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This paper is a response to Deirdre McCloskey's review essay, published recently in this journal, of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the twenty-first century. It argues that McCloskey has set up a number of straw men to attack. Furthermore, her three main arguments against Piketty are flawed. McCloskey wants human capital to be added to Piketty's measure of wealth; she contends that Piketty does not understand the supply-response mechanism; and she accuses Piketty of focusing on the wrong problem--inequality rather than poverty. This paper explains why these are all bad arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our previous work argued that the official U.S. poverty definition is flawed because it ignores interest paid on household debt. When it was developed in the early 1960s, this was not a problem because U.S. households had little consumer debt. Today, most households have considerable consumer debt and are paying high interest rates on that debt. This paper argues that what is true of poverty is likewise true of income inequality indices, such as the gini coefficient and the percentage of middle-class families. Interest payments on past debt reduce the income that households have to maintain a certain standard of living. A problem (such as a bout of unemployment, the expenses of having a new baby, or a health problem) leads to borrowing that tends to reduce household living standards in the long run. This phenomenon is not captured in standard measures of income equality. We then use the Survey of Consumer Finances to correct this problem, estimating income inequality both before and after subtracting interest payments on consumer debt. Finally, we discuss why these different measures have increased over time and conclude with some policy proposals to deal with the problem of substantial consumer debt interest payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Galbraith's principal theoretical contribution is foreshadowed in American capitalism and unfolds more clearly into view in his trilogy The Affluent Society, The New Industrial State and Economics and the Public Purpose . His thesis is that the economic ideas that once explained a world of poverty have not adjusted to a world of affluence dominated by the modern corporation. His main themes are the concentration of economic power in the large corporation and the social and environmental imbalance that results from the large corporation. Galbraith attempts to tease out the implications of the uneven development of modern affluence and outlines an emancipatory case for social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on a study that examines the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) to compare poverty rates for female-headed families and for other families in a number of developed countries. Details on the Luxembourg income study; Poverty calculations using the LIS; Causes of the gender poverty gap; Testing alternative theories of the gender poverty gap; Alternative approach to the gender gap poverty.

This article focuses on causes of feminization of poverty, and suggests remedies for its improvement. Poverty today displays a different face--a distinctly feminine one. The feminization of poverty raises several important issues. First, as poverty becomes feminized, the proportion of children in poverty rises. Second, because welfare benefits go primarily to women and their children, a growing body of poor women requires either a dramatic rise in welfare spending or sharp program cut backs. U.S. President Ronald Reagan's administration has strongly favored the latter, with some striking results. There are three factors that can feminize poverty. First, poverty rates can rise for female households. Second, there can be more female households. Finally, poverty rates might decline for male headed families. Besides there are a few more underlying causes like divorce etc. Divorce creates female-headed families while destroying male-headed families. Regarding remedies the author views that advocating that poor women go to work has become a popular theme in the U.S. Congress and the press. The U.S. government currently has a family allowance system, but one that is quite perverse. A rational family allowance policy provides the U.S. best hope for reducing poverty as well as for seeing its face altered once again.