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America and the world
Lecture slides for the “America and the World” section of my Social Issues in America course: Is there a cure for poverty? Democracy When should we intervene? How many immigrants should we let in?...
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Social spending and poverty
It’s commonly thought that a market-liberal political economy is best for the rich while a social-democratic one is best for the poor. Some recent research suggests reason to question this. Analyses by...
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The politics of helping the poor
Slides from my talk at the Luxembourg Income Study conference on “Inequality and the Middle Class.” The conference papers are available online.
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When is economic growth good for the poor?
In a good society, the living standards of the least well-off rise over time. One way to achieve that is rising redistribution: government steadily increases the share of the economy (the GDP) that it...
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Poverty and immigration in the U.S. and abroad
The incomes of American households at the low end of the distribution aren’t especially high, and haven’t increased much, when compared to those of their counterparts in other rich nations. But perhaps...
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A brief snapshot of hardship in America
Here, compiled by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
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Has rising inequality been bad for the poor?
Income inequality has risen sharply in the United States and some other affluent countries since late 1970s, with much of the increase consisting of growing separation between the top 1% and the rest...
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Can we get to below-4% unemployment? Do we need to?
Robert Pollin has a piece in Boston Review arguing for a return to full employment in the United States. The following is my comment, cross-posted from the Boston Review forum. I share Robert Pollin’s...
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Reducing relative poverty
Reducing poverty is widely viewed as a key objective of a good society. The U.K.’s Labour government set a formal poverty reduction target in the late 1990s, and the European Union recently did so as...
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Relative poverty rates can mislead
Many researchers and policy makers favor a “relative” measure of poverty. That’s because our notion of what constitutes a minimally acceptable standard of living tends to be shaped by what’s typical in...
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How should we measure the poverty rate?
Perhaps we shouldn’t. The idea behind a poverty rate is that we set an income line below which people’s resources are deemed insufficient for a minimally decent standard of living. The poverty rate is...
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Low wages in Germany
This New York Times story has it right: the German labor market now includes a sizable low-wage segment. This book has a very helpful comparison of developments in Germany with those in Denmark,...
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Progress for the poor
That’s the title of my new book. In it I try to answer the following questions: How much does economic growth benefit the poor? When and why does growth fail to trickle down? How can social policy...
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How rich countries lift up the poor
That’s the title of a short article of mine in the current Pathways magazine. Pathways ought to be on the reading list of anyone interested in living standards, poverty, inequality, and mobility. And...
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Seven links
Three recent short pieces of mine: “America’s struggling lower half,” Roosevelt Institute “Five myths about the middle class,” Washington Post “How to make sure a growing U.S. economy helps the poor,”...
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Improving poverty reduction
The “Improving Poverty Reduction in Europe” (ImPRovE) project, funded by the EU, aims to enhance understanding of what works in reducing poverty and increasing social cohesion. Information about the...
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America’s social democratic future
That’s the title of my essay in the January-February 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs. You can read it at foreignaffairs.com. It’s free; you simply have to register. Here’s the opening: Since March 2010,...
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