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This paper estimates the impacts of Livestock Asset Transfers on the livelihoods of the ultra-poor in West Bengal, India. The programme provides the female members of ultra-poor households with livestock assets as grants. We find that the intervention increases per capita monthly income by Rs 1061 (122% increase). It also increases the food expenditures of households and enables them to secure enough food to eat at least two meals a day. Furthermore, the programme also increases the number/amount of owned livestock assets, poultry, and cultivable lands amid the treatment households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization, Poverty and Income Inequality: Insights from Indonesia: Edited by Richard Barichello, Arianto A. Patunru and Richard Schwindt. He also does not distinguish between Gini coefficients based on household income and those based on household expenditures; Indonesian estimates are usually based on expenditure figures, which are not directly comparable with other countries in Asia, let alone the OECD countries. Trade openness may well have increased less rapidly in Indonesia than in China, India and Vietnam since 1980, but in 1980 these three last economies were still largely closed to global trade. [Extracted from the article]

Bangladesh's health finance characterizes by 63.3% out-of-pocket payments and a lack of prepayment mechanism. We assume this heavy burden significantly contributes to poverty. The results indicate, 3.2% of households are not counted as the poor, but in reality, they are. This shows an 8.8% underestimation of poverty. The poverty gap increases from Bangladesh Taka 1,458 to Taka 1,817. Similarly, the mean positive poverty gap rises from 22.2% to 25.2%, indicating that the increase in poverty is not only due to more households being brought into poverty but also deepening of the poverty among those who were already poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the conditions underlying poverty in various countries. Most of the poor people in the world are dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. The income and welfare of poor in low income countries can be improved significantly with the optimal use of the production of capacity of the land to grow enough food for the increasing population. The improvement in population quality is the deciding factor of production in improving the welfare of poor people. Agriculture poor people respond well to better opportunities to improve the production.

This article applies the capability approach in order to analyse microcredit as a tool for resource conversion, which permits poor households to take advantage of latent opportunities. This approach calls for linking microcredit with the choices of the poor themselves. A sample of 290 rural households from the Madagascar highlands was surveyed over two consecutive years. To identify the most relevant dimensions of poverty available for a conversion process, data were processed using factor analysis. A hierarchical classification then permitted the distribution of the households over three capability levels. Finally, an ordered multinomial logit brings out how microcredit influences the likelihood that a household receiving such a loan will reach a higher capability level. The main findings indicate that microcredit represents a robust means to obtain a higher level of capability. Moreover, when the process of borrowing endures, poor households enter into a learning process that increases the effect of microcredit. Regardless of the gender of the household head, microcredit increases the probability of reaching an enhanced level of capability, except for the poorest households headed by a woman. The head of household’s level of education only improves the effect of microcredit if the productive system implemented needs specific competencies related to educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small livestock and aquaculture production is thought to positively impact the livelihood security of poor rural households in low-income economies. A systematic narrative review conducted for evidence of this impact found only 29 studies that met the reviews inclusion and classification criteria. These studies indicate that raising small livestock and fish can improve income and nutrition, but results regarding women’s empowerment, disease, and the environment are mixed. More high-quality research is needed to understand the positive and negative impacts of production on human well-being. Future development programming should focus on implementing and evaluating multidimensional programmes and mixed farming systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism is not accessible to all individuals and households. Low income specifically constrains participation in tourism and affects households’ level of Leisure and Tourism Expenditure (LTE). This study uses micro-data available regarding 9489 Portuguese households, deepening the understanding of the Portuguese reality concerning the households’ LTE, its determinants, and how these differ according to the households’ income level. Studies analysing leisure and tourism in low income families are scarce. Low income families have significantly lower LTE and important differences in the determinants of LTE arise between the groups of families. This deeper knowledge about the households’ LTE can form the basis for actions aiming to reduce constraints and encourage leisure and tourism, maximizing the benefits low income families can obtain from that participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study on Great Britain, we estimate the labour market and income process of prime-aged men simultaneously and control for spillover effects. Evidence is presented that the risk of becoming unemployed and poor increases with the duration of unemployment and decreases with the duration of employment. Moreover, the experience of poverty influences the labour market and income prospects negatively, though on a much smaller scale than does the labour market position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial exclusion has been shown to have negative socio-economic effects on citizens, especially at the bottom of the economic pyramid. South Africa suffers from high levels of financial exclusion, disproportionately at the bottom of the pyramid. This study investigates nine factors identified from the literature as being positively associated with financial exclusion using a logistic regression model. The findings show that the most significant factors associated with being financially excluded at the bottom of the pyramid in South Africa were educational level, primary source of income, age, home language and number of dependents. The study further found that gender, relationship status and home ownership were not associated with being financially excluded. An interesting finding was that living in a rural area as opposed to an urban area was not significantly associated with being excluded. The findings and their implications for expanding financial inclusion at the bottom of the pyramid are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The claim that there are “conversion factors” between people's resources and their capabilities is fundamental to motivating the capability approach, yet is empirically relatively under-examined. The few analyses which exist focus typically on one group—disabled people—and focus overwhelmingly on current income as the relevant measure of resources. This article extends existing analysis on both fronts, analysing conversion factors for a broader range of groups than are typically considered and estimating conversion factors using both a current and five-year average measure of income. It is found that conversion factors based on a five-year average of current income are 40–45% lower than those based on current income. However, a conversion-adjusted income measure, whether based on current or five-year average income, still does not reflect “command over capabilities” because conversion factors are estimated on the basis of group averages, while needs vary for different groupsanddifferent households. The article concludes that understanding more clearly the nature of the conversion between resources and functionings or refined functionings represents an important task for those working with the capability approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The substantial increase in economic inequality in favor of the upper income group in the United States and many other developed and developing nations during the past 30 years has become a major concern in public policy. Modifications of the standard measures of inequality, the Lorenz curve and Gini index, are proposed that better reflect the decline in the share of income received by the poor and middle portions of the income distribution relative to the upper end. A second pair of curves based on the fractions of either the middle or lower portion of the income curve that has the same share as the topu% and the areas between them and the line of equality are introduced. The proposed curves and related measures indicate that a noticeably greater change in the U.S. income distribution occurred during the 1967–2013 time period than are observed in the Lorenz curve and Gini index. The maximum difference between the proposed curves for the income and wealth data in the United Kingdom's 2010–2012 survey are greater than that of the Lorenz curve. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper is to illustrate how pension and housing systems together affect poverty among the elderly. We analyse Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, each with different combinations of pension and housing institutions. Using EU-SILC data for 2009, we distinguish between income-poverty and deprivation, the former to evaluate the performance of pension systems and the latter to judge how the impact of housing systems on income-poverty translates into deprivation. The focus is on risk groups such as the separated, the widowed, the former self-employed and retirees with short or irregular employment histories. The findings are that pensions, since they often exclude particular groups, such as households with less than 25 years of employment, increase the elderly income-poverty risk for those groups. The risk of being income-poor is somewhat alleviated in the case of a generous flat-rate public pension, but even then households with less than 25 years of employment have higher levels of income-poverty. Outright home-ownership provides households the opportunity to live rent-free and thus yields income-in-kind. Housing systems in which home-ownership is dominant often also have high levels of outright home-ownership among the income-poor elderly, compensating for the low income-in-cash that they receive as a pension, thus reducing deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether household access to microfinance reduces poverty in Pakistan and, if so, how and to what extent. It draws on primary empirical data gathered by interviewing 1132 households, including both borrower and non-borrower households, in 2008–2009. Sample selection biases have been partially controlled for by using propensity score matching. The study reveals that microfinance programmes had a positive impact on the participating households. Poverty-reducing effects were observed on a number of indicators, including expenditure on healthcare, clothing and household income, and on certain dwelling characteristics, such as water supply and the quality of roofing and walls. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Small enterprises are often highlighted by politicians as important engines of economic growth and job creation. However, previous research suggests that self-employment might not be equally beneficial for individuals in terms of their income compared to regular employment. Several studies have in fact found that the self-employed may face a substantially higher poverty risk than do regular employees. The aim of the present study is to investigate to what extent income poverty is a good predictor of actual living standards among the self-employed. Is the relationship between income poverty and living standards different for self-employed compared to the regularly employed? To investigate this question we use a unique Swedish survey dataset including regularly employed (n = 2,642) as well as self-employed (over-sampled, n = 2,483). Income poverty is defined as living in a household with less than 60% of the median household income. Living standards are measured with a deprivation index based on 29 consumption indicators. The results show that even though income poverty is more prevalent among the self-employed than among the regularly employed, no evidence can be found suggesting that the self-employed have a lower standard of living than the regularly employed. Furthermore, when specifically comparing income poor self-employed with income poor regularly employed, we find that the income poor self-employed score significantly lower on the deprivation index even after the compositional characteristics of both groups are taken into account. The conclusion is that poverty measures based on income data underestimate the actual living standard of the self-employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we discuss two methods commonly used in the literature to measure chronic poverty, the permanent income approach (where the chronically poor are those whose mean income over time is below the poverty line) and the spells approach (where the chronically poor are those households who are below the poverty line half of the time or more). We check the differences between these two methods considering also several household characteristics. The index we use is that of Foster, Greer and Thorbecke, FGT, with and. When each method identifies the chronically poor (which could be different individuals by each method) and shows the percentage of the chronically poor, while when the methods also take into account the depth of poverty. Our main goal is to show the differences between the two methods, so that policymakers would have different perspectives on the problem of chronic poverty and could make decisions on this basis. The results show that, in the data used, the permanent method and the spells method classify the households into chronically poor and nonchronically poor definitions almost similarly in some cases. Thus, when measuring chronic poverty using the FGT index with , the levels of chronic poverty measured by the two methods are quite the same for the whole population as well as for subgroups of the population. Nevertheless, when using the FGT index with , the permanent method and the spells method give different results, as they take into account the depth of poverty differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth management states in the USA, such as Florida, Oregon, and Washington, require their local jurisdictions to plan for an adequate supply of housing for all current and future residents, including low-income households. This research uses regression analysis to test the relationship between the strength of local comprehensive plans toward affordable housing and subsequent changes in housing affordability for low-income households. Semi-structured interviews with local planners about their perceptions of the efficacy of local plans provide insight into the quantitative findings. The initial plans passed after Florida's Growth Management Act were not associated with subsequent changes in housing affordability, but more recent plans were. Planners in a number of jurisdictions indicated that Florida's planning mandate increased awareness among public officials of affordable housing issues and the tools available to address them, despite the state's weak oversight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most difficult aspects of studying low-income couples is the effective implementation of recruitment and retention strategies. Low-income couples face environmental stressors that make participation difficult, and research has yet to identify efficacious methods of recruiting and retaining low-income couples into funded studies. Researchers and practitioners targeting low-income participants rely on a “learn-as-they-go” approach. Therefore, we examined passive and active recruitment strategies for 394 married participants with children under age 18 and reporting a total household income within 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines who participated in a federally funded couples and relationship education program. Univariate ANOVAs indicated significant differences between recruitment method and total time spent in couples and relationship education workshops for both women and men. Further, results indicated a relationship exists between recruitment method and the number of follow-up contacts required before participants attended the initial intake appointment. Implications for practice and research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concern about financial literacy is rising. But national surveys of financial literacy are not very helpful regarding the literacy characteristics of the poor. This case study uses the financial diary method to examine the financial literacies of 13 poor Canadians. The results found that most participants kept their spending in line with their income and tracked their spending, and several demonstrated financial resilience. Many participants appreciated involvement in the study because it further developed their skills in tracking their expenses and articulating financial goals. Approximately 40% of the participants had reasonably healthy finances, many of them newcomer Canadians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents findings from research into the impact of affordability on cell phone usage in the impoverished community of Grahamstown East. The findings indicate that the usage of cell phones is significantly constrained by a lack of affordability, which calls into question whether this community is experiencing a shift from an earlier, industrial form of society, to what Castells et al. have called the ‘mobile network society’. The research points to the fact that the positive benefits of cell phones, identified by Castells et al., cannot be realised in a circumstance where cell phone usage is survivalist in nature, and in fact cell phones are highly extractive in this resource-poor context, diverting income away from more productive uses. The research is used to raise a series of questions about the explanatory power of technology-led accounts of social transformation for an impoverished community such as that of Grahamstown East, and whether it is appropriate for theorists to base their accounts of social change largely on middle-class experiences with cell phone usage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The experience with the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) so far has shown that there are significant challenges in making the mechanism work for energy projects in households. Programmes of Activities (PoA) have been hailed as a new opportunity to address these challenges by transcending the CDM's single-site approach. Applying insights from research on energy projects in low-income households in South Africa, this article suggests that the successful use of PoA in developing countries is contingent on establishing an appropriate institutional framework, building local capacity, increasing institutional learning around project development, and harmonising evolving carbon finance mechanism. The article demonstrates that the concept of PoA has opened up new opportunities for implementing CDM projects and scaling up mitigation, but that the approach is only effective when situated in a context where diverse stakeholders address the multi-faceted requirements for scaling up carbon mitigation, including among other things, establishing enabling policy frameworks, exploring additional funding options, and developing appropriate methodological approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We study rural employment transitions in Ethiopia between farming and both low- and high-return nonfarm employment. We find that initial asset holdings and access to saving and credit are important factors for transition into high-return rural nonfarm employment and that households' participation in high-return rural nonfarm activities is robust to their experience of health shocks. However, shocks that affect their wealth or liquidity may trigger descents into low-return nonfarm employment. On the other hand, shocks that reduce agricultural income motivate transitions into high-return rural nonfarm employment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article contributes to the growing research and policy interest on the challenges of achieving socially sustainable transportation. It analyses the determinants of transport mode use for journey to work among population groups considered as vulnerable to mobility and accessibility limitations. Using the 2001 Census of Canada, multilevel multinomial logistic regression models were estimated to assess the personal, social and economic factors that affect travel mode use of low-income persons in their journey to work in urban areas in Ontario and Quebec. The findings show important differences in the factors associated with car driving and public transit, between genders, and according to income level, educational achievement, household structure and immigration status. Furthermore, it is found that significant factors affecting travel mode use among low-income people in various urban areas are differentiated by province. The results point towards a geographic-based and balanced promotion of public and private mobility programmes and policies to address transport needs of low-income workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many nonprofits and government entities model the standard for housing affordability set by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD, which states that housing costs in excess of 30% of gross household income are unaffordable. Families require a minimum level of basic consumption after housing costs are made which must then be purchased with the remaining 70% of their gross income. Hence, an increasing number of studies have examined how these competing needs factor into the government equation for housing affordability using national datasets. This study uses data from the Rural Families Speak project, a multi-state research project focused on rural, low-income families with children. The percent of income families spent on housing is compared to their ability to fulfill basic needs to answer the question: Do low-income rural families that are not housing cost burdened perceive themselves to be able to meet more basic needs than families that are housing cost burdened according to the government standard? By incorporating measures of perceived fulfillment of basic needs, the understanding of affordability can be broadened to include the challenging circumstances of rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the relationship between happiness and standard of living compared with kids and parents in the United States. Using General Social Survey (GSS) data from 1993 to 2010, I find that people who are poorer than their parents or those whose kids are worse off than them are unhappier than the people who have the same standard of living compared with their parents or kids. On the other hand, people who are richer than their parents and people who have richer kids are not significantly happier. These results might suggest that people in the United States are altruistic towards their children only if they are poorer than them but not if their children are richer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reprint of the article "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty," which appeared in the May 2, 1966 issue of "The Nation" is presented. It proposes a strategy that enables a convergence of civil rights organizations, militant anti-poverty groups and the poor. It notes that the abysmal state of welfare practices can be attributed to the distribution of public assistance via local and state responsibility. To eliminate poverty, it points out a need to ensure adequate levels of income and to guarantee the right to income.

Those who defended the American model during its long period of growing income inequality argued that rising incomes at the top would result in faster economic growth and therefore rising incomes for those at the bottom. When looking at experiences in many countries, Lane Kenworthy finds that was not the case. Nor was it the case that rising incomes at the top measurably hurt the poor. It was public policy that made the difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of pro-poor growth focuses on the interrelation between economic growth, inequality, and poverty. According to an absolute definition, growth is pro-poor if the absolute income gain of the poor is larger than those on average. In contrast, a relative definition requires that the growth rate of income is higher among the poor than the nonpoor. The pro-poor literature has often considered the concept of pro-poor growth within a country by using household data in one country, or a large cross section of countries and time periods. This paper measures pro-poor growth across countries. We show how the concept of pro-poor growth in income per capita can be applied easily to a set of economies in the course of growth. This approach enables us to highlight the link to income convergence studies. The empirical investigations consider the experience of five Balkan countries during the period 1989-2005. The results show that many episodes of growth are not pro-poor because poverty and inequality worsen between Balkan countries. Although economic reforms seem to have a positive effect on well-being in Balkan countries, the overall effect on growth has been small for most countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1987 to 2007 the rich got richer. This study documents this trend and then examines whether the poor have gotten poorer. It finds that the per capita income of the poor has remained virtually constant. One reason for this outcome is the growing proportion of the poor who are unrelated individuals. Also, the relative income share of the poor decreased, and their per capita income deficit increased. Thus in relative terms the average poor person has gotten poorer. In the late 1990s incomes of poor families remained fairly constant because wage gains were offset by declines in welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the body of knowledge by examining the differential effects of three dimensions of human capital-education, training, and health-on the poor and upper income categories. We tested the effects using binomial and multinomial logistic regression analyses of working age individuals. The study revealed that these human capital variables are strong predictors of poverty in the binomial model but have greater effects on the near-poor than the poor in the multinomial model. This may provide evidence for social exclusion of the poor, due to their structural vulnerability in the labor market. Implications are made for a comprehensive workforce development strategy that combine human capital development and labor market inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with the divisive views of the past, integrative thinking has recently come to characterise the methodological debate on poverty. 'Qualitative vs quantitative' has given way to 'qual-quant'; 'cross-disciplinarity' has replaced 'economics vs anthropology'. This article attempts to review this change. It begins with a historical overview of the pure economic approach to poverty and its critique. The critique, both from within economics and from the participatory and anthropological disciplines, is examined, and recent trends are considered. The current 'qual-quant' approach is illustrated with examples, and the author concludes that the future may well see the emergence of a 'participatory qual-quant' approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One way of measuring the deprivation or poverty of persons is to use money based measures: a person is regarded as 'poor' if his/her income (or expenditure) falls below a poverty line value. Such an approach-usually termed 'poverty analysis'-has spawned a large literature embodying several sophisticated measures of poverty. The downside to this is that low income or expenditure may not be very good indicators of deprivation. Another way, usually termed 'deprivation analysis', is to define an index whose value, for each person, is the number (or proportion) of items, from a prescribed list, that he/she possesses: persons are then regarded as 'deprived' if their index value is below some threshold value. This offers an alternative method of identifying deprived persons. The downside of deprivation analysis is that it measures deprivation exclusively in terms of the proportion of deprived persons in the total number of persons. The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between poverty and deprivation analysis by constructing a wider set of deprivation measures and showing, with data for Northern Ireland, how they might be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this special issue is to draw attention to "missing dimensions" of poverty data - dimensions that are of value to poor people, but for which we have scant or no data. Amartya Sen frames development as the process of expanding the freedoms that people value and have reason to value. Although the most widely known measure of human development includes income, longevity and education, many have argued that people's values, and consequently multidimensional poverty, extend beyond these domains. In order to advance these multiple areas, it is at times necessary to conduct empirical studies using individual or household-level data on multiple dimensions of poverty. A critical barrier for international analyses of multidimensional poverty is that few or no high-quality indicators are available across countries and respondents in key domains that are deeply important to poor people and of potentially critical instrumental importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our aims were to describe the socio-economic circumstances faced by families supporting a child at risk of disability and to investigate the extent to which disability is associated with hardship once family income is held constant. We analysed data on 7070 family units containing 12,916 children aged under 17. Families supporting a child at risk of disability were significantly more disadvantaged across a wide range of indicators of socio-economic position. The hardship experienced by these families was only partly accounted for by between group differences in income, debt and savings. Children who are already at risk of disability as a result of a range of physical and cognitive impairments are more likely than other children to live under conditions that have been repeatedly shown to impede development, increase the risk of poor health and (additional) disability and increase the risk of social exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between education and savings performance in Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), a matched savings program for the poor. Based on economic and institutional theories of savings, we further investigate whether the relationship between education and savings is mediated by income, intended uses of IDAs, or program factors. The data of this study are from the American Dream Demonstration (N = 2,150), the first national demonstration of IDAs. The results indicate that education was positively related to savings after controlling for program factors and other individual characteristics. Household income and two program factors, monthly savings target and financial education, partially mediated the relationship between education and savings outcomes. These results provide some support for both economic and institutional theories of savings among low-income people. The findings also may help design and implement more effective savings programs for the low-income population and its varying segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the study which investigates the civil justice problems of low and moderate income citizens in Canada. The study reveals that 47.7% of the incidence of law-related problems had encompassed a variety of very different types of problems, where three categories of economic problems appeared to have the highest frequency of occurrence, including money and debt, consumer, and employment. Moreover, about 33.9% of all problems were assessed to remain unresolved.

The Human Poverty Index (HPI) is a composite index of poverty that focuses on deprivations in human lives, aimed at measuring poverty as a failure in capabilities in multiple dimensions, in contrast to the conventional headcount measure focused on low incomes. The HPI was introduced in the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report 1997 and concentrates on deprivations in basic dimensions of life. This paper develops an axiomatic characterization of a family of global deprivation indices using an arbitrary number of dimensions of human life. When we consider only the three basic dimensions, a member of this family becomes ordinally equivalent to HPI. The general index allows the calculation of percentage contributions of deprivations in different dimensions, and hence to identify the dimensions whose failures affect the overall deprivation more. This is important from a policy perspective. We also provide an empirical illustration of the characterized indices using cross‐country data for the three basic dimensions and the anthropometric indicators birth weight, height for age and nourishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pathologizing the Poor: A Framework for Understanding Ruby Payne's Work The poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. - Gustavo Gutiérrez [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was undertaken to examine the scope of home-based businesses in poor neighbourhoods and the extent to which household income is derived from them. The aim was to determine the ratio of home-based business income to wage earnings, in order to understand its relative importance in augmenting primary employment (wage-based) income. The size, necessity and importance of self-generated (business-derived) income in augmenting primary income was measured in a selected subeconomic housing area within the Cape Metropole. The significance of this analytical research is the determination of income data and the levels of poverty. This paper provides the primary data (base information) for policy formulation relating to social and economic development in this subeconomic area. The findings add to the debate for the provision of a Basic Income Allowance (grant) for those people experiencing poverty. The results correlate with findings of national longitudinal studies. The level of job creation through businesses is minimal and the extent of unemployment is much greater than anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-income families face an enormous burden to achieve economic security since the deterioration of a guaranteed safety net. Health insurance coverage is uneven, affordable childcare falls short of demand, and wage earnings insufficiently support family needs. This analysis focuses on recent trends in family formation, the impact of policy changes on families of color and of immigrant status, and explores the daily challenges and coping strategies low-income families use to survive despite insufficient resources. Four key findings emerge from this body of knowledge: (1) Low-income families experience severe hardships when relying on cash assistance, work, or a combination of both; (2) Low-income families are resilient and resourceful; (3) Low-income families face significant barriers to using public and private services along with increasing earnings from work; and (4) The quality of life for families of color and immigrant families is directly affected by employment and service sector practices. Future research needs to focus on identifying tile critical unmet needs of low-income families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review of promising programs to address the challenges facing low-income families living in distressed neighborhoods reveals three key themes: (1) Earnings and asset development programs are used to increase the economic self-sufficiency of low-income families and include: place-based employment programs, a focus on ‘good jobs,’ the use of work incentives, programs that promote banking, car and home ownership, and the use of the Earned Income Tax Credit; (2) Family strengthening programs are used to improve health and educational outcomes, as well as link families to needed support and benefit services and include: nurse home visitation, parenting education, early childhood educational programs, and facilitating the receipt of support services; and (3) Neighborhood strengthening programs are used to improve features of the neighborhood, collaboration among service providers, and resident involvement in neighborhood affairs and include: the use of community development corporations, comprehensive community initiatives and community organizing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review of promising practices for meeting the multiple needs of low-income families in poverty neighborhoods reveals four main themes: (1) The challenges facing low-income families living in poverty neighborhoods are not discrete-but are multidimensional; (2) Integrated family and neighborhood strengthening practices, such as the Making Connections (MC) Initiative (funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation), and the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ), represent innovative strategies to address the multifaceted issues facing low-income families living in poverty neighborhoods; (3) The organizational structure, challenges and successes of the MC and HCZ provide insight into the nature of integrated family and neighborhood approaches; (4) A framework for the design of an integrated family and neighborhood program includes a locus on internal organizational processes, neighborhood processes, and external processes. This framework can assist social service agencies ill moving their services toward a more integrated family and neighborhood approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been recognized that children and adults living in poverty are at risk for a number of negative outcomes. As inequality in the distribution of wealth, income and opportunity has grown in the U.S. during the post-welfare reform era, impoverished children and their families have tended to become increasingly concentrated in urban low-income neighborhoods. Research evidence demonstrates that living in these neighborhoods affects family well-being in several key areas: economic and employment opportunity, health and mental health condition, crime and safety, and children's behavioral and educational outcomes. Using the neighborhood indicator approach, public and nonprofit social service agencies will be better positioned to develop a comprehensive and integrated service delivery model at the neighborhood level by using neighborhood assessment to locate services and utilize neighborhood intervention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The financial services and sources of credit available to poor families affect the rate at which families can be financially empowered through building assets. This paper provides background information on financial services, including credit sources, which are available for low-income people and communities. Also discussed arc policies affecting financial markets and promising innovations in delivering affordable financial services to low-income families. Implications for social work education, practice and advocacy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental justice movement attempts to examine the disproportionate exposure of environmental pollution on minority and low-income people, understand the patterns of such disproportionate exposures and develop strategies to reduce and eliminate such exposures. Unlike several environmental justice studies that include all fifty states of the United States, this study examines the locations of manufacturing facilities that pollute in states with predominantly high African-American populations. Our analysis indicates that polluting facilities tend to choose counties with higher proportion of nonwhite populations. Per capita incomes of people living within 5-miles of the facilities are lower than per capita incomes of people living in the host counties Contrary to the conventional wisdom, population density per square mile both within 1 mile and 5 miles of the facility are much higher than the state population densities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incomes of the poor may have been hurt because of adjustment costs or low-wage competition following trade deregulation and because of increased macroeconomic volatility following capital account liberalization. Greater trade volumes that disproportionately benefit low-income households in the short run, though, may offset these adverse effects. Using data from the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN, we find that capital and current account deregulation hurts the poor in the short run, and that trade offsets some of these adverse effects. Further, trade and openness have no significant impact on long-run growth, which could have offset adverse short-run effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was an exploratory investigation of parenting effectiveness among 135 single, low-income African American mothers. Two aspects of parenting were investigated, satisfaction with one's ability to parent and parent effectiveness or abilities. Two instruments were used to measure these concepts, the Kansas Parental Satisfaction Scale (James, Schumn, Kennedy, Grigsby, Shectman, & Nichols, 1985) and the Parent Success Indicator for Parents (Strom & Strom, 1998). Results indicate high levels of effective parenting among the group on both measures. This was true regardless of the mother's age, level of income, level of education, number of children, or age of the oldest child. Implications for social work practice, policy, and research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many observers of welfare reform have argued that self-sufficiency on the part of welfare recipients is desirable. This would require, at least, that recipients' economic well-being not fall as a result of welfare reform. That question is addressed here by analyzing the impact of early state-level welfare waivers on the growth of earnings and income received by welfare recipients. Analysis of data from the Current Population Survey found that among welfare recipients (1) early work-related welfare reforms generally did not improve the growth in family earnings, and (2) waivers often had a small but negative effect on the growth of family income. Waivers were less detrimental for rural than for urban recipients. Since research has shown that rural employment and earnings generally lag behind urban areas, this is an interesting finding. It suggests that even though rural residents face greater barriers to employment, welfare reform has a smaller marginal effect on rural recipients. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]