Holes in the Safety Net

Holes in the Safety Net PDF Author: Ezra Rosser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108475736
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
An overview of the role played by federalism in anti-poverty policy and in poverty law.

Holes in the Safety Net

Holes in the Safety Net PDF Author: Ezra Rosser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108475736
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
An overview of the role played by federalism in anti-poverty policy and in poverty law.

Realizing the Full Potential of Social Safety Nets in Africa

Realizing the Full Potential of Social Safety Nets in Africa PDF Author: Kathleen Beegle
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464811660
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Poverty remains a pervasive and complex phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa. Part of the agenda in recent years to tackle poverty in Africa has been the launching of social safety nets programs. All countries have now deployed safety net interventions as part of their core development programs. The number of programs has skyrocketed since the mid-2000s though many programs remain limited in size. This shift in social policy reflects the progressive evolution in the understanding of the role that social safety nets can play in the fight against poverty and vulnerability, and more generally in the human capital and growth agenda. Evidence on their impacts on equity, resilience, and opportunity is growing, and makes a foundational case for investments in safety nets as a major component of national development plans. For this potential to be realized, however, safety net programs need to be significantly scaled-up. Such scaling up will involve a series of technical considerations to identify the parameters, tools, and processes that can deliver maximum benefits to the poor and vulnerable. However, in addition to technical considerations, and at least as importantly, this report argues that a series of decisive shifts need to occur in three other critical spheres: political, institutional, and fiscal. First, the political processes that shape the extent and nature of social policy need to be recognized, by stimulating political appetite for safety nets, choosing politically smart parameters, and harnessing the political impacts of safety nets to promote their sustainability. Second, the anchoring of safety net programs in institutional arrangements †“ related to the overarching policy framework for safety nets, the functions of policy and coordination, as well as program management and implementation †“ is particularly important as programs expand and are increasingly implemented through national channels. And third, in most countries, the level and predictability of resources devoted to the sector needs to increase for safety nets to reach the desired scale, through increased efficiency, increased volumes and new sources of financing, and greater ability to effectively respond to shocks. This report highlights the implications which political, institutional, and fiscal aspects have for the choice and design of programs. Fundamentally, it argues that these considerations are critical to ensure the successful scaling-up of social safety nets in Africa, and that ignoring them could lead to technically-sound, but practically impossible, choices and designs.

Safety Net Programs and Poverty Reduction

Safety Net Programs and Poverty Reduction PDF Author: K. Subbarao
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
The need for social safety nets has become a key component of poverty reduction strategies. Over the past three decades several developing countries have launched a variety of programs, including cash transfers, subsidies in-kind, public works, and income-generation programs. However, there is little guidance on appropriate program design, and few studies have synthesized the lessons from widely differing country experiences. This report fills that gap. It reviews the conceptual issues in the choice of programs, synthesizes cross-country experience, and analyzes how country- and region-specific constraints can explain why different approaches are successful in different countries.

Inclusion and Resilience

Inclusion and Resilience PDF Author: Joana Silva
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821397710
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Inclusion and Resilience has two broad objectives. The study seeks first to enhance knowledge about the current state of existing social safety nets (SSNs) in the Middle East and North Africa, assessing their effectiveness by bringing together new evidence, data, and country-specific analysis. Second, it proposes an open and informed debate on feasible policy options for making SSNs more effective and responsive to the population's needs. In order to do this, the authors illustrate how the main goals for SSNs-promoting social inclusion, better livelihood, and resilience to shocks-have already been achieved in some parts of the region, notwithstanding huge challenges. They also identify the groups that regional SSNs should make a priority: children and people living in rural and lagging areas. The study relies on newly collected data on citizens' preferences concerning redistribution and SSN design, discussing how political economy considerations could be taken into account in designing better SSNs, and proposing an agenda for reform, using global experiences and the new evidence presented in the book itself.

The Invisible Safety Net

The Invisible Safety Net PDF Author: Janet Currie
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400826993
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
In one of the most provocative books ever published on America's social welfare system, economist Janet Currie argues that the modern social safety net is under attack. Unlike most books about antipoverty programs, Currie trains her focus not on cash welfare, which accounts for a small and shrinking share of federal expenditures on poor families with children, but on the staples of today's American welfare system: Medicaid, Food Stamps, Head Start, WIC, and public housing. These programs, Currie maintains, form an effective, if largely invisible and haphazard safety net, and yet they are the very programs most vulnerable to political attack and misunderstanding. This book highlights both the importance and the fragility of this safety net, arguing that, while not perfect, it is essential to fighting poverty. Currie demonstrates how America's safety net is threatened by growing budget deficits and by an erroneous public belief that antipoverty programs for children do not work and are riddled with fraud. By unearthing new empirical data, Currie makes the case that social programs for families with children are actually remarkably effective. She takes her argument one step further by offering specific reforms--detailed in each chapter--for improving these programs even more. The book concludes with an overview of an integrated safety net that would fight poverty more effectively and prevent children from slipping through holes in the net. (For example, Currie recommends the implementation of a benefit "debit card" that would provide benefits with less administrative burden on the recipient.) A complement to books such as Barbara Ehrenreich's bestselling Nickel and Dimed, which document the personal struggles of the working poor, The Invisible Safety Net provides a big-picture look at the kind of programs and solutions that would help ease those struggles. Comprehensive and authoritative, it will prompt a major reexamination of the current thinking on improving the lives of needy Americans.

Public Works as a Safety Net

Public Works as a Safety Net PDF Author: Kalanidhi Subbarao
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821394614
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
A review of the conceptual underpinnings and operational elements of public works programs around the world., drawing from a rich evidence base and analyzing previously unassimilated data, to fill a gap in knowledge related to public works programs, now so popular.

Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better

Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better PDF Author: Carolyn J. Heinrich
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610446445
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Work first. That is the core idea behind the 1996 welfare reform legislation. It sounds appealing, but according to Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better, it collides with an exceptionally difficult reality. The degree to which work provides a way out of poverty depends greatly on the ability of low-skilled people to maintain stable employment and make progress toward an income that provides an adequate standard of living. This forward-looking volume examines eight areas of the safety net where families are falling through and describes how current policies and institutions could evolve to enhance the self-sufficiency of low-income families. David Neumark analyzes a range of labor market policies and finds overwhelming evidence that the minimum wage is ineffective in promoting self-sufficiency. Neumark suggests the Earned Income Tax Credit is a much more promising policy to boost employment among single mothers and family incomes. Greg Duncan, Lisa Gennetian, and Pamela Morris find no evidence that encouraging parents to work leads to better parenting, improved psychological health, or more positive role models for children. Instead, the connection between parental work and child achievement is linked to parents' improved access to quality child care. Rebecca Blank and Brian Kovak document an alarming increase in the number of single mothers who receive neither wages nor public assistance and who are significantly more likely to suffer from medical problems of their own or of a child. Time caps and work hour requirements embedded in benefits policies leave some mothers unable to work and ineligible for cash benefits. Marcia Meyers and Janet Gornick identify another gap: low-income families tend to lose financial support and health coverage long before they earn enough to access employer-based benefits and tax provisions. They propose building "institutional bridges" that minimize discontinuities associated with changes in employment, earnings, or family structure. Steven Raphael addresses a particularly troubling weakness of the work-based safety net—its inadequate provision for the large number of individuals who are or were incarcerated in the United States. He offers tractable suggestions for policy changes that could ease their transition back into non-institutionalized society and the labor market. Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better shows that the "work first" approach alone isn't working and suggests specific ways the social welfare system might be modified to produce greater gains for vulnerable families.

The State of Social Safety Nets 2018

The State of Social Safety Nets 2018 PDF Author: The World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464812551
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The State of Social Safety Nets 2018 Report examines global trends in the social safety net/social assistance coverage, spending, and program performance based on the World Bank Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE) updated database. The report documents the main social safety net programs that exist globally and their use to alleviate poverty and to build shared prosperity. The 2018 report expands on the 2015 edition, both in administrative and household survey data coverage. A distinct mark of this report is that, for the first time, it tells the story of what happens with SSN/SA programs spending and coverage over time, when the data allow us to do so. This 2018 edition also features two special themes †“ Social Assistance and Ageing, focusing on the role of old-age social pensions, and Adaptive Social Protection, focusing on what makes SSN systems/programs adaptive to various shocks.

Relational Poverty Politics

Relational Poverty Politics PDF Author: Victoria Lawson
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820353124
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
This collection examines the power and transformative potential of movements that fight against poverty and inequality. Broadly, poverty politics are struggles to define who is poor, what it means to be poor, what actions might be taken, and who should act. These movements shape the sociocultural and political economic structures that constitute poverty and privilege as material and social relations. Editors Victoria Lawson and Sarah Elwood focus on the politics of insurgent movements against poverty and inequality in seven countries (Argentina, India, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, Singapore, and the United States). The contributors explore theory and practice in alliance politics, resistance movements, the militarized repression of justice movements, global counterpublics, and political theater. These movements reflect the diversity of poverty politics and the relations between bureaucracies and antipoverty movements. They discuss work done by mass and other types of mobilizations across multiple scales; forms of creative and political alliance across axes of difference; expressions and exercises of agency by people named as poor; and the kinds of rights and other claims that are made in different spaces and places. Relational Poverty Politics advocates for poverty knowledge grounded in relational perspectives that highlight the adversarial relationship of poverty to privilege, as well as the possibility for alliances across different groups. It incorporates current research in the field and demonstrates how relational poverty knowledge is best seen as a model for understanding how theory is derivative of action as much as the other way around. The book lays a foundation for realistic change that can directly attack poverty at its roots. Contributors: Antonádia Borges, Dia Da Costa, Sarah Elwood, David Boarder Giles, Jim Glassman, Victoria Lawson, Felipe Magalhães, Jeff Maskovsky, Richa Nagar, Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales, LaShawnDa Pittman, Frances Fox Piven, Preeti Sampat, Thomas Swerts, and Junjia Ye.

Les filets sociaux en Afrique

Les filets sociaux en Afrique PDF Author: Carlo Del Ninno
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464804362
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : fr
Pages : 321

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Book Description
The need for safety nets in Sub-Saharan Africa is vast. In addition to being the world's poorest region, Sub-Saharan Africa is also one of the most unequal. In this context, redistribution must be seen as a legitimate way to fight poverty and ensure shared prosperity - and all the more so in countries where growth is driven by extractive industries that are not labor-intensive and often employ very few poor people. Given that most African countries face difficult decisions about how to allocate limited resources among a number of social programs, evidence is important. Do Safety Net programs actually benefit the poorest people? This book demonstrates with empirical evidence that it is possible to reach the poorest and most vulnerable people with safety net programs, and provides lessons for the effective use of targeting methods to achieve this outcome in the region.