Fighting Poverty in the United States

2020 ◽  
pp. 73-103
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
Immigration Status ◽  
United State ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poverty Measures ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
Contemporary United States

A major thread that runs through the fight against poverty in the United States is its connection between the history, values, and beliefs and interventions designed to combat poverty. Certain factors determine the characteristics of poverty in the United State of America: racial and ethnic discrimination, age, gender, residence, employment, inter-generational mobility, and immigration status. This chapter, therefore, seeks to examine the historical implications to poverty, the values and beliefs about poverty and the poor, legislative interventions, conceptual clarifications and poverty measures, realities of poverty in the contemporary United States, and potential policy solutions.

scholarly journals The Racialized Pandemic: Wave One of COVID-19 and the Reproduction of Global North Inequalities

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Gerda Hooijer ◽  
Desmond King
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Majority Population ◽  
White Majority ◽  
Global North ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
The Impact

We document the broad patterns of COVID-19 as it affects minority communities. We present a theoretical framework rooted in Global North democracies’ racial and ethnic legacies to analyze the health and economic disparities between these communities and the white majority population. Marshalling first-cut empirical evidence from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden, we find patterns of the pandemic’s distribution consistent with how the burden of racial and ethnic legacies endures: people from minority communities have worse health and economic outcomes under normal circumstances, inequalities the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated. The comparison shows that the impact of racial and ethnic discrimination on pandemic policy outcomes is not unique to the United States. Health inequalities stemming in part from patterns of institutional racism and discrimination perversely help reproduce these societal inequities. We find that governments’ initial responses have failed to mitigate the disproportionate impact of this health and economic crisis on minority communities because they did not acknowledge or address the particular challenges that these groups face.

scholarly journals Welfare and Foreign Aid Practices in the Contemporary United States: a Governmental Study

2011 ◽  
pp. 147-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Fournier
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
International Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Optimal Management ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Agency For International Development ◽  
Contemporary United States

This article aims to expose the main governmental shifts in recent American history (1961-2000) by examining two programs: the Assistance to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and the Agency for International development (US-AID). Through the exploration of primary and secondary sources, we analyse the production, organisation and circulation of governmental practices in the realms of both domestic and foreign policy. In the American context, practices of government typically revolve around freedom, efficiency models and individual responsibility. Throughout the analysis, we find that the general critiques which have guided reforms and experiments in both areas converge around the same elements. This testifies to the fact that the reflexions and technical models directed at the optimal management of populations are more far-reaching than they first appear. Moreover, the historical transformations in welfare and foreign aid practices bear out the increasingly disciplinary nature of the administration and objectification of the poor, both within the United States and internationally.

Verán ustedes las chozas más humildes. El discurso de pobreza en la diplomacia pública cardenista dirigida a Estados Unidos

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dümmer Scheel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
Lazaro Cardenas ◽  
The New Deal

El artículo analiza la diplomacia pública del gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas centrándose en su opción por publicitar la pobreza nacional en el extranjero, especialmente en Estados Unidos. Se plantea que se trató de una estrategia inédita, que accedió a poner en riesgo el “prestigio nacional” con el fin de justificar ante la opinión pública estadounidense la necesidad de implementar las reformas contenidas en el Plan Sexenal. Aprovechando la inusual empatía hacia los pobres en tiempos del New Deal, se construyó una imagen específica de pobreza que fuera higiénica y redimible. Ésta, sin embargo, no generó consenso entre los mexicanos. This article analyzes the public diplomacy of the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, focusing on the administration’s decision to publicize the nation’s poverty internationally, especially in the United States. This study suggests that this was an unprecedented strategy, putting “national prestige” at risk in order to explain the importance of implementing the reforms contained in the Six Year Plan, in the face of public opinion in the United States. Taking advantage of the increased empathy felt towards the poor during the New Deal, a specific image of hygienic and redeemable poverty was constructed. However, this strategy did not generate agreement among Mexicans.

The Ethics of COVID-19 Vaccine Passports

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Joseph Meaney ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World Health Organization ◽  
The United States ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
World Health ◽  
Medical Decisions ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Divided Society ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization

COVID-19 vaccine passports run the risk of creating a divided society where social privileges or restrictions based on “fitness” lead to discrimination based on immunization status. Individuals have a strong right to be free of coercion to take a COVID-19 vaccine, and we should be very leery of further invasion of private medical decisions. These concerns are shared both internationally and in the United States, and the World Health Organization, the Biden administration, and many US governors oppose COVID-19 vaccine credentials. In addition, regulations for COVID-19 vaccine credentials face practical barriers, including lack of access globally, especially among the poor; and lack of scientific data on the efficacy of these vaccines.

The United States Congress and Africanist Scholars

1991 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-13
Author(s):  
David S. Wiley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Studies ◽  
United States Congress ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
The U.S

Linking scholars to the Congress is difficult primarily because of the weakness of Congressional interest in Africa, but also due to the low levels of interest among academics in both Congress and its Africa foreign policy and the poor resources of African studies in the U.S. to build a foundation of knowledge useful to the Congress.

The Transition of the Presidency, 2020-2021

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-59
Author(s):  
Pfiffner James P.
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Change Leadership ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Half Century ◽  
United State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Presidential Transitions ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Past Half

The peaceful transition of power from one set of rulers to another is the essence of democracy. The United States has enjoyed the consensus that elections are the means to change leadership of the country for more than two centuries. The 2020-2021 transition of the presidency marks an exception to that consensus. President Trump refused to accept the reality of his 2020 defeat at the polls, despite the fact that Joe Biden won more than 7 million more votes than Trump and won the electoral college by a vote of 306 to 232. Trump declared that he had won the election and that his opponent, Joseph Biden, had conspired to steal the election through fraudulent ballots. This paper will briefly characterize the development of presidential transitions over the past half century. It will then examine the extensive efforts of President Trump to overturn the 2020 election that culminated in the volent attack on the United State Capitol on January 6, 2021. Finally, it will show how Trump tried to thwart the incoming Biden administration. It will conclude that Trump’s actions in 2020 and 2021 presented a serious threat to the American polity.

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