Confronting Poverty Prescriptions for Change [Paperback]

Why is there so much poverty in America in the 1990s? What can be done to reduce it? In this book the leading experts review three decades of research on the nature, causes, and consequences of poverty, and prescribe an antipoverty agenda for the next decade. The authors document trends in poverty and income inequality, review government programs and policies, and analyze the publics complicated attitudes concerning these policies. They discuss the persistence and inter-generational transmission of poverty, the extent of welfare dependence, and the emergence of an urban underclass.

Confronting Povertyproposes thoughtful reforms in employment and training, child support, health care, education, welfare, immigration, and urban policies, all crafted from the successes, as well as the failures, of policies over the past three decades. Although antipoverty efforts have been frustrated by slow economic growth, rising inequality, and changes in family structure, the authors offer insightful proposals that will help us resolve the American paradox of poverty amidst plenty.

This is a very balanced and informative study that provides an historical perspective on what has happened to poverty in the United States since its eradication first became a goal of public policy.Confronting Povertyincludes some of the most thoughtful essays ever written on poverty and public policy.This timely book should provide powerful ammunition for a new assault on poverty.Danziger and Weinberg gave usFighting Povertyin 1986 and I have used it every year since as the work from which students can best learn about poverty problems and policy. InConfronting Povertyan array of leading scholars not only update but extend the review to cover important new areas: the urban underclass, single-mother families, immigration, and the dynamics and intergenerational transmission of poverty and welfare. This is an importantand readablesource book for anyone concerned lƒœ