Poverty and the Underclass : Changing Perceptions of the Poor in America / William A. Kelso.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kelso, William Alton.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poverty.

Economic assistance, Domestic--United States.

Economic assistance, Domestic.

Poor--United States.

Poor.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (351 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, c1994.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The much-heralded War on Poverty has failed. The number of children living in poverty is steadily on the rise and an increasingly destructive underclass brutalizes urban neighborhoods. America's patience with the poor seems to have run out: even cities that have traditionally been havens for the homeless are arresting, harassing, and expelling their street people. In this timely work, William Kelso analyzes how the persistence of poverty has resulted in a reversal of liberal and conservative positions during the last thirty years. While liberals in the 1960s hoped to eliminate the causes of po

Contents:

Contents; Preface; Part I The Poverty Debate; 1. Doesn't Anything Work? Is a War against Poverty Really Feasible?; 2. Poverty: How Serious Is the Problem?; 3. What Is Causing the Problem? An Overview; Part II Explaining Poverty: Individual Explanations; 4. The Lack of Human Capital; 5. The Lack of Entrepreneurial Skills; 6. The Growing Instability of the Family; Part III Explaining Poverty: Motivational Explanations Accounting for the Growth of the Underclass; 7. Rational Economic Explanations: The Liberal Version; 8. Rational Economic Explanations: The Conservative Version

9. Cultural ExplanationsPart IV Explaining Poverty: Structural Explanations; 10. The Barrier of Racial Discrimination; 11. The Economy I: The Lack of Jobs; 12. The Economy II: The Lack of High-Paying Jobs; 13. The Economy III: Stagnating Productivity and the Lack of High-Paying Jobs; 14. The View from the Left: Economic Exploitation and the Lack of Political Power; Part V The Changing Views of Poverty in America; 15. Changing Perceptions of the Causes of Poverty: A Summary; 16. Maybe Something Will Work after All: The Fight against Poverty Revisited

Appendix: The Controversy over the Government's Definition of PovertyNotes; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 317-334) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780814749005

0814749003

9780814749265

0814749267

OCLC:

780425903