POOR CHILDREN IN RICH COUNTRIES

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (6) ◽  
pp. A46-A46
Author(s):  
Edgar K. Marcuse
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
The United States ◽  
Poverty Rate ◽  
Income Support ◽  
White Children ◽  
The Us ◽  
Families With Children ◽  
Poor Children

The industrial countries in the world have a higher standard of living than at any time in history, but within the wealthy countries, there are still a number of children who live in poverty. The United States, which is the wealthiest country of six studied (Australia, Canada, Sweden, United States, United Kingdom, West Germany), had the highest poverty rate among children and the second highest poverty rate among families with children. From 1970 to 1987, the poverty rate for children in the United States increased from 15 to 20%. . . Child poverty rates vary enormously by the structure of the child's family. In every country [of the six studied], child poverty rates are at least twice as high, and usually much higher, in single-parent families than in two-parent families. . . . Perhaps the most striking figures are those that show the percentage of all children and of all poor children who are living in families with incomes below the 75% of the US poverty line. Here we find that US poor children are the worst off of children in any country [of the six studied] including Australia, with almost 10% existing at an income level at least 25% below the official US poverty standard. . . .In the United States, black families with children are particularly economically disadvantaged relative to white (non-black and non-Hispanic) families. The poverty rates among black children are three times as high as the rates of white children. Poverty rates of Hispanic children in the United States are double those of white children as well, But the poverty rate of US white children is still 11.4%. . .higher than the poverty rate of all children in [the] other [five] countries except Australia. . . Heterogeneity does matter; poverty rates are different for different populations and US poverty rates are high, due in part to its social and ethnic diversity. But this diversity does not matter enough to explain fully the high poverty of US children in general or even white children in particular. . . . One of the reasons why many children in the United States are poor is that 27% of all poor families with children and 23% of single-parent families receive no public income support. . . . In every other country, at least 99% of both types of families that were defined as poor by the Us poverty line definition receive some type of income support. . . . All the countries, except the United States, have child allowances that reach at least 80% of poor children. . . . Another reason why the United States does less well . . . is because the poverty gap is larger in the United States. . . . The larger the poverty gap, the more income is needed to remove a family from poverty. And the United States, which has the biggest gap for these families, provides the least income support per family. . . . Every country's welfare and other tax transfer programs reflect their own cultural and social philosophies. . . . Any change in the tax and transfer policies must be done within the national context of the country's social philosophy. But international comparisons of the poverty of today's children raise long-term questions. To the extent that poverty of children is related to poverty as adults, the quality of our future work force may be affected by the present poverty of our children. And the poverty of our children today may affect our long-term competitiveness with other wealthy countries who tolerate much less child poverty than does the United States.

scholarly journals The importance of poverty early in childhood

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg J Duncan ◽  
Katherine Magnuson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
National Income ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
The United States ◽  
Poverty Rate ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
The United Kingdom

Using a poverty line set at 60% of New Zealand’s median national income, nearly one in five New Zealand children (19%) was poor in 2011 (Figure 1, based on Perry, 2012). This poverty rate is considerably less than that of the United States and Canada, similar to that of Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, and much greater that in Scandinavian countries. These rates are far from immutable; New Zealand’s child poverty rate was much higher in 2004 before social policies were enacted which focused, in part, on the country’s child poverty problem. 

Child Poverty in Sweden and the United States: The Effect of Social Transfers and Parental Labor Force Participation

ILR Review ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Jäntti ◽  
Sheldon Danziger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lower Percentage ◽  
Homogeneous Population ◽  
Social Transfers ◽  
Using Data

The authors compare the incidence and some of the causes of child poverty in Sweden and the United States in selected years using data from the Luxembourg Income Study. The U.S. sample is restricted to white non-hispanic children to present the most favorable comparison with Sweden's more homogeneous population. When parents' labor force participation and demographic characteristics are taken into account, the proportion of children in families whose income prior to social transfers and taxes was below the poverty line (defined as 40% of median disposable income adjusted for family size) is very similar in the two countries. Because all poor children in Sweden received transfers and many in the United States did not, however, and because transfers were more generous in Sweden, a much lower percentage of children in Sweden than in the United States were poor after social transfers and taxes, regardless of parents' work effort or other characteristics.

Intergenerational Transfers and Public Expenditure on the Elderly in Modern Britain

1988 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Johnson ◽  
Jane Falkingham
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Elderly Population ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Generational Conflict ◽  
The Us ◽  
Families With Children ◽  
Poor Children

ABSTRACTIn the United States, much attention has recently been directed to the issue of whether the welfare system has become over-generous to the retired population, at the expense of families with children. The proportion of the US elderly population living in poverty has fallen significantly in the last fifteen years while the number of poor children has increased rapidly, and it has been suggested that this lack of investment in the next generation of workers may have disastrous longterm consequences for the U.S. economy. This paper considers whether similar trends are evident in Britain. It reviews data on the poverty and income of the elderly population, and finds little unequivocal evidence of relative economic gain over the last two decades, although it is clear that many children have suffered from the recent rise in unemployment-induced poverty. It also looks at direct public expenditure on the elderly through both the pension and the health and personal social services systems, and finds no evidence of a transfer of public resources away from children and towards the elderly population. The paper concludes that the British welfare state has been remarkably neutral in its allocation of resources between generations, and that, in the British context, any discussion of inter-generational conflict for welfare resources establishes a false dichotomy, because economic inequality within broad age groups is much greater than inequality between age groups.

POVERTY IS NOT A VICE, BUT HOW TO OVERCOME IT IN RUSSIA?

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
Oksana M. Makhalina ◽  
◽  
Viktor N. Makhalin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Income Support ◽  
Material Support ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The World ◽  
Families With Children

An issue of the population poverty is one of the most urgent to- day, both in Russia and around the world. The article considers the statistics of poverty in foreign countries as well as in Russia. In that rating, Russia ranks the 64th. The number of citizens falling under the category of poor in 2020 in- creased to 19.9 million people, which in relative terms is 13.5% of the country’s population. The causes of poverty are revealed, the sequence, forms and methods of overcoming poverty in Russia are formulated on the basis of foreign experi- ence in combating poverty. The decline in the income of the Russian popula- tion according to Rosstat in the 2nd quarter of 2020 in annual terms was 8%. GDP declined by 8%, while Canada’s GDP – 13.5%, Germany – 11.7%, and the United States – 9.5%. It is because since the beginning of the pandemic, many developed countries have implemented large-scale material support for the population. The article analyzes a variety of specific ways and methods of combating poverty in the United States, Great Britain, Spain, India, Finland and other countries. Also it presents results of the experiment with application of the method of using unconditional income, support of the population of the Neth- erlands, Canada, Mongolia, Iran, Kenya, and Germany. The article presents the experience of supporting the population in Russia, where that activity was focused on supporting the families with children. The results prove that such a support option cannot be called large-scale and effec- tive, since, as summing, the real incomes of citizens, unlike in other countries, oddly enough, decreased. Poverty and unemployment continue to grow in the context of the current pandemic. Therefore the conclusion contains proposals on how to overcome the poverty and unemployment in our country.

The United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua T. McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Child Poverty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
National Commission ◽  
Tax Credit ◽  
Tax Relief ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Poor Children ◽  
Child Tax Credit

Chapter 6 looks at how the National Commission on Children brought attention to the problem of child poverty in the US, leading to the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit in 1993 and the introduction of the nonrefundable Child Tax Credit in 1997. In contrast to the cases of Canada and the UK, the growth of these tax credits, tracing their legacy to the dependent exemption in the tax system, was premised on the logic of tax relief rather than the logic of income supplementation. Originally, the National Commission on Children released recommendations for a fully refundable Child Tax Credit as the best way to tackle child poverty. This served as a successful springboard in Canada and the UK. This was not the case in the US, where the logic of tax relief remained dominant. Initial attempts to introduce a fully refundable Child Tax Credit quickly failed. Policymakers and the public deemed poor children undeserving of tax credits because their parents were not technically taxpayers.

scholarly journals Social Insurance and Public Assistance in the Twentieth-Century United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-350
Author(s):  
Price V. Fishback
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Public Assistance ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
The United States ◽  
Government Programs ◽  
The Us ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
The U.S

The growth of American governments in the twentieth century included large increases in funds for social insurance and public assistance. Social insurance has increased far more than public assistance, so “rise in the social insurance state” is a far better description of the century than “rise in the welfare state.” The United States has increased total spending in these areas as much or more as have European countries, but the U.S. spending has relied less heavily on government programs. In the U.S. states largely determine the benefits for many of the public assistance and social insurance programs, leading to large variation in the benefits across the country. I develop estimates of these benefits across time and place and compare them to the poverty line, manufacturing earnings and benefits, state per capita incomes in the US, as well as GDP per capita in countries throughout the world.

The United States and the Iranian Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
The Relationship

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.

‘To see oursels as ithers see us’: Reflections on Scottish Independence from the United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euan Hague ◽  
Alan Mackie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Us ◽  
Scottish Independence ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Scottish Diaspora

The United States media have given rather little attention to the question of the Scottish referendum despite important economic, political and military links between the US and the UK/Scotland. For some in the US a ‘no’ vote would be greeted with relief given these ties: for others, a ‘yes’ vote would be acclaimed as an underdog escaping England's imperium, a narrative clearly echoing America's own founding story. This article explores commentary in the US press and media as well as reporting evidence from on-going interviews with the Scottish diaspora in the US. It concludes that there is as complex a picture of the 2014 referendum in the United States as there is in Scotland.

Palestine Unbound

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 130-134
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Task Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
The Us ◽  
Intention To Move ◽  
Arab Israeli Conflict ◽  
The U.S

This section, updated regularly on the blog Palestine Square, covers popular conversations related to the Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict during the quarter 16 November 2017 to 15 February 2018: #JerusalemIstheCapitalofPalestine went viral after U.S. president Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced his intention to move the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. The arrest of Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi for slapping an Israeli soldier also prompted a viral campaign under the hashtag #FreeAhed. A smaller campaign protested the exclusion of Palestinian human rights from the agenda of the annual Creating Change conference organized by the US-based National LGBTQ Task Force in Washington. And, UNRWA publicized its emergency funding appeal, following the decision of the United States to slash funding to the organization, with the hashtag #DignityIsPriceless.

Against Slave Power? Slavery and Runaway Slaves in Mexico-United States Relations, 1821–1857

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-170
Author(s):  
Gerardo Gurza-Lavalle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
Runaway Slaves ◽  
The Us ◽  
El Alto ◽  
Upper South ◽  
Lower South

This work analyses the diplomatic conflicts that slavery and the problem of runaway slaves provoked in relations between Mexico and the United States from 1821 to 1857. Slavery became a source of conflict after the colonization of Texas. Later, after the US-Mexico War, slaves ran away into Mexican territory, and therefore slaveholders and politicians in Texas wanted a treaty of extradition that included a stipulation for the return of fugitives. This article contests recent historiography that considers the South (as a region) and southern politicians as strongly influential in the design of foreign policy, putting into question the actual power not only of the South but also of the United States as a whole. The problem of slavery divided the United States and rendered the pursuit of a proslavery foreign policy increasingly difficult. In addition, the South never acted as a unified bloc; there were considerable differences between the upper South and the lower South. These differences are noticeable in the fact that southerners in Congress never sought with enough energy a treaty of extradition with Mexico. The article also argues that Mexico found the necessary leeway to defend its own interests, even with the stark differential of wealth and resources existing between the two countries. El presente trabajo analiza los conflictos diplomáticos entre México y Estados Unidos que fueron provocados por la esclavitud y el problema de los esclavos fugitivos entre 1821 y 1857. La esclavitud se convirtió en fuente de conflicto tras la colonización de Texas. Más tarde, después de la guerra Mexico-Estados Unidos, algunos esclavos se fugaron al territorio mexicano y por lo tanto dueños y políticos solicitaron un tratado de extradición que incluyera una estipulación para el retorno de los fugitivos. Este artículo disputa la idea de la historiografía reciente que considera al Sur (en cuanto región), así como a los políticos sureños, como grandes influencias en el diseño de la política exterior, y pone en tela de juicio el verdadero poder no sólo del Sur sino de Estados Unidos en su conjunto. El problema de la esclavitud dividió a Estados Unidos y dificultó cada vez más el impulso de una política exterior que favoreciera la esclavitud. Además, el Sur jamás operó como unidad: había diferencias marcadas entre el Alto Sur y el Bajo Sur. Estas diferencias se observan en el hecho de que los sureños en el Congreso jamás se esforzaron en buscar con suficiente energía un tratado de extradición con México. El artículo también sostiene que México halló el margen de maniobra necesario para defender sus propios intereses, pese a los fuertes contrastes de riqueza y recursos entre los dos países.

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