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This article examines the ways in which the urban poor in Argentina help one another in the arduous task of making ends meet when neither the formal labor market nor state welfare policies are able to secure their subsistence. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, the article makes one substantive, one analytic, and one theoretical claim. Substantively, the article argues by way of empirical illustration that the urban poor are hardworking bricoleurs. Analytically, the article demonstrates the advantages of studying poor people's strategies in a simultaneously historic and ethnographic fashion through joint collaborative fieldwork. Theoretically, the article pushes toward replacing the notions of 'strategy of survival or subsistence' with the more encompassing notion of 'strategy of persistence'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The functioning of the U.S. social safety net as a support for low-income families depends on various means-tested programs and a system of both public agencies and nonprofit organizations. Using in-depth interviews (n = 5) and a survey of nonprofit employees (n = 73), we seek to understand the role of nonprofits in promoting equitable access to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Our findings reveal that public assistance programs are a necessary support for families, but that access is not always easy or equitable, and nonprofits form a protective layer of support providing resources and guidance for those most in need. Implications for policy and partnerships between the various components of the social safety net are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eventually, she and I started a welfare rights group in Milwaukee among professionals working in anti-poverty jobs. The Reagan administration had just destroyed all work incentives: the $30 plus one third of our work income was no longer allowed to remain clear of the deductions to the welfare check resulting from earned income. In the job search class, I would sneak to the blackboard and use it as an opportunity to teach moms why part-time and/or low-paid employment was a waste of time since all income earned reduced the welfare check dollar for dollar, leaving mothers with a welfare income despite being employed. [Extracted from the article]

This study focuses upon factors related to the desire of social work students to work with the poor. It examines three sets of variables: students' perceptions of the causes of poverty, the best way of dealing with it, and preferred professional interventions. The sample consists of 514 graduating BSW students from Brazil, Germany, Hungary, Israel, and the United States. The findings indicate that interest to work with the poor is associated with less inclination to perceive poverty as caused by lack of motivation, effort, and responsibility; more inclination to view the expansion of state provision as the best means of dealing with poverty, less inclination to support its reduction; and more desire to employ policy practice and advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes a relational definition of poor people and poverty situations grounded in the Epistemology of the Known Subject and drawn from qualitative research data. I first examine the basic assumptions of such epistemology which has arisen from the limitations of prior ways of knowing; that is, of what I call the epistemological paradigms of the Epistemology of the Knowing Subject. Then I discuss the features of an empirical study on extreme poverty in Buenos Aires city, as well as the data analysis and concept creation processes involved. This enables me to consider the characteristics of the relational definition of poor people and poverty situations. Finally, I explore the societal model and the type of social process underlying the usual notions of poverty, and the influence of both on social policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents critical perspectives on the books "Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare," by F.F. Piven and R. Cloward, and "Flat Broke: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform," by Sharon Hays. "Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare," is an important text due to its use of critical theory; and as a documentation of the social change efforts of academically based scholars. In "Flat Broke: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform," Hays' intent is to understand the contradictory cultural messages that are embedded within welfare reform--the conflicts between work and family, commitment to others and competitive individualism, self-sufficiency and dependency.