Copyright (c) 2009 Berkeley Electronic Press All rights reserved. http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty Recent documents in Poverty & Public Policy en-us Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:29:32 PST 3600 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art8 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art8 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:49:16 PDT Max Skidmore reviews Michael Harrington's 1962 Classic The Other America: Poverty in the United States, assessing the work's staying power over nearly two generations. Max J. Skidmore http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art7 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art7 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:49:13 PDT The primary factor in level of participation by dentists in Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance (SCHIP) programs is the level of reimbursement received. The purpose of this article is to describe how the use of the global budget method used by managed care vendors, or their subcontractors, discourages dentists from participating in Medicaid/SCHIP programs, ultimately decreasing access to oral health care for the lower-income populations. The author posits that the global budget method is misapplied to Medicaid/SCHIP systems, and the experience of Missouri is used to demonstrate problems in reimbursement to dental providers. Joseph Squillace Medicaid SCHIP Dental Care Reimbursement Methods http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art6 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art6 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:49:11 PDT Until early 2009, "loser" was a sympathetic term identifying victims of the 2008-2009 recession. That use shifted to a derogatory label for people who benefit from government largesse -- sub-prime mortgage borrowers -- at the expense of "honest" and "hardworking" Americans. Labels "transform and magnify" behavior into a character failing. Gans (1995) sees a "war of words" in American culture that uses pejorative labels "that stereotype, stigmatize, and harass the poor by questioning their morality and their values." This essay examines the case of CNBC reporter Rick Santelli's use of "loser" as a pejorative label and the influence of that use on media punditry about the mortgage crisis of 2008-2009. Andrew R. Cline http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art5 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art5 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:49:07 PDT The European Union coordinates and encourages Member State actions to combat poverty, and to reform their social protection systems on the basis of policy exchanges and mutual learning ('best practices'). This paper analyses the effectiveness of welfare state policies and especially social transfers in EU-countries in alleviating poverty. To indicate whether European economic integration may have had any impact on poverty reduction, we also include several non-EU15 countries as a benchmark into our analysis. We analyze on a cross-country basis the relationship between poverty rates and social effort, as measured by social expenditure ratios. We also correct these expenditure ratios for the impact of the tax system and for private social arrangements, using OECD methodology. Next, we compare poverty rates at the levels of market and disposable incomes; that is, before and after transfers, in order to analyze the effect of tax and transfer policies in reducing poverty, i.e., to determine the target efficiency of social transfers. We perform several tests with the most recent data.Our results are less clear cut than earlier findings. We still find a quite strong negative relationship between the level of social expenditure and poverty among OECD countries. However, for EU-countries this relationship is weaker and there are substantial differences within the EU15. After correcting for the impact of taxes and for private social arrangements, the linkage between social effort and poverty levels becomes even weaker. Also, we do not find a strong relationship between levels of social spending and antipoverty effects of social transfers and taxes. At the program level, family programs and child support alleviate poverty to a large extent. Koen Caminada http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art4 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art4 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:49:02 PDT Scholars have implied that affirmative action is associated with deteriorating conditions for the poor. However, few have attempted to demonstrate any association between affirmative action and poverty empirically. The author relied upon data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) 1975-1999 and a generalized least squares model to test the relationship between the percent of Blacks who qualify as poor in a given year and several measures of affirmative action. The author finds a mixed but largely null relationship between Black poverty and affirmative action and concludes that affirmative action programs have little impact on Black poverty levels. Major G. Coleman Affirmative action poverty http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art3 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art3 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:48:58 PDT A growing literature indicates that the representation of women in legislatures is positively associated with the passage of female-friendly social policy. However, there is little corresponding research concerning the effect of women in cabinet on female-friendly social policy. Yet, almost all advanced industrial democracies are parliamentary democracies, where policies typically originate within the cabinet and governments typically enjoy substantial control over the legislative process. Thus, to the extent that women promote female-friendly policy, women in cabinet positions should be ideally placed to do so, and indeed, possibly be more influential than women in legislatures. We find significant support for this argument in analyses of state guaranteed leave entitlement, in eighteen parliamentary democracies from 1980-2003. Amy Atchison Female-Friendly Social Policy http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art2 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art2 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:48:54 PDT In view of the increasing role of local government in formulating and providing welfare programs in many countries, the factors that shape the local policy arena are of much interest. Integrating two bodies of research - that of problem definition and framing in public policy and that of perceptions about poverty - the study investigates how heads of local authorities in Israel perceive the causes of poverty and how these perceptions are related to policy options for combating poverty. The findings reveal the importance of the leaders' perceptions of the causes of poverty and value orientation in explaining their policy preferences for dealing with poverty. The findings also point to the need for further research on the context of the local authority and its influence on the policy preferences of local leaders. The data is based on the responses to mail questionnaires distributed in 2002 to heads of local municipalities in Israel. Lihi Lahat public policy http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art1 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss2/art1 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:48:52 PDT Max J. Skidmore http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss1/art7 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss1/art7 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:47:15 PDT Mark Hyde and John Dixon review Shapiro's (2007) Is the Welfare State Justified?, assessing its merits as well as its flaws. Mark Hyde Welfare State Pensions Political Philosophy http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss1/art6 http://www.bepress.com/pso_poverty/vol1/iss1/art6 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:47:14 PDT The St. Louis 10-year plan to end homelessness was unveiled in 2005. According to Mayor Francis G. Slay, the plan was a new strategy based on best practices. This analysis is not a detailed case study of the St. Louis plan, but rather an examination of the extent to which social capital is one of the plan's key focus areas, and whether it can help address some of the challenges that the plan documents. The study concludes that the principles of social capital can be of importance to other cities seeking to alleviate homelessness. Allan Maram Homelessness and Social Capital