CHAPTER 6
Poverty and Economic Inequality
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students should be able to:
1. Differentiate between absolute and relative poverty and describe international and U.S. measures of poverty.
2. Critically analyze the short-comings of current measurement of the U.S. poverty line.
3. Describe the extent of global poverty and global economic inequality.
4. Explain the structural-functional argument that institutional breakdown creates a “culture of poverty” among the poor that, in turn, contributes to their poverty.
5. Explain from the structural-functionalist perspective how economic inequality can be beneficial to society.
6. Explain from the conflict perspective the means by which power influences economic outcomes that benefit wealthy corporations and individuals and how “free-market” economic reforms have increased levels of global poverty.
7. Explain the symbolic interactionist focus on the meanings attached to being poor and how these meanings vary across societies.
8. Describe inequalities in income and wealth in the United States.
9. Describe the extent of poverty in the United States and how poverty rates vary by state, age, sex, education, family structure, race/ethnicity, and labor force participation.
10. Describe the effects of poverty and economic inequality on health, ability to cope with natural disasters, educational problems, family stress and parenting problems, housing problems and homelessness, intergenerational poverty, and war and social conflict.
11. Identify major government assistance and welfare programs in the United States, including Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), food assistance, housing assistance, Medicaid, educational assistance, child care assistance, child support enforcement, and the federal earned income tax credit (EITC).
12. Contrast myths about welfare with the realities of welfare recipients.
13. Describe recent increases in the minimum wage and the effects of minimum wage laws and “living wage” laws on America’s low-income families.
14. Describe and critique the Bush administration’s faith-based initiatives to service the poor.
15. Describe and evaluate the effectiveness of international responses to poverty, including promoting economic growth, investing in human capital, providing financial aid and debt cancellation, and microcredit programs.