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In early 1933 Jay Catherwood Hormel proudly described his rule over the George A. Hormel & Company packinghouse in Austin, Minnesota, as a "benevolent dictatorship." Laborers for the Hormel Company agreed that Hormel's rule was dictatorial, but they disagreed with his use of the adjective "benevolent." In fact, the term "sheer tyranny" was more often used by workers to describe Hormel's labor relations policy within the giant meat packing plant. But in the eyes of local businessmen Hormel's benevolent dictatorship was both economically wise and just. Meat packing was the industry of Austin. In 1933 Hormel employed 2700 of the town's 17,000 residents. Four years later Fortune magazine observed that should Austin ever lose the Hormel payroll "the town would wither away to a few roadside stands and retail stores for farmers." The thought of Hormel moving even a part of his family enterprise from Austin haunted local businessmen. As a result, the town's business establishment provided a worshipful captive audience for Jay Hormel's pronouncements on labor relations. George Hormel attributed his success to a passion for perfection which inclined him toward the use of instructional maxims for his employees whenever he observed them wasting time or materials. Labor relations difficulties were not among George Hormel's management problems. A principal reason for this was Hormel's friendship and openness with many workers, who in turn did not hesitate to discuss their grievances and difficulties personally with him. He shared the humble origins of many of his laborers.

The article offers various explanations as to why poor in the U.S. pay more. One aspect of the literature on the plight of the low-income consumer has to do with the market for consumer durables and credit. Several authors have performed empirical analyses of the consumer durable market. Previous studies have formulated the hypothesis that if the merchant charges a higher total price to a nonwhite shopper than that charged a white shopper for an identical item, the authors of those studies assert that racial preferences account for the merchant's behavior. To test this hypothesis, the authors carefully selected four couples, two black and two white. The experiment design consisted of shopping trips by couples for a specified television set. The article authors conclude that the first thing that researchers and policymakers must insure, when dealing with the problems of poverty, is that they do no harm. To insure against doing harm requires dispassionate analysis that avoids the mere characterization of behavior.

The article analyzes the dynamics of access among the welfare poor. Participation in political society is often considered from the perspective of the theory of democratic pluralism. This theory, which, in the 1960's, inspired a lively debate between those who found decisions controlled by monolithic elites and those who found multiple points of decision-making, has increasingly seen the empirical grounds of contention moving toward questions of participation and access to decision-making processes by non-elites. Access has been studied by analyzing the resources of individuals, the experience of new participants, the potential for manifestation of "quasi-groups," the effectiveness of group organization, and the response of competing groups, elites, and the public to the access-seeker. To comprehend the two-sided process of access-seeking, one must examine the forces that grant or block access as well as the parties that seek access. The central problem to which the empirical study of this paper is directed is the question of how difficult it is for a newly-formed group to gain a foothold in a presumably pluralistic structure of power.

Focuses on the problems associated with the definition of poverty. Qualities of life that comprise the definition of poverty; Information on the structural flaw theory; Provisions of the Economic Opportunity Act; Assumptions about poverty.

Presents a partitioning algorithm for the study of the income dynamics of the poor. Socioeconomic characteristics; Income mobility; Personality variables and attitudes.

The plight of New York City's poor has been an ever-present problem. Their rapid increase accompanied New York's accelerated growth during the post-Revolutionary years. This condition, in turn, imposed new responsibilities for public welfare upon the municipal government. Public provisions for the relief of poverty in New York began with a provincial poor law of 1665-one year after the British assumed control of the colony. This measure and succeeding legislation of the colonial period, based upon the principles of the Elizabethan poor laws, made local communities responsible for their own poor and stipulated that taxation would be the source of relief funds. The economic and social dislocations produced by the American Revolution imposed obvious strains upon New York's local welfare system. Each year thousands of others came to depend on public outdoor relief and the city's charitable societies. As the number of publicly supported paupers rose, so did municipal expenditures for poor relief, which soon became the most costly item in the city's annual budget.

This study addresses itself to the problems of "cultural difference" through a semantic feature analysis of the lexicon of the hard-core poor. The hard-core poor are an internally organized, often highly resourceful, deviant subculture, the members of which do not share common societal values and do not wish for social mobility. They have their own ideology concerning the middle-class striver, considering him "sick" and his values inimical. Although other types of slum residents appear to lack integrated social systems for surviving in conditions of economic marginality, the hard-core poor do not. Their neighbors refer to them as "the self-contained society." They have developed their own adaptive institutional forms, including those for religious expression, economic survival, and social aid. This subculture has its own economic strata (not all of the hard-core group are economically poor), as well as its own elites, its own methods of communication, and highly efficient system maintenance and group insulation mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses about inflation and taxation in relation to low-income groups. In spite of the great current need for more federal revenues and for measures to reduce inflationary pressures, and in spite of the insistence of many pressure groups and some highly respected economists' that taxes on the lower income groups be increased substantially, an excellent case can actually be made for exempting these groups from the increases voted in the Revenue Acts of 1950 and 1951. Besides facing objection on the grounds of its precipitating adverse revenue and inflationary effects, such a suggestion faces the additional criticism that the resulting further increase in the progressivity of the federal income tax would be an outright reform move unfairly undertaken during a period of national emergency. It is argued that further increases will destroy their incentives and hence throttle economic progress. Thus the case against tax increases, and specifically against greater progressivity in tax rates, is made primarily on economic, not ethical, grounds. The article also suggests some points for tax programs and represents it with the help of tables.

Points out that a poor man must surmount four financial barriers in order to have his day in court in his complaint against a rich defendant. Barriers of costs, fees, expense of legal services and sundry miscellaneous expenses incident to litigation; Poor persons' proceedings in England aside from statute; Effect of the act of 1495 upon poor persons' proceedings in England; Proceedings in England under the rules of 1883; Proceedings in the United States.

This article presents a study, which focuses on poor Mexican American family. The Mexican American, then, like any other member of society, not only engages in what a scholar calls "judgmental work," but in doing so constantly relies upon the background knowledge of commonplace settings which he presumes he shares with others. That is, the Mexican American in managing his everyday affairs presumably does not comply with preestablished and legitimate alternative courses of action as spelled out by the dominant culture's normative abstract explanations of human behavior as described in most sociological theory. Rather, he tends to rely upon commonsense understandings of social structures about which people have little knowledge, and not upon the idealized norms that have been attributed to his failure or social status in the larger society by social scientists. True, the idealized norms of the social order form part of his background knowledge, but they do not fully explain how he goes about interpreting the norms to make sense of the many situations the Mexican American finds himself in and which may not have anything to do with his cultural heritage.

The article focuses on the status of low income consumers in relation to the issue of exploitation. The authors remark that allegations that low income consumers are exploited by chain supermarkets have resulted in numerous efforts to measure the prices of food in different income areas. This article reports the results of a study in which the prices of 20 food products were observed in all major chain supermarkets in Philadelphia and evaluations of store appearance and physical conditions were made. The findings of this study differ from those which have been reported previously and are of interest both because the market basket represents a substantial portion of the food budget of urban low income families and because the data were obtained by a complete census of major chain stores in a large city. Furthermore, the results are derived from a census of supermarkets, so that store sampling error is eliminated. The effect of interviewer bias, was minimized by assigning each interviewer to stores belonging to various chains, located in all income areas.

This article focuses on a traditional way of resolving problems in the United States which has been through the development of local self-improvement associations. In spite of the fact that the above characteristics of the poor suggest that they would not participate effectively in voluntarily associations, many intervention programs reflect the belief that self-help associations constitute an important, if not an indispensable, ingredient for breaking the poverty culture. Organizing the poor on their own behalf can be attempted either in conjunction with the prevailing social order, as in the community action programs sponsored by the Office of Economic Opportunity, or in opposition to the prevailing order, as in programs associated with Saul Alinsky or the new student left. Organizing the poor in opposition to the prevailing so that order does not elicit support from established social institutions, but may provide the drama and the emotional appeal that will motivate participation by a substantial segment of the poor population. On the other hand, organizing within the framework of the existing social order may produce strong institutional support, but it limits the targets and tactics of organizational strategy.

The Division of Health Affairs of the Office of Economic Opportunity is currently supporting a number of Neighborhood Health Centers throughout the country. One such "Poverty Program" center is described along with the presentation of the efforts made to provide a comprehensive health action program which directly relates to a poor rural community in Mississippi. Originating in Tufts University School of Medicine 1,500 miles away in Boston, the multidisciplinary team members work both in the field and in the health center itself to involve members of the community within a defined area in the provision of what must he considered to be more than basic medical services. The social, educational, cultural, and psychological factors which are relevant to and influence the health of individuals and groups in the target area are inspected and analyzed. Despite free and accessible medical facilities, various barriers are present which interfere with the delivery of services. Members of the health team must determine both their own priorities and those of the local community in the combined participation of local health councils within the overall program. The possibilities of a teaching exposure for all levels of health personnel in a rural health center must be emphasized along with the vast potential for basic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greater tolerance of deviance has been hypothesized to account for findings that where occupational adjustment was poor, outcome was relatively more favorable with parental placement than placement with spouse Predictions from the tolerance of deviance hypothesis of more favorable outcome with placement with spouse when, 1. occupational adjustment was good, or, 2. when occupational adjustment was poor, but the veteran receives compensation, were only partially supported by this study. An expectancy consistency between patient and significant other(s) was suggested to more adequately account for the complex interaction effects found between type of placement, occupational adjustment and compensation status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which examined urban poverty in Latin America. Factors which contribute to the less adverse effect of monopoly on urbanites than rural dwellers; Conditions of the self-built settlements in urban areas; Description of the social conditions of poor urbanites in the country.

Discusses key issues concerning the provision of legal assistance to the poor. Constitutional right to have the assistance of counsel in legal cases; Role of equal protection of law as the cornerstone of our system of living; Implications on civil rights and the law.

The article presents information about optimal taxes in maintenance plans (IM) in the U.S. Recently a number of IM experiments were launched to study the possible impact on the working poor of various IM plans. The IM approach to welfare and poverty is more comprehensive than either unemployment insurance or Aid for Families with Dependent Children. IM extends support to families with male heads as well as to female-headed families--to persons earning low wages as well as to high-wage earners who become temporarily unemployed and consequently suffer an income deficit. Each program also employs a tax rate which is the proportion by which the maximum transfer payment is reduced as a consequence of earned income and other receipts, generally fully or partially deducted from the maximum allowable transfer, adjusted for family size. The offset tax is the instrument whereby money is being retrieved from those who no longer need full support, presumably for reallocation to other eligible poor.

The article reports on a study which largely replicates the earlier study related to the discrimination in market against low-income group consumers, by testing the methodology in a different city. The primary focus of this study was to determine whether price and credit differentials existed between Anglo, middle-income and predominantly black, low-income sections of Portland, Oregon, and if such differentials did exist to determine whether they were a function of economic status or race. By including not only low-income but also middle-income shoppers of the two races, a built-in control was provided to magnify the relative importance of economic and racial status. If the low-income shoppers received similar cash and credit terms as those offered the middle-income shoppers, no brief could be made for exploitation. If the low-income couples received adverse terms, price discrimination could be said to be a function of income. Finally, if the low and middle-income blacks received higher prices than those quoted the white shoppers, then market exploitation would be said to be racially derived.

The article focuses on the multifamily housing solution and housing type preferences in the U.S. In the early years of public housing, many of the buildings were of low and moderate density. They were typically located on sites which also included gardens, areas for recreation and even in some cases, areas of untouched timber. In terms of both land use and building materials it is generally less expensive to construct higher density multifamily structures than those of moderate density or single-family detached houses of the same quality. While high density housing may appear to be a sound approach to meeting the needs of low-income families, many housing projects have been greeted with something less than enthusiasm by a number of architects, planners, social scientists and even many of the people for whom they were constructed. Numerous explanations have been suggested for the failure of many of these housing projects. Criticisms of physical design range from broad concern with the lack of beauty and monotony of external appearance to detailed discussion of such things as inadequate illumination of landings and stairwells and poor sound proofing.

The article focuses on the cultural and situational factors influencing the medical behavior of poor in the U.S. The authors remarks that more recently, interest has been directed both at the description of health and poverty and toward an understanding of the social and cultural causes of medical pathology among the poor. One major study for example focused upon underutilization and its relationship to social isolation and withdrawal. Underutilization becomes the direct result of the culture and values of the poor and presumably little or nothing can be done to improve health conditions for the poor without a change in these values. The policy implications of this interpretation of the medical behavior of the poor are clear. Short of full participation and integration into American life, policy guidelines would stress the importance of education in reducing the cultural impenetrability of the ghetto. The primary symptom to be cured in the pattern of underutilization of health care by the poor is alienation, the principal agent for the cure is education of the individual.

This article focuses on the need of tribal leadership in the programs for eradication of poverty in the U.S. The article also argues that such behavior was not at all inconsistent with the conditions of "pre-program" reservation leadership or the formal requirements of the leaders' participation in the programs, and that therefore such behavior could have been predicted. Specifically, the leadership behavior is placed within a context of three interrelated causal factors. The first is the persistence of a heritage of authority struggles at two levels: between the council as a unit and the non-tribal administration; and among individual council members themselves. The second is the persistence of a tendency for several formal leadership statuses simultaneously to be vested in a single individual. The third factor is `the dual nature of the leaders' involvement in the development effort. They were at once program administrators, ideally impartial, and recipients of lucrative program benefits. Given `the presence of these factors, it is argued, the leaders' behavior can be viewed as a rational effort to maximize the political and material potential of the programs for their personal satisfaction.