him a captive!--for that pent-up din,

Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air,

Be his the natural silence of old age!

Let him be free of mountain solitudes;

And have around him, whether heard or not,

The pleasant melody of woodland birds.

Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now

Been doomed so long to settle upon earth

That not without some effort they behold

The countenance of the horizontal sun,

Rising or setting, let the light at least

Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.

And let him, 'where' and 'when' he will, sit down

Beneath the trees, or on a grassy bank

Of highway side, and with the little birds

Share his chance-gathered meal; and, finally,

As in the eye of Nature he has lived,

So in the eye of Nature let him die!

The Old Cumberland Beggar

-William Wordsworth

1789

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"France had lost a large portion of her native industry through Colbert's protective system, could be levelled against Colbert only by that school which utterly ignored the revocation of the Edict of Nantes with its disastrous consequences. In consequence of these deplorable measures, in the course of three years after Colbert's death half a million of the most industrious, skilful, and thriving inhabitants of France were banished; who, consequently, to the double injury of France which they had enriched, transplanted their industry and their capital to Switzerland, to every Protestant country in Germany, especially to Prussia, as also to Holland and England. Thus the intrigues of a bigoted courtesan ruined in three years the able and gifted work of a whole generation, and cast France back again into its previous state of apathy."
The National System of Political Economy 1841
- Friedrich List

The Day Book
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
1916

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Poverty in the USA
-Harold Heie

“Each parish was supposed to feed its own poor; but for this it would have been necessary for the poor to feed the poor. So these lovely edicts were without effect, and the only way to help the poor, by decreasing the taxes with which they were burdened, was never put into practice. On the contrary, they were increased.”

Poverty Observed: Journal of a Country Priest

-Abbé Lefuevre

"No one has ever become poor by giving."
-Anne Frank

"Confidence is the prize given to the mediocre."
- Robert Hughes

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Vulnerability refers to the risk a person or group may have of crossing the poverty line. It describes the probability of becoming poor and is a function of external shocks and stresses. Some researchers not that dual risks experiences by such groups: that of external threats to livelihood and security (for example, climate, market collapse, etc) and the lack of internal preparedness for times of crisis.

The transient poor refers to those groups who resources are only slightly below established needs and so they suffer from persistent deprivation. To make reference to the levels at which a person, household, or group falls below the poverty line, researches often refer to the depth of poverty. The depth of poverty, as well as its incidence, can ne measured using the poverty gap measure. The poverty gap is the mean shortfall from the poverty line.

Capabilities deprivation identifies poverty in terms of “the lives of people can actually lead and the freedoms they do actually have.” As such, the “capabilities approach” extends the concepts of human poverty by drawing distinct connections between development, freedom, and deprivation of human capabilities.

Capabilities refer to the ability of a person to convert commodities into valued functionings in the context of one’s life. A functioning is an “achievement of a person; what he manages to do or to be.” For example, food is a commodity that enables a person to satisfy hunger and to provide eating pleasure. And yet for a person to convert this commodity in daily “functioning”, she must have the capability to do so. As such, commodities have no intrinsic value in the absence of a person’s ability to convert goods into achievement.

- M. Mowafi and M. Khawaja

Poverty

Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

French Estates
1789

Cartoon 1789 - Collection Banque Nationale de Paris

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Little Boy Eating Melon
- Ernesto Galarza
1965

Povre je suis de ma jeunesse

De povre et de petite extrasse;

Mon pere n’eust oncq grant richesse,

Ne son ayeul, nommé Orace;

Povreté tous nous suit et trece.

Sur les tumbeaux de mes ancestres,

Les ames desquelz dieu embrasse!

On n’y voit couronnes ne ceptres.

(Poor I am, and from my youth,

Born of a poor and humble stock.

My father never had much wealth

Nor yet his grandfather, Orace.

Poverty tracks us, every one.

Upon the tombs of my ancestors,

The souls of whom may God embrace!
Sceptres and crowns aren't to be seen.)

Le Testament

- Villon, François.
1461

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We must become thoroughly familiar with the real conditions and features of the life of the various social groups and population strata. We must know the real conditions in their entire real variety. We must take into consideration not simply money but also the real possibility of backing such money with commodities and services; not simply square meters of new housing but also the amount of time we must wait before we have access to these meters; not simply bed-spaces in hospitals but also the number of people who need them.

Such accurate and scrupulously computed information is needed not only by those in charge of the allocations and making responsible decisions. It is needed by all of us in order to develop objective and unprejudiced views on the real processes that are taking place in reality and be familiar with their trends. And so, let us talk about real processes and their trends. One can understand the resentment of people who consider themselves ignored by society.

Poverty

World Affairs Institute
1989

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Gustave Doré
1880

"Yes; I looked at them as you would any other human being, with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities, weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorable physical necessity. Restraint! What possible restraint? Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear - or some kind of primitive honor? No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principals, they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its somber and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonor, and the perdition of one's soul - than this kind of prolonged hunger" (Conrad 38-39).

Heart of Darkness

-Joseph Conrad

1899

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"If the poverty were voluntary, there might be some difference. Strong instances of self-denial operate

powerfully on our minds, and a man who has no wants has obtained great freedom and firmness and even dignity."

Reflections on the Revolution in France

-Edmund Burke

1790

A Tramp and His Deeds
-Arthur Burdett
1883

“Poverty is not a matter of low well-being, but of the inability to purse well-being precisely because of the lack of economic means.”

Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of Poverty

-David Brady

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE REAL ISSUE: WHO CAN SURVIVE ON TODAY'S MINIMUM WAGE?

The minimum wage is meant to be a living wage. “By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level – I mean the wages of a decent living.” President Roosevelt’s words in 1933, five years before the first minimum wage became law. These days, it’s anything but a living wage. Someone working full-time at the federal minimum earns an annual paycheck of just $15,080 – below the poverty line for even a family of two. For the minimum-wage earner with a family of four, a full-time paycheck falls almost $9,000 below the poverty line, which is $23,850. Even a $10.10/hour full-time job – an annual $21,008 – falls short.

Pay is not the only problem with minimum wage jobs, either. Many don’t offer full-time hours, even when workers want them. And new shift-scheduling software which is cost-efficient for the employer (booking employees only at highest traffic times) can be hell for the employee. Ever-changing and on-call schedules, split shifts and the dreaded “clopening” (closing up the store at night and having to report early the next morning for opening) make it hard to take a second job or attend college classes or arrange for child care. Minimum-wage employees are also vulnerable to so-called wage theft, reducing their pay even further, a spate of recent lawsuits has revealed: everything from no overtime pay and erased time cards, to off-the-clock time employees are forced to spend checking schedules or going through lengthy security bag-checks.

THE TYPICAL MINIMUM WAGE WORKER

Contrary to stereotype, the typical minimum-wage worker is not a middle-class teenager earning pocket money. According to the CBO, based on Census Bureau data, 88% of minimum wage earners are adults 20 or older; 55% are women. For these adults and their families, proper housing is unaffordable, as a February 2015 report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition (based on federal data) shows: A minimum-wage earner would need to work, on average, 2.6 full-time jobs to rent a decent two-bedroom apartment for less than 30% of her or his income.

All of this helps explain why so many minimum-wage workers are also on some kind of public assistance. A University of California, Berkeley, study, for instance, found that more than half of fast-food workers are enrolled in one or more public programs. Forbes summed up the economic impact of this with the headline: “Fast Food Companies Outsource $7 Billion In Annual Labor Costs To Taxpayers.”

Raising the minimum wage to even $10.10 would reduce government expenditures on current income-support programs by at least $7.6 billion per year, according to analyst David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute. “Essentially, low-wage employers are being subsidized by the taxpayer. Prices are going up, but paychecks are not, and taxpayers are making up the difference.”

THE BOTTOM LINE

The minimum wage in the United States is no longer a living wage. At $7.25, the federal minimum hasn’t kept up with the cost of living since the late 60s, and there’s a growing movement among workers, policy analysts, state and city governments – and even some employers – to raise it. A boost to just $10.10 would lift 900,000 out of poverty, projects the CBO. While opponents argue that raising the minimum wage would be bad for businesses and the economy, increasingly sophisticated economic research shows that a rise in the minimum wage does not automatically cause job losses and can act as an economic stimulus as it boosts the spending power of millions of workers. And then there’s the simple point, as Senator Tom Harkin put it: “In a nation as wealthy as the United States, no one who works hard for a living should live in poverty."

Family in Poverty
1792

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rich Mom, Poor Mom

Highly paid women are more likely than women earning less to postpone child-rearing. Early commitment to their careers reduces the economic impact of becoming a mother. But highly paid women also derive significant advantages from greater resources. The ability to purchase reliable child-care services, for instance, makes it easier to maintain high levels of participation in paid employment.

Women with lower earnings are more likely to cycle in and out of jobs, forced to quit if child-care arrangements fall through or they experience a family health crisis. This employment instability tends to lower their hourly wages and may also lead employers to be wary of hiring them.

One cruel aspect of policies in this country is that, as Professor Budig and Ms. Hodges put it, “high-earning childless women hold the most family-friendly jobs” — those with paid family leaves, sick days and vacation time.

Although mothers are underrepresented in the highest echelons, those that reach them derive substantial benefits from family-friendly policies. Indeed, Professor Budig and Ms. Hodges find a motherhood bonus among those in the top 5 percent of the earnings distribution, where having children goes along with increased earnings.

These “supermoms” are often in super jobs (and are able to hire super nannies). The other 95 percent of mothers pay a penalty that increases their economic vulnerability.

More universal family policies, such as early-childhood education, paid family leave, paid sick days and paid vacation time could help most working mothers substantially increase their earnings.

But the very divisions among mothers that Professor Budig and Ms. Hodges observe could help explain lack of political will to implement such policies.

We used to hear that low-income women were having children to get a free ride from public assistance. But mothers depend far more heavily on paychecks than on welfare checks, working long hours at low pay in order to finance their labor of love.

The strict restrictions on public assistance put into place in 1996 did not reduce birth rates, which remained steady at an average of slightly more than two children per woman.

The surge in unemployment over the last three years, however, has discouraged potential parents. Birth rates have declined sharply, reaching a hundred-year low.

We now see fewer new mothers, more old mothers, more poor mothers and more poor children.

Too bad more of the rich mothers currently running for office aren’t more worried about these trends.

-Nancy Folbre

Poverty in London
-Gustave Doré
1873

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"We must learn to love those incomparably useless and precious beings, the child, the elderly, the unborn, and the dying, because they and we are one."

-William Wordsworth

1789

Homeless American Children
-Jerry Nelson
2015

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You hear a lot of dialog on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're merging into big conglomerates."

-Erma Bombeck

1978

Awaiting the Deliverer
Beihong Xu
1930

His final farewell to his wife:

"Farewell, my wife and children, for ever and ever. Love my children, I beg you, tell them often what I was, love them for us both. Farewell my wife and children. I go to draw the curtains of life. You, my friends, console my wife and children, that I beg you. Farewell, Maître, my friend, farewell Galeau and all those who took part in my misfortunes. Embrace my little children.
I end my days today.

Judged this 23 Ventôse, 1794.

I embrace my wife and children."

"He made jokes up to the moment when he told all the onlookers that he wished them a happier lot; that, as far as he was concerned, he was dying for a matter of very little importance. He then took his leave of all the citizens, laughing the while."

Last Letters
From the French Revolution

-Olivier Blanc
1793-1794

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Miscellany

“France has bought poverty by crime! France has not sacrificed her virtue to her interest, but she has abandoned her interest, that she might prostitute her virtue. All other nations have begun the fabric of a new government, or the reformation of an old, by establishing originally or by enforcing with greater exactness some rites or other of religion. All other people have laid the foundations of civil freedom in severer manners and a system of a more austere and masculine morality. France, when she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the license of a ferocious dissoluteness in manners and of an insolent irreligion in opinions and practice, and has extended through all ranks of life, as if she were communicating some privilege or laying open some secluded benefit, all the unhappy corruptions that usually were the disease of wealth and power.”

Reflections on the Revolution in France

-Edmund Burke

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The people now armed themselves with such weapons as

they could find in Armourer's shops and private houses,

and with bludgeons, and were roaming all night through

all parts of the city without any decided practicable object.

They took all the arms, discharged the prisoners and such of

the garrison as were not killed in the first moment of fury,

carried the Governor and Lieutenant governor to the Greve

cut off their heads and sent them through the city of

triumph to the Palais royal."

-From Thomas Jefferson's Letter to John Cay

Thomas Jefferson's Letter to John Cay

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Squire's Door

George Morland

1790

“They have made no sacrifices to their projects of greater consequence than their shoe buckles, whilst they were imprisoning their king, murdering their fellow citizens, and bathing in tears and plunging in poverty and distress thousands of worthy men and worthy families. Their cruelty has not even been the base result of fear. It has been the effect of their sense of perfect safety, in authorizing treasons, robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaughters, and burnings throughout their harassed land. But the cause of all was plain from the beginning.”
Reflections on the Revolution in France.
-Edmund Burke

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conversations

Mother Theresa -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"A Simple Path" 1995 "Budget and Military Budget" 1953

"The greatest disease in the "Every gun that is made, every warship
West today is not TB or leprosy; launched, every rocket fired signifies in
it is being unwanted, unloved and the final sense, a theft from those who
uncared for. We can cure physical hunger and are not fed, those who are cold
diseases with medicine, but the and not clothes. This world in arms is not
only cure for loneliness, despair, spending money alone. It is spending the
and hopelessness is love. There sweat of its laborers, the genius of its
are many in the world who are scientists, the hopes of its children. This is
dying for a piece of bread but not a way of life at all in any true sense.
there are many more dying for a Under the clouds of war, it is humanity
little love. The poverty in the West hanging on a cross of iron."
is a different kind of poverty -- it
is a poverty of loneliness but also
of spirituality. There's a hunger for
love, as there is a hunger for God."

Robert Hughes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walter Benjamin

"The Rise of Andy Warhol," 1932 "Little History of Photography," 1931

"If you want to know all about Andy Everyone will have noticed how much
Warhol told an interviewer, "just look easier it is to get a hold of a painting, more
at the surface of my paintings and films particularly a sculpture, and especially
and me, and there I am. There's nothing architecture, in a photograph than in reality.
behind it." This kind of coyness looked, It's all too tempting to blame this squarely
at the time, faintly threatening. For on the decline of artistic appreciation, on a
without a doubt, there was something failure of contemporary sensibility. But one
strange about so form an adherence to is brought up short by the way the
the surface. It went against the grain of understanding of great works was
high art as such. What had become of the transformed at about the same time the
belief, dear to modernism, that the power techniques of reproduction were being
and cathartic necessity of art flowed from developed. Such works can no longer be

the unconscious, through the knot work of regarded as the products of individuals; they

dream, memory, and desire, into the have become a collective creation, a corpus
realized image? No trace of it; the paintings so vast it can be assimilated only through
were all superficies, no symbol. Their miniaturization. The creative in photography
blankness seemed eerie. is its capitulation to fashion. The world is
They did not share the reforming hopes beautiful - that is watchword. In it is
of modernism. In general, his only subject unmasked the posture of a photography that
was detachment: the condition of being a can endow any soup can with cosmic
spectator, dealing hands-off with the world significance but cannot grasp a single one of
through the filter of photography. the human connections in which it exists,
Thus his paintings, roughly silkscreened, even when this photography's most dream-
full of slips, mimicked the dissociation of gaze laden subjects are a forerunner more of its
and empathy induced by the mass media: the salability than of any knowledge it might
banal punch of tabloid newsprint, the visual produce. But because the true face of this
jabber and bright sleazy color of TV, the sense kind of photographic creativity is the
of glut and anesthesia caused by both. advertisement or association, its logical

counterpart is the act of unmasking or

construction.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Further Remarks

Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of Poverty

-David Brady

Conceptualizing Poverty as Social Exclusion

Recently, poverty analysts have grown dissatisfied with narrow theoretical conceptualizations and measures of poverty. In fact, narrow perceptions of poverty may fundamentally underestimate the extent and severity of poverty. European scholars have advanced the concept of social exclusion as an attempt to broaden the conceptualization of poverty and to facilitate measurement innovations. Conceptualizing poverty as social exclusion can provide a novel and beneficial direction for the U.S. sociology of poverty. Potentially, the concept of social exclusion will suggest new sets of interesting sociological questions and provide different theoretical interpretations of old findings. Therefore, conceptualizing poverty as social exclusion is a criterion for an ideal measure of poverty.

The notion of social exclusion echoes the classic concern that “the poor are losing their links with the greater world.” In addition, social exclusion is consistent with the concept of social dislocation, which is described as limited differential opportunities for economic resources, political privileges, organizational influence, and cultural experiences. Social exclusion can be understood as “people being prevented from participation in the normal activities of the society in which they live or being incapable of functioning”. In sum, social exclusion means incomplete citizenship and unequal access to the status, benefits, and experiences of typical citizens in society.

Though social exclusion has multiple meanings, the concept can also be reduced to one central notion. If an individual is socially excluded, that person has a limited capability to effectively participate in society. Capability refers to the ability to function effectively in society and have the freedom to participate fully an equally with the mainstream. Capability offers a promising link between poverty and social exclusion, as social exclusion defines the lack of the basic capabilities that make one poor. Arguments have been formulated based on inequality and poverty around people’s substantive freedom of choice to achieve valuable functionings and well-being. A functioning member of society must have basic freedoms (or capabilities) to participate in society’s main institutions. Thus, the concepts of social exclusion and capability present an engaging, broadening direction for analysts of social inequality. To date, however, the connection to poverty measurement has not been fully articulate. Social exclusion, and hence capability, facilitate the reconceptualization of poverty in two main ways.

First, these concepts explicitly and implicitly necessitate a relative measure of poverty. Explicitly, policy debates for relative poverty measures have been influenced by the concept of social exclusion. The notion of social exclusion has been deployed in the European debate about the community - and society – specific nature of poverty. In 1984, when the European Commission constructed measures of poverty, the Council of Ministers overtly linked their measures to social exclusion by defining poverty as “persons whose resources are so limited to exclude them from the minimum acceptable way of life in the Member State in which they live.”

Second, social exclusion and the economic market are strongly connected. Because poverty is primarily an economic phenomenon and social exclusion is multifaceted and complex, the two may seem incompatible. It may even seem inappropriate to treat social exclusion as a market phenomenon rather than as a cultural, institutional, and social concept. However, the economic market is one of several main mechanisms triggering social exclusion. In postindustrial welfare states, a low level of economic resources is a principal precursor to social exclusion. In effect, an interest in social exclusion demands an interest in economic inequality. “A government professing itself concerned with social exclusion but indifferent to inequality is, to put it charitably, suffering from a certain amount of confusion.” The essence of social exclusion thus involves the dual marginalization by society’s institutions and, especially the market.

The link between social exclusion and the market, and hence poverty, is made even more clear by returning to capability. “Poverty is not a matter of low well-being, but of the inability to purse well-being precisely because of the lack of economic means.” Even with the nuanced concept of capability, a basic level of economic means is essential for escaping poverty. While this basic level of capability almost implies an absolute definition of poverty, this need not be the case. Though poverty is absolute in terms of capabilities, it is plausible, and even appropriate, that poverty is relative in terms of economic resources. Therefore, capability can be an absolute concept entailing basic levels of social functioning, while being measured as a relative economic standing. Thus capability and social exclusion, as attributes of poverty, emerge from a relative measure of poverty.

Shortcomings of the Official U.S. Measure

In recent years, many scholars, journalists and policy makers have criticized the official U.S. measure of poverty, emphasizing that the U.S. measure is “commonly acknowledged to be inadequate for measuring poverty.” Also arguing that the U.S. measure “does not capture the real dimensions of hardship and deprivation, it also does not reflect the changing depth or severity of poverty.” The Family Support Act of 1988 called for a scientific review of the U.S. measure. In 1995, the National Research Council (NRC), and specifically the Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance, published the results of this scientific review. In this report, the NRC panel, which include many of America’s most influential poverty researches, broadly concluded that that U.S. measure is outdated and should not be retained.

Moreover, many analysts fault the U.S. measure’s lack of reliability because it obscures differences in the extent of poverty among population groups and across geographical contexts and provides an inaccurate picture of trends over time. The measure remains unchanged after thirty years, significant demographic, economic, and policy changes are ignored. Specially, the NRC noted the increased labor force participation of mothers, the related escalating need and expenses for child care and health insurance, differences in health status, and the inappropriateness of antiquated family size adjustments laments the unsophisticated equivalence scale, which does not reliably measure poverty across family sizes and forms. It also explains that the relative share of family budgets devoted to different goods and services has changed. Over time, the U.S. measure has depreciated from its value in 1963 and become unreflective of what a family really needs to avoid poverty. Because of rising consumption and living standards, the NRC concluded that updating the poverty threshold solely with inflation is increasingly inadequate. In short, the U.S. measure lacks reliability due in large part to the limited and weak means of adjusting the measure since its inception.

Similarly, many scholars argue that the U.S. measure lacks validity because it fails to capture the complex nature of poverty. Many increasingly burdensome family expenses (such as health and child care) are not encompassed in the U.S. measure. In addition, the measure ignores cash, near-income, and in-kind public assistance, as well as the taxes that effectively alter a family’s disposable income. Neglecting these government benefits, the U.S. measure violates the transfer axiom, fails to grasp the financial reality of poor families, and significantly underestimates the extent of poverty in the U.S. In sum, the U.S. measure lacks both validity and reliability and warrants revision.

Though the construction of a flawless measure is unlikely, the NRC and others suggest important revisions to improve poverty measurement. First, many scholars argue for a more significant temporal revision to the measure as living standards and consumption rise. Second, many analysts argue simply that the threshold should be raised to include those just above or near the poverty line. Third, a rising consensus argues for a reorientation toward a relative standard. While the U.S. measure purports to delineate a family’s absolute level of minimum needs, the NRC recommended that the threshold be explicitly refocused on the relative consumption of contemporary U.S. families. With the NRC’s proposed alternative measure, analysts have demonstrated significantly different historical trends in U.S. poverty; much higher poverty rates, smaller gaps between child and adult poverty rates and importantly, different social consequences of child poverty. Unfortunately, despite these scholars’ efforts, the government has not implemented significant changes to its measure. While a lack of political will probably explains the inaction of the U.S. government, sociologists have no such justification. It is time that sociologists moved away from this flawed measure.

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Poverty

Friday, February 27, 2015

Poverty

Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of Poverty

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