...Poverty has become one of the most intractable economic and social problems in the twenty-first century. Vulnerability, poverty and income inequality are a concern to both developing and developed countries across the world making them the central agenda in both Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Melamed, 2014; IFPRI, 2014). These problems are especially more serious in developing African countries like Ethiopia. African countries are at large hit by poverty incidence, vulnerable and weakly resilient mainly due to increase in climate variability that led to decreases in crop yields (Badolo and Romuald, 2015). Poverty is so widespread and rampant in Ethiopia that it made the country among the poorest...
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...Poverty and Inequality in Japan Compared to other countries, Japan was an equal community until the beginning of the 1990s. Almost every single person was feeling that they belonged to the middle class. Yet, income inequality has been increasing drastically since around 1990, as a result of rapid changes of Japanese society such as “population aging and declines of birthrate” as well as Japanese experience of the bubble economy from 1986 to 1989 (Japan’s Declining Birthrate). In addition, some might think that the most significant cause of the rising income inequality is the technological development. According to Keiko Takanami, a professor in San Diego State University, “there is a shift in demand from unskilled workers to skilled workers largely due to the technical changes and globalization.” This actually ended up with an increase of income inequality, because the wages would go up for workers who have well trained or high skills, while the wages would go down for unskilled workers. Recently, there is no doubt to say that Japan has been struggling with poverty and income inequality. This is also true for many other industrialized countries such as the U.S.A. and South Korea. Reasons why poverty was not a big social problem in Japan until the early 1990s is that the rate of poverty, majored by poverty survey of OECD, was not as high as other countries, and the rate of unemployment and income inequality were low (Poverty). In addition to this fact, even if there were a...
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...INCOME INEQUALITY AND POVERTY It is no question that there is a disparity between the haves and the have-nots. There is a gap between the rich and the poor. The adjectives used to describe those people are “upper”, “middle”, and “lower class” people. We know that a person’s earnings depend on supply and demand for that person’s labor. Of the Ten Principles of Economics, two of them come into play here. The first is that governments can sometimes improve market outcomes. The other being, people face trade-offs. This paper will examine income distribution by taking a closer look at how much inequality there is in our society. I will also delve into how many people live in poverty, what problems arise in measuring inequality, and how often people move among income classes? One way of measuring the distribution of income is by looking at the poverty rate. The poverty rate is the percentage of population whose family income falls below an absolute level called the poverty line. In 2008, the median income in the United States was $50,303, while that same year the poverty line was set at $21,200. The following charts show a couple of different things. The first chart (next page) shows how only 34% of U.S. households make more than $65,000 per year. You see how that percentage falls as the amount of income rises. Only 17.8% of U.S. households make more than $100,000. The second chart takes a a closer look at how far $100,000 goes for a household in the state of California...
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...One of the many issues around the world is poverty and inequality, and while it might not be evident in Canada and Toronto specifically, some people still suffer in lower income areas in the GTA. Many people as you may see are on the streets and as the weather gets colder, it becomes even more difficult for them. Part of the reason poverty is because many people in the lower class can’t afford rent or the taxes of their homes. In a recent study conducted, it showed the percentage of taxes that people with a certain income had to pay yearly. It showed that individuals receiving an income of less than $14,000 paid about 31% of their income in tax, while people making over $300,000 paid a slightly lower percentage. This doesn’t make any sense,...
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...Is Childhood Poverty Increasing Inequality In America? Is childhood poverty increasing inequality in America? The test of our progress," said Franklin Roosevelt, "is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." It is by that great test that we must measure our progress in the years ahead. John F. Kennedy, 1960' (Lindsey, pg 34, 2009) Children born in America are promised equality and opportunity. How well is America keeping its promise to 1 in 4 children living in poverty? The Bible teaches we are created in God's image (Genesis 1:27). Each child is born with God's DNA but not all children grow up in a world conducive to developing their God-given potential and dreams. Not all children are given equal opportunity. "Their economic and social development will be primarily influenced by the opportunities their parents, community, and society provide" (Lindsey, 2009, p. 3). What defines childhood poverty? The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines child poverty as "a child is deemed to be living in relative poverty if he or she is growing up in a household where disposable income, when adjusted for family size and composition, is less than 50% of the median disposable household income for the country concerned" (Garofalo, 2012, p. 1). The United States Census Bureau for 2011 qualified the poverty threshold for a family of four as $22,281 annual income...
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...relationship between globalisation, inequality and poverty. The term globalisation refers to the process by which the world has become more connected through advancements in technology, transport and communications and resultantly become integrated in many areas of life. For the purposes of this essay, one will be discussing the relationship between primarily economic globalisation, poverty and inequality in what many have referred to as the ‘third wave’ of globalisation, which has been prominent since the 1980s. Advocates of economic globalisation, understood as “the widening, deepening, and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness” (McGrew in Ravenhill, 2005: 275) suggest that economic advancement through globalisation is a by-product of well-functioning markets; that countries should specialise in line with their comparative advantage; and that countries should practice free trade as a guiding principle. (Wade, 2004a: 184) Still today there exists huge economic inequality both within and between countries, and mass poverty is an issue which is still high on the agenda of world leaders across the globe. Yet data from the World Bank has shown that the number of people living in extreme poverty, of which it classifies as those living on less than $1 per day in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) has fallen in the last two decades for the first time in 120 years. (Wade, 2004a: 163) The relationship between globalisation, inequality and poverty thus seems to be one which is subject...
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...Market Failure: Poverty and Income Inequality Donna Butler South University Online ECO2071 Principles of Micro-Economics Week 5, Assignment 1 Professor Brandt May 29, 2015 Market Failure: Poverty and Income Inequality Every country in the world needs basic information on the residents that live there. This information is needed for planning, for development and for trying to improve the quality of life for those residents. In order to have good planning, reliable, accurate, detailed information and information that is up-to-date needs to be gathered. This is one of the things that the census does. It gathers information for many different reasons and uses. The information is used to make it possible to plan better services, solve existing problems and to improve the quality of life. The statistical information that is gathered is very essential for the democratic process because it enables the citizens to look at and examine the decisions that are made by the government and the local authorities. From this information citizens can decide if they are serving the public that they are meant to be helping. The information from the census also provides detailed statistics that are very important for communities and for businesses. The Census Bureau also reports the poverty data from several major household surveys. The census reported that in 2010 the poverty rate in the US was 15.1%. The report also showed a shocking decline of household incomes during the worst...
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...Lien Centre for Social Innovation Social Insight Research Series Inequality, Poverty and Unmet Social Needs in Singapore A Handbook on A Handbook on Inequality, Poverty and Unmet Social Needs in Singapore Lien Centre for Social Innovation CATHERINE J. SMITH (Additional research and writing by John Donaldson, Sanushka Mudaliar, Mumtaz Md Kadir and Yeoh Lam Keong) As this handbook is intended to provide an overview of the arguments of others, the role of the authors largely consisted of compiling, arranging, and contextualizing. Further, the ideas expressed herein, which are various and often contradictory, do not necessarily represent the views of the handbook’s authors, or of the staff and Board of the Lien Centre for Social Innovation. Copyright © March, 2015 by Lien Centre for Social Innovation. All rights reserved. Published by the Lien Centre for Social Innovation Singapore Management University, Administration Building, 81 Victoria Street, Singapore 188065 www.lcsi.smu.edu.sg No part nor entirety of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature without the prior written permission of the Lien Centre. Readers should be aware that internet websites offered as citations and/ or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it was read. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and authors...
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...globalisation, unemployment, inequality and poverty Wilfred I. Ukpere and Andre D. Slabbert Faculty of Business, Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Cape Town, South Africa Abstract Purpose – This paper contends that there is a positive relationship between current globalisation, unemployment, inequality and poverty, which paves a vista for further academic discourse. Design/methodology/approach – As a meta-analytical study, the paper relied on secondary data. It is a qualitative study, which is based on conceptual analysis, theory building and “emic” perspective (authors’ viewpoint). Findings – A relationship between current globalisation, unemployment, inequality and poverty should be investigated further. Unemployment increases levels of inequality and poverty within society. Although bequeathed with various names and definitions, the logics of current globalisation seem to have exacerbated the problem of global unemployment, the corollary of which is endemic inequality and poverty. Practical implications – Increases in income inequality and poverty over the past decades, can be attributed to globalisation. Therefore, within the domain of unemployment, inequality and poverty in the era of globalisation, renewed problems of global competition, job termination, wage reductions, labour immobility and technological displacement of workers, have accelerated the rate of global unemployment, the corollary of which is endemic inequality and poverty. Originality/value – The...
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...the temporal and cross state behaviour of the growth ,poverty and inequality and also to examine the relations between them and to see whether the temporal behaviour of the incidence of poverty is compatible with the policy evolution followed since independence Further we re-examine whether the conventional hypothesis that growth is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the reduction of poverty across the states hold. Finally, we try to find out the proximate explanatory factors for the crossstate and temporal variations in the incidence of poverty in terms panel regression analysis. We find that our economy has indeed achieved a high growth trajectory such that it has been conspicuous during the post reform period with a remarkable structural transformation on an unconventional path which has been accompanied by a tremendous increase in service sector driven growth path. Almost all the states have experienced increase in the growth rates of their real per capita NSDP in varying degrees over the period and the post reform period marks a phase of achievement of very high growth rates for almost all the states. The nature of the growth experienced by the states is found to be divergent .We do not find any uniform relation between temporal behaviour of the growth rates and the Gini inequality across the states Interestingly almost all the states have experienced declining trend in the incidence of poverty in varying degrees during the pre reform period and also...
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...01 November 2011 Poverty Rises, Inequality Gap Widens Wealth of 40 richest Indonesians equivalent to 60 million people’s Key Points: • Poverty rate rises over the last three years, Indonesia is the worst country in Southeast Asia in combating poverty • Inequality gap widens, wealth and economic resources are concentrated in a small number of people only • Social and economic justice must be included as development target to prevent social explosion and maintain the sustainability of the development process Managing Director: Setyo Budiantoro, MA Perkumpulan Prakarsa Executive Director ndonesia is the poorest performer on poverty reduction in Southeast Asia region. It is calculated that 2.7 million people become poorer in the country over the last three years. This increase of extreme poverty is, shamefully, the worst one in the region. Indonesia even lags behind its neighboring countries such as Cambodia and Laos in reducing poverty, -not to mention when it is compared to the better off neighbors such as Thailand or Malaysia. Moreover, it is not just that the poverty increases, the share of wealth has also been more disproportionate. The accumulation of 0.02 % richest Indonesians’ wealth is equivalent to 25% of the country’s total GDP (Gross Domestic Product), and the wealth owned by only these 43 thousand people is equal to the wealth accumulation of another 140 million people. If this situation persists, people will feel that their sense of social-economic justice...
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...Lane Kenworthy in Chapter Two of his book, Jobs with Equality, lays out a various reasons why one should care about inequality. Kensworth, however, spends a bulk of the chapter discussing the results of inequality based on some data in addition to a host of speculative ideas that should make the reader more interested and focused on inequality in their society. The excerpt does focus heavily on the lowest income brackets in society making the distinction between poverty and inequality difficult to identify. While he demonstrates through survey data that people are concerned about inequality, his findings support the notion that individuals should care about low equality because as the top earners have gotten wealthier, the percent of the population in poverty. Kenworthy struggles to put forward an argument that shows how greater inequality is detrimental to economic growth. Kenworthy write that, “ high levels of inequality may be viewed by those at the middle and bottom of the income distribution as excessively unfair, thereby reducing worker motivation and workplace cooperation” (16). While this statement may sound like a plausible effect of high inequality, Kenworthy is only speculating and not supporting his statement with specific data. Could it be possible that due to inequality those in the lower classes have a greater incentive to work because they know that if they receive a promotion, their salary will grow substantially? This variable would also be quite difficult...
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...Inequality: The Most Pressing Problem in Latin America Throughout the years, Latin America has experienced dramatic political, social, and economic changes amongst it’s numerous countries. As time went on, various leaders brought grand ideas to the table in hopes of bettering the region. However, in most cases, the outcome was far from grand, failing to address social conflicts that derived from deep inequality and high levels of poverty. Without successfully conquering the underlying causes of conflict within the region, change in a positive direction for Latin America does not exist. This paper will define inequality as the most pressing problem that Latin American countries continue to face, and how inequality, discrimination, poverty, and crime violence stem from the underlying problem of inequality. As a result, social programs currently in place fail to properly address the issues of inequality and poverty within Latin America, thus being unsuccessful. In their literature review of the Southern Commands, Jorge Castaneda and Patricio Navia remind the reader that, “be it in the Caribbean heat or in the Andes-mountain cold, the uniform and lasting defining characteristic of Latin America is inequality” (82). They continue to explain that, “Latin America brings together – often within the same countries, same cities and occasionally even the same neighborhoods – the wealth and prosperity of the most-industrialized nations in the world and the dispossession, despair and hopelessness...
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...Eugene Harmon Poverty in Latin America Inequality: The Most Political and Economic Problem in Latin America Throughout the years, Latin America has experienced dramatic political, social, and economic changes amongst its numerous countries. As time went on, various leaders brought grand ideas to the table in hopes of bettering the region. However, in most cases, the outcome was far from grand, failing to address social conflicts that derived from deep inequality and high levels of poverty. Without successfully conquering the underlying causes of conflict within the region, change in a positive direction for Latin America does not exist. This paper will define inequality as the most political and economic problem that Latin American countries continue to face, and how inequality, discrimination, poverty, and crime violence stem from the underlying problem of inequality. As a result, social programs currently in place fail to properly address the issues of inequality and poverty within Latin America, thus being unsuccessful. In their literature review of the Southern Commands, Jorge Castaneda and Patricio Navia remind the reader that, “be it in the Caribbean heat or in the Andes-mountain cold, the uniform and lasting defining characteristic of Latin America is inequality” (82). They continue to explain that, “Latin America brings together – often within the same countries, same cities and occasionally even the same neighborhoods...
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...Globalisation has intensified inequality Globalisation has built a set of prospects for mainly large firms around the world with declines in tariffs or creation of free trade areas (Celik 2010). Although globalisation has increase economic growth substantially it does however also increase the economic and social gap within and between countries. Income inequality in particular is the effect of globalisation through foreign direct investment. According to the World Development Indicators 2005 (World Bank, 2005), the richest country Norway has a per capita income of $43, 400 whereas the poorest countries Burundi and Ethiopia have a per capita income of $90. These show the huge gap between the poorest and richest countries per capita income. These numbers raised the question “Has globalisation led to a greater income inequality or less?” In the article ‘Is globalisation reducing poverty and inequality’, Wade (2004) questions the empirical basis of the neoliberal argument. The neoliberal argument says that the distribution of income between the entire world’s people has become more equal over the past two decades and the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen. It states that these progressive trends are due in large part to the rising density of economic integration between countries, which has made for rising efficiency of resource use worldwide as countries and regions specialize in line with their comparative advantage. This is partially true as...
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