Poverty and Public Policy

ECON203

Introduction

Increases in poverty have occurred since 2000. Rising poverty rates have caused significantly high caseloads to many public assistance programs in the US; causing a growing concern regarding public safety net cost. Poverty is a situation where a family cannot satisfy its needs for food, shelter, clothing and transportation based on their income alone. The government determines the poverty-level income for each family size. The Official Poverty Measure (OPM) determines poverty status by comparing pre-tax cash income by three times a minimum food diet, adjusted by family size and updated annually for inflation. In 1963, the average family spent a third of their income on household goods; today, the ratio of income spent on a food diet is less than 33%.
Programs
There are several government programs available to assist the poor called safety nets. Safety nets are where county or municipal government, secular nonprofit, faith-based nonprofit organizations and religious congregations come together to provide an assortment of programs of assistance for the poor. The role of local safety nets has received less attention from poverty and safety net researchers, regardless of the important role that they play in many communities. There are disputes in legislation that will cut public assistance program spending and caseloads; these opinions for cutbacks occur frequently. Since the debates and studies of restructuring poverty measures began, the U.S. Census Bureau has produced some experimental poverty measures that refine and incorporate implications on varying measures to test the efforts that the government has in place with helping the poor succeed. Local nonprofit organizations and religious congregations will expand social service efforts to meet the needs of those formerly on assistance. More than 40 years later, the U.S. Census Bureau, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics, defined the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The SPM does not replace the OPM but offers an alternative definition of income thresholds that includes data on basic necessities and is adjusted for geographic differences in housing costs.
Government programs play important roles in improving poverty among children. Most importantly, tax credits and food supplement programs are essential in addressing the needs of people in poverty, especially during economic declines. Poverty is an unreasonable low living standard that happens to some people. This situation limits people ability to afford their primary necessities such as daily meals, a decent home, etc. This situation causes deprivation and hardship everyday in life. The effects o f poverty deprives children or various opportunities for development. It forces them to be independent and sometime exposes them to bad behavior. The current economic crisis has cause huge disadvantages. We completely forgot that everything is repeated in life, society and the economy. We made false charity acts speculating how we help the poor to live better.
Economic Growth
It is clear that poverty is a complex, multi-faceted event that raises controversial questions such as: what causes it, to how it should be defined and measured, to how it should be reduced. Working toward reducing or eliminating poverty, signifies a positive change in all aspects because fighting poverty means promotion for economic growth. Economic growth backed by public policies which allows the poor to access the benefits of growth, is a key part of reducing poverty. Allowing the poor to increase their productivity through access to credit, markets, property rights, technology and health and education systems is vital. Reducing poverty will improve accountability and provide better access to services, resources and decision making by the poor. Dealing with the weaknesses of the poor to illness, conflict, natural disasters and economic crisis is necessary to ensure that development increases are not damaged. The suggestions for positive change include sharpening the logical skills that allow lead practitioners to collect data, evaluate reports and break through the complexity of issues that is the promise of public policy; this translates to positive change. Having management skills should help the designing, developing, implementing and monitoring programs to serve the public. The result of these changes should be able to identify the tools needed to get people out of poverty and to keep people from falling into this situation again. These structured services are necessary to guide committed and competent professionals in promoting and acting toward the expected social change. The awareness of these specific changes will help reduce the helplessness of the poor.
Poverty-Level Incomes According to Family Size, 2007 Persons in Family or Household | Forty-Eight Contiguous States and Washington DC ($) | Alaska ($) | Hawaii ($) | 1 | 10,210 | 12,770 | 11,750 | 2 | 13,690 | 17,120 | 15,750 | 3 | 17,170 | 21,470 | 19,750 | 4 | 20,650 | 25,820 | 23,750 | 5 | 24,130 | 30,170 | 27,750 | 6 | 27,610 | 34,520 | 31,750 | 7 | 31,090 | 38,870 | 35,750 | 8 | 34,570 | 43,220 | 39,750 | or each additional person, add | 3,480 | 4,350 | 4,000 |

Conclusion
The most common cause of poverty is the changes in structure of households being converted from two earner couples to single parent families. Government programs play a vital role in improving poverty. Most importantly, tax credits and food supplement programs are essential in addressing the needs of the poor. The condition of services does not appear related to demographic characteristics of the surrounding community. The poor do not play active roles in poverty views, but they have the maximum stake in poverty analysis because they are at the receiving end. Any expansion or cutback could significantly impact poverty rates affecting minorities, disabled and the elderly who benefit most from government programs. A move toward a bottom up approach where the poor get involved in the understanding of weaknesses to bring a greater accountability and transparency is needed. Government policies to reduce income inequality can affect the poor and make it easier for them to reach the ladder of opportunity and shape family behavior so that they can reach the path to self sufficiency. From a policy perspective, this new method will lead to change.

References

Bradley, M. (2015). Review of Work and the Welfare State: Street‐Level Organizations and Workfare Politics. Poverty & Public Policy, 7(2), 200-202.

Allard, S. (2015, November). Faith, Poverty, and Place: Congregations and the Shifting Geography of Poverty in the US. In 2015 Fall Conference: The Golden Age of Evidence-Based Policy. Appam.

Pathak, D. C., & Mishra, S. (2015). Poverty Estimates in India: Old and New Methods, 2004–2005. Poverty & Public Policy, 7(1), 44-63.

Cochran, C., Mayer, L., Carr, T., Cayer, N., & McKenzie, M. (2015). American public policy: An introduction. Cengage Learning.