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Basic Income
The Material Conditions of Freedom
Daniel Raventos
Pluto Press, 2007
Basic Income is a policy idea that could help us revolutionize the way we organize society. This book is the first proper guide to basic income-what it is, how we can organize it, and how it can benefit everyone,rich and poor alike.
Basic Income is simply the idea that everyone has a right to a minimal income. This is paid by the state out of taxation. Set at a subsistence level, it would take the place of unemployment and other benefits. This would bring profound social changes. Anyone could opt out of employment at any time. Those with few skills would no longer be forced to take up jobs with poor prospects, and employers offering McJobs would be compelled to offer better terms. And money wasted by the state in means testing and tracing benefit fraud is saved.
The campaign in favor of basic income is growing and governments are beginning to take notice. The is a clear,concise guide to the principles and practicalities of this revolutionaty idea.
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front cover of Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume I
Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume I
Edited by Robert A. Moffitt
University of Chicago Press, 2016
Few government programs in the United States are as controversial as those designed to help the poor. From tax credits to medical assistance, the size and structure of the American safety net is an issue of constant debate.

These two volumes update the earlier Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States with a discussion of the many changes in means-tested government programs and the results of new research over the past decade. While some programs that experienced falling outlays in the years prior to the previous volume have remained at low levels of expenditure, many others have grown, including Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and subsidized housing programs. For each program, the contributors describe its origins and goals, summarize its history and current rules, and discuss recipients’ characteristics and the types of benefits they receive. 

This is an invaluable reference for researchers and policy makers that features detailed analyses of many of the most important transfer programs in the United States.
 
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front cover of Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume II
Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume II
Edited by Robert A. Moffitt
University of Chicago Press, 2016
Few government programs in the United States are as controversial as those designed to help the poor. From tax credits to medical assistance, the size and structure of the American safety net is an issue of constant debate.

These two volumes update the earlier Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States with a discussion of the many changes in means-tested government programs and the results of new research over the past decade. While some programs that experienced falling outlays in the years prior to the previous volume have remained at low levels of expenditure, many others have grown, including Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and subsidized housing programs. For each program, the contributors describe its origins and goals, summarize its history and current rules, and discuss recipients’ characteristics and the types of benefits they receive. 

This is an invaluable reference for researchers and policy makers that features detailed analyses of many of the most important transfer programs in the United States.
 
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front cover of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States
Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States
Edited by Robert A. Moffitt
University of Chicago Press, 2003
Few United States government programs are as controversial as those designed to aid the poor. From tax credits to medical assistance, aid to needy families is surrounded by debate—on what benefits should be offered, what forms they should take, and how they should be administered. The past few decades, in fact, have seen this debate lead to broad transformations of aid programs themselves, with Aid to Families with Dependent Children replaced by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, the Earned Income Tax Credit growing from a minor program to one of the most important for low-income families, and Medicaid greatly expanding its eligibility.

This volume provides a remarkable overview of how such programs actually work, offering an impressive wealth of information on the nation's nine largest "means-tested" programs—that is, those in which some test of income forms the basis for participation. For each program, contributors describe origins and goals, summarize policy histories and current rules, and discuss the recipient's characteristics as well as the different types of benefits they receive. Each chapter then provides an overview of scholarly research on each program, bringing together the results of the field's most rigorous statistical examinations.

The result is a fascinating portrayal of the evolution and current state of means-tested programs, one that charts a number of shifts in emphasis—the decline of cash assistance, for instance, and the increasing emphasis on work. This exemplary portrait of the nation's safety net will be an invaluable reference for anyone interested in American social policy.
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front cover of Poor Kids in a Rich Country
Poor Kids in a Rich Country
America's Children in Comparative Perspective
Lee Rainwater
Russell Sage Foundation, 2003
In Poor Kids in a Rich Country, Lee Rainwater and Timothy Smeeding ask what it means to be poor in a prosperous nation - especially for any country's most vulnerable citizens, its children. In comparing the situation of American children in low-income families with their counterparts in fourteen other countries—including Western Europe, Australia, and Canada—they provide a powerful perspective on the dynamics of child poverty in the United States. Based on the rich data available from the transnational Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), Poor Kids in a Rich Country puts child poverty in the United States in an international context. Rainwater and Smeeding find that while the child poverty rate in most countries has been relatively stable over the past 30 years, child poverty has increased markedly in the United States and Britain—two of the world's wealthiest countries. The book delves into the underlying reasons for this difference, examining the mix of earnings and government transfers, such as child allowances, sickness and maternity benefits, unemployment insurance, and other social assistance programs that go into the income packages available to both single- and dual-parent families in each country. Rainwater and Smeeding call for policies to make it easier for working parents to earn a decent living while raising their children—policies such as parental leave, childcare support, increased income supports for working poor families, and a more socially oriented education policy. They make a convincing argument that our definition of poverty should not be based solely on the official poverty line—that is, the minimum income needed to provide a certain level of consumption—but on the social and economic resources necessary for full participation in society. Combining a wealth of empirical data on international poverty levels with a thoughtful new analysis of how best to use that data, Poor Kids in a Rich Country will provide an essential tool for researchers and policymakers who make decisions about child and family policy.
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front cover of Small Differences That Matter
Small Differences That Matter
Labor Markets and Income Maintenance in Canada and the United States
Edited by David Card and Richard B. Freeman
University of Chicago Press, 1993
This volume, the first in a new series by the National Bureau of Economic Research that compares labor markets in different countries, examines social and labor market policies in Canada and the United States during the 1980s. It shows that subtle differences in unemployment compensation, unionization, immigration policies, and income maintenance programs have significantly affected economic outcomes in the two countries.

For example:

-Canada's social safety net, more generous than the American one, produced markedly lower poverty rates in the 1980s.
 
-Canada saw a smaller increase in earnings inequality than the United States did, in part because of the strength of Canadian unions, which have twice the participation that U.S. unions do.

-Canada's unemployment figures were much higher than those in the United States, not because the Canadian economy failed to create jobs but because a higher percentage of nonworking time was reported as unemployment.

These disparities have become noteworthy as policy makers cite the experiences of the other country to support or oppose particular initiatives.
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