Running Head LEGACY OF RACISM 1 LEGACY OF RACISM 5.docx

Running Head: LEGACY OF RACISM 1
LEGACY OF RACISM 5
Legacy of Racism
September 15, 2017
Introduction
Racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, and antagonism
that is directed to a person or a group of individuals based on
the belief that one's culture is superior to the other
(McConahay, 1986). Racism started when races that felt

superior to the other and thus started enslaving the other who
were viewed as inferior races. Racism has been there for years
and still exists in the contemporary world. As explained in this
paper racism has been there, and its legacy still exists.
Paragraph 1
In the 18th century, the US economy was dependent on slavery,
for this reason, it became part of the culture to the extent that it
was immortalized and romanticized in films. Public lynching
was done in the US south where between 1889 and 1940 a total
of 3, 883 people were lynched according to World council of
Churches where 80% of these people were African American.
Paragraph 2
Racism is still evident in today's world, the United States in
one of racially and ethnically diverse nations. There is
significant economic disparity among different races and
ethnics. Research shows there is the likelihood of people of
color being impoverished and subjected to low-quality life as
compared to whites (LaVeist et al., 2000). African Americans
earn only a 62% of the median of what white earns, which is the
lowest in the country. US southerners are more likely to be
uneducated, poor, unemployed and incarcerated in general but
are even one for the people of color who are more likely to be
living near an industry producing cancer-causing toxins or a
toxic waste dump (LaVeist et al., 2000).
Paragraph 3
Health is a valuable asset to every human on the planet, but
racism has made it difficult for most people to be responsible
for their health (LaVeist et al., 2000). Minority groups have
been denied their human right and also quality healthcare.
Racism still exists in the 21st century as doctors still entertain
racial biases and infringe treatment of minority patients.
Paragraph 4
In 1947 penicillin was used to cure diseases like syphilis
(Norgaard et al., 201l). . Before 1947 cure for syphilis was not
found and this led to medical researchers coordinating with

Tuskegee institutes in Alabama. The collaboration was to seek a
cure for sexually transmitted diseases (Norgaard et al., 201l).
The team used their tests on the poor blacks who were promised
free healthcare. The researchers later failed to keep their
promises, and they failed to offer the health services as
promised to the Tuskegee test subjects. This led to spread of
the disease, and some died needlessly.
Paragraph 5
Similar research was done in Guatemala, and it was
conducted on people with a mental health condition and prison
inmates (Norgaard et al., 201l). The victims of the Guatemala
Syphilis Study were not compensated when the Tuskegee test
subjects received settlements.
When the medical researchers carried unethical syphilis
studies the targeted communities, government agencies also
held their research on women of color for sterilization
(Norgaard et al., 201l). The state of North Carolina was aiming
at reducing poor and mentally ill people from reproducing
.however the targeted amount of women were black women. The
medical and the government in the US territory of Puerto Rico
aimed at working-class women for sterilization to reduce
unemployment cases.
Conclusion and Personal Opinion
People should not be discriminated despite their color of
skin or gender. The government should, however, implement
better ideas to bring different races together instead of
regarding some group as special (Norgaard et al., 201l). The
poor should be given a chance to participate in government
programs without being forced. The health sector should also be
very fair and treat all the people equally.

References
McConahay, J. B. (1986). Modern racism, ambivalence, and the
modern racism scale.
LaVeist, T. A., Nickerson, K. J., & Bowie, J. V. (2000).
Attitudes about racism, medical mistrust, & satisfaction with
care among African American & white cardiac patients. Medical
Care Research and Review, 57(1_suppl), 146-161.
Norgaard, K. M., Reed, R., & Van Horn, C. (2011). A
continuing legacy: Institutional racism, hunger, and nutritional
justice on the Klamath. MIT Press.
GLOBALIZATION
!
Question 8 from from Lectures and Today’s Globalization
(related to
question 7)
1
Question 8
What forces gave rise to the weakening and breaking of the

social safety net/social
contract in the period from the 1980s and 1990s to the present?
What do we call
this new period?
2
Affects of Globalization
■ Qualitative change of globalization included
– Economic interdependence
– Communication revolution
– Reformation of the role of the nation state
– Diffusion of western culture
– Growth of transnational movements
– Movement organizations quasi government organizations
– Neo-liberalism policies
■ When globalization became a powerful force, it broke the
social contact
3
Weakening of Social Contract
■ From the 1980s to the present forces have continually
displaced the working class and
attempted to eliminate the people’s access to services and life
necessities through
unemployment and inflation

■ Forces that gave rise to the weakening of social contracts
– World Bank (WB)
– International Monetary Fund (IMF)
– Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)
– Rapid rise in technology
– Use of Neo-liberal philosophy
■ Globalization and capitalism brought the weakening of the
social safety net
4
1980s
■ Period of extreme technological advancements (i.e. computer
processing power
increased)
■ Computer technology changed labor relations because
corporations no longer need
large amounts of human physical or mental labor
– Increased unemployment
■ People cannot afford to pay for goods and services
■ Technology benefited companies but hurt the middle and
working class workers who
needed wages and income to survive

■ Developing countries could not pay off debts due to capitalist
policies, such as
privatization
■ Structural Adjustment Programs are detrimental to developing
countries because they
are based on maximizing profits to pay down debts to the WB
and IMF instead of
supporting programs to help its citizens
■ General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) focused on
reducing tariffs
5
1990s-2000s
■ World Trade Organization served as forum for international
trade agreements
■ Laborers increased their output but did not receive an
adequate increase in wages
■ Third world countries are unable to support their
impoverished populations
■ North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)-allow free
trade between Canada, the US and
Mexico without tariff barriers
■ United States becomes a debtor nation

■ Increase of Americans living in poverty
■ Global corporations continue to increase their political and
economic power
■ The top 10% of the world continue to get rich while the rest
of the world gets poorer
6
GLOBALIZATION
!
Question 7 from from Lectures and Today’s Globalization
(related to
question 8)
1
Question 7
Discuss the interrelationships among the interests of the
economic elites in the
stages of the great depressions and the beginning of the Welfare
State Reform
(1929-1945) the period of Economic Expansion and Welfare
State Reform
(1945-1970’s), Globalization in the Electronic Age (1980’s-
2000) Global Corporation
Rule and Neo-Liberalism and end of the Welfare State as “we
know it.” (Breaking of

the Social Contract)
2
Economic Exclusion of Blacks
■ The struggle of the inclusion of blacks in the political process
will show how economics
is always the basis for action
■ In US history, blacks were excluded because white Americans
exploited slave labor for
profit and capital. They based their economy on the gains made
by slavocracy.
■ Post WWII was a period of economic expansion therefore it
set the stage for the
beginning of inclusion into American society
– Era of “politics of inclusion” and “politics of reform”
■ Powerful social movements occurred due to the period of
inclusion: civil rights, women’s
antiwar, ethnic/racial, and gay rights, environmental rights,
nationalism and liberalism
■ Capitalism began to bribe sections of the labor force (mainly
white men and in northern
unionized industry) with good-pay jobs and benefits

– Their loyalty was the key to capitalist control over the lower,
un-bribed sections of
labor
– To exploit black labor and southern white labor, black
workers had to be integrated
into the workplace
3
Social Contract
■ In the Industrial-Financial stage of capitalism established its
first limited and modest
programs (the New Deal) in response to the Great Depression
■ The Great Depression made distinctions between the
economic elite and the working
class
■ In order to stop revolution, the economic elite created a
“social contract” (the New
Deal)
■ The “contract” allowed for large corporations to begin
defining the American economic
structure and cement the United States defining role in the
world economy
■ The New Deal was a “social contract with the more privileged
sections of the industrial

and middle class workers, mostly whites” who obtained grater
benefits
■ War on poverty expanded the social contract of the New Deal
welfare state to include
people of color and poor (the third leg)
4
Global Expansion
■ Globalization- growing integration of national economies and
outcome of increase
international trade
■ Countries and companied are heavily dependent on exports,
imports, foreign
investment and immigration labor
■ Blacks and women of color had legal rights but they did not
benefit from globalization
■ Bretton Woods Agreements
– Financial institutions (World Bank, International Monetary
Fund, General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) that expand global wealth,
impose harsh
economic policies and maximize profits

■ Outsourcing became a way for global corporations to avoid
having to share their
wealth with a domestic middle class
■ Businesses can manufacture goods in one country and sell
them in another cheaply
■ New communication technologies can make it easier for
corporations headquartered in
one country to communicate with other satellite locations in
other cities
5
Electronic Age
■ Computers, robotics, and automation were introduced into the
production and distribution of
goods and services
■ Politics of economic contraction for the poor and working
class led to the politics of exclusion
■ Global corporations assume greater power than nation state
■ Global institutions (i.e. World Trade Organization) transcends
national polices with new global
policies
■ Globalization has reduced the quality of jobs available to
many Americans

– Altered the relationship between business and labor,
weakening the ability of workers to
negotiate a fair share of the national’s growing wealth
– Full time jobs are being transformed to part-time jobs
■ Proponents of technology argue that tech can be a benefit to
all and others argue that it can
only be beneficial in a socialist setting
6
Neo-Liberalism Policies
■ Created a race to the bottom
■ Policies are being used in the U.S to maximize profits
■ Neo-liberalism translates into the breaking of the social
contract
– “Harsher policies that generate maximized profits for global
corporations and the forced
payment of interest on debt of developing nations.”
– Pensions, housing, healthcare, education research, etc.
become privatized
– Entitlement programs are eventually eliminated
– Increased racial profiling, higher poverty rates, sweatshops,
etc.
– Welfare state will we replaced with a growing police state

7
Possible
Solution
s
■ According to Robert Reich, former US Secretary under
Clinton, free trade and global capital
are essentially good things if managed correctly (i.e. as in the
socialist setting)
– This requires interventionist polices implemented at the
national level to ensure that
benefits associated with globalization are shared equitably
■ World Bank should forgive debt burdens
■ Developed nations should increase aid to developing nations
and help countries that struggle
with crushing poverty

8
THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT RESULTED IN
MORE OR LESS INCLUSIVE SOCIAL POLICIES
AND DRAMATICALLY CHANGED THE
ECONOMICS, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL
LANDSCAPE OF THE NATION
!
Question 6 from from Lectures and Williams (Chapter 3)
Leg 3 of the Welfare State
1
Question 6
Discuss the various factors, during the 1960’s and mid 1970’s,
that led toward the
partial inclusion of African Americans and the poor in the

American Welfare State.
Be sure to also discuss how each leg of the Welfare State
continues to privilege
Whites.
2
Economic Shifts
■ The 1960s and 1970s led to a dramatic shift in social policy
and the partial inclusion of Blacks,
women, and the poor in the American Welfare State (Leg 3, of
the Welfare State spurred on by
technological advancements
■ With the end of sharecropping and increasing total
replacement of blacks by cotton-picking
machines, blacks were forced to leave the South and look for
work in the North
■ The population shift of blacks living in the rural South in

1940 (77%) to (53%) concentrated them
in the inner cities where they would find work
■ New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia were major
urban centers were blacks became
employed in unskilled jobs and manual labor
■ Educational Trends: The G.I. Bill
– Diminished the distance between the middle and upper
classes, but sharply increased the
distance between middle and working classes
– Was supposed to be race neutral policy but benefited whites
more than blacks
– Educational and health assistance was offered to veterans
however it was irrelevant to
blacks who disproportionally had poor health and the level of
literacy were below any of the
GI Bill’s provisions
3

Post WWII Housing Programs
■ Due to segregation, many blacks were concentrated in the
inner cities
■ There was a shortage of quality housing for the poor which
lead to overcrowding
■ Housing policies prohibited blacks from ownership
■ Federal and local government made capital available for
middle class whites to purchase homes
– Allowing tax dedication for home mortgages
– Opening new areas for residential development and building
new schools in the suburbs
■ Development of suburban America through loan support and
tax expenditures to those who
would reside there (white families)
– Only whites could accrue enough money to live in the suburbs

– Racial discriminatory housing practices: redlining
■ Businesses began to move to the suburbs
■ Single family homes and massive jobs were common
characteristic of the suburbs
■ Interstate Highways
- Led to employment increases in every occupational
classification in the suburban rings
but blue-collar, clerical, and sales jobs declined sharply
in the inner cities.
4
Deindustrialization (Automation) of the
Inner Cities
■ New automobiles opened up development of the suburbs and
killed the hopes for early
development of mass transportation for the poor

■ Black workers in the inner cities (twice the ratio of whites)
were cast into permanent
unemployment and poverty
■ Labor became replaced by machines therefore displacing
black workers and the poor
■ Employment increases in every occupational classification in
the suburban rings of Northern
metropolises, but blue-collar, clerical and sales jobs declined
sharply in inner cities
■ Interstate Highways
– Moving plants from central cities to newly emerging suburban
areas
– Federal government funded the interstate highway system and
the right of metropolitan
expressways around cities from the 1950s onward
▪ Introduction of New Automobiles

- Production of new automobiles opened up development
of the suburbs and
simultaneously killed hopes for early development of
mass transportation for the poor
5
Attack on White Privilege
■ Beginning in 1954 with Brown v Board, a series of Supreme
Court discussions began to tear
away at the white exclusionary power structure
■ Blacks were staking claim for equal access to services which
had been denied to them
previously.
■ Created a stark divide among the white population
■ Violence against blacks, student, Latinos and welfare activist
were common form of white

resistance
6
Third Leg of the Welfare State
■ Legislation preserved privilege by adding a third leg for
blacks and women however the first two legs
continued to serve whites
■ Brown v Board of Education
■ Affirmative Action 1954
■ Civil Rights Acts 1957
– weakly protected voting rights but successfully brought civil
rights to the forefront of the political
agenda
■ Civil Rights Act of 1964

– Outlawed discrimination on the basis of race in public
facilities, schools and jobs
– Utilized the federal government’s ability to regulate interstate
commerce, to outlaw discrimination in
hotels, restaurants, and other public accommodations with
economic consequences for states
receiving federal funding
– Title VII banned discrimination against anyone because of
race, color or national origin in the sale,
rental or financing of housing units however red-lining still
preserved privilege in housing
■ Voting Rights Acts
– Outlawed unlawful practices of excluding people from voting
based on literacy tests or other such
ploys
7

War on Poverty
■ Advanced the economic concerns of the impoverished
■ Three foci of the War on Poverty
1. Community Action
2. Education and job training
o Program initiatives such as Head Start and Upward Bound
o Job Corps-never produced their intended effects and created
new barriers for black
men in the workforce
3. Affirmative Action
■ Anti-poverty programs managed to cut the poverty rate from
double digits in the 1960s to the
single digits in the 1970s
■ Housing initiatives failed because of difficulty of changing
the structure of local government

8
THE CREATION OF THE WELFARE STATE-THE
NEW DEAL PROGRAMS CREATED UNDER THE
NEW DEAL WERE GENDER CATEGORICAL, NOT
UNIVERSAL, NOT RACE, CLASS, AND GENDER
NEUTRAL
!
Question 5 from from Lectures and Williams (especially from
Chapter 2)
1
Question 5
Critically discuss in detail how the New Deal policies (rather
than eliminating White privilege)
expanded White privilege legally, and excluded many African
Americans and the poor from

many of its programs.
2
New Deal
■ New Deal was in response to the Great Depression and
criticisms of the Roosevelt
Administration
■ New Deal helped to preserve capitalism and keep the market
functioning
■ There was a increase of protests therefore they expanded
provisions
■ Social Security Act of 1935-first national welfare system in
the U.S.
– White men were the key players in shaping the Social Security
Act of 1935

■ Unemployment insurance provided a safety net
■ Child labor was outlawed and the minimum wage law was
passed
■ Labor Unions increased from 3 million members in 1929 to 14
million in 1945
■ The number of federal government employees doubled from
1929 to 1939
■ Two legs of the social welfare state
3
Leg 1 of the Welfare State: For the Middle and Upper
Classes
■ Social Insurance and Private Sector Programs
■ For those who work in selective occupations (middle and
upper class) and based on job

■ Received more generous aid
■ Social Security Act of 1935
– Old Age Insurance (OAI)
■ excluded farm laborers, domestic service workers, the self-
employed,
schoolteachers, and clerics where most blacks were employed
■ Over 40% black males were excluded compared to 29.7%
white males, and
79.3% of black females compared to 26.5% of white females
– Survivors’ disability insurance
■ Medicare
■ Private Retirement package (401k) and pension
■ Home Mortgages- renters do not have the same opportunities

4
Leg 2 of the Welfare State: For the Working Class and
Poor
■ Public Assistance Welfare Programs
■ For people that were missed in Leg 1-income below level set
by government
■ Not indexed-there is not a national standard
■ Very stingy and most despised social welfare
■ TANF
■ Medicaid
■ Food stamps
■ Federal Housing Administration
– FHA policies mandated the selection of tenants by race and

racially segregated
areas (redlining)
■ Old Age Assistance (OAA)
– Disproportionally served blacks
■ Aid to Dependent Children (ADC)
5
Other New Deal Programs
■ Blacks were either excluded or discriminated upon
■ Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA)
– The first New Deal federal aid program
– Both whites and blacks received governmental support
■ The proportion of Blacks receiving assistance was only half
of that of Southern
whites, even through the rate of impoverished for Blacks was
substantially higher

■ Employment Programs
– Works Progress Administration (WPA)
– Civilian Conservative Corps (CCC)
– The CCC and WPA created jobs for millions of Americans but
at the same time many
Blacks were placed in dead end jobs in declining areas or were
excluded from employment
all together
– More than ¾ of black women were forces to become domestic
workers or unskilled jobs
which had lower wages
– Black farmers and sharecroppers were adversely affected by
the New Deal
6
Hidden Welfare System

■ Grew out of the National Labor Relations Act
■ Unions were controlled by whites
– Private benefits were derived from collective bargaining and
unionization was ties to
professional status
– Excluded jobs where blacks and women were occupied in
because they were not
employed in jobs that received benefits
– Private pensions
7
New Deal Racial Implications
■ Membership in the higher class reduces risks of heart attacks,
diabetes, infectious disease,
arthritis, and some cancers

– Ones social class is a higher predictor of health and mortality
outcomes than genetics or
exposure to smoking
– Higher classes can afford better medical care
■ New Deal was used to restore the prior positions of privilege
which was affected by the Great
Depression. It did not dismantle the system of white privilege
■ Legally extended white male privilege by giving the most
benefits to white dominated
occupations, leaving aid distribution to local governments, and
supporting racial segregation
practices in the workplace
■ State Rights gave power to the states
8

Politics of the New Deal
■ President Roosevelt was not concerned with relief. Welfare to
him was “a narcotic and subtle destroyer
of the human spirit”
■ The American Welfare state of the 1930’s reproduce (not
transformed) the exploitation, oppression,
domination, and discrimination of Blacks and other minorities
■ The election of FDR created an uneasy coalition among
Northern Democrats, representing northern
capital, Midwestern farmers, and organized labor who favored
national programs operated by the federal
government
■ Southern Democrats opposed any possibility of federal
inclusion in the South’s cheap labor system
■ A compromise among the Democrats in Congress led to
strengthening the committee system and

thereby in favor to the South. Southern Democrats gained
regional autonomy on questions of race,
gender and class
■ Southern states in the cotton plantation areas dictate the rate
and structure of assistance in ways that
ensured that the Black sharecropper tenant dominate planter
class relationship continue to thrive , thus
ensuring maximization of profits by the dominant planter class.
9
Politics of the New Deal
■ Southern politics, the federal government, congressional
politics, and the federal government
lack of action in enforcing equality, and the politics of race,
class, gender and exploitation
dictated the types of social, economic, and political well-being
of Blacks

■ The South manipulated federal funds in a way to maintain
cheap labor force, maximize profits
and keep Blacks at the bottom of the nation’s economy even
with government assistance.
■ According to Williams, “...the political economy of the South,
Southern dominance of the
committee system in Congress, the political needs of FDR, and
the Democratic Party, the
concomitant politics of race, dictated by the structure of the
American welfare state at its
official birth. The result was segmented politics that would not
undermine the control of
African American labor by the dominant planter class. In
consequence, the private practices
that isolated Blacks in the plantation South and in low paid
unskilled employment in declining
areas of the economy and in the ghetto areas of the North
received tacit official sanction and
reinforcement from the federal government” (2003: 90).
10

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS BY
CONTRASTING THE POLITICS THAT
CREATED THE FREEDMEN’S BUREAU
& THE CIVIL WAR VETERAN’S PENSION
!
Question 4 from from Lectures and Williams (Introduction and
Chapter 1)
1
Question 4
Compare and contrast the politics that created the Freedman’s
Bureau with the
politics that created the Civil War veteran’s pensions. Be sure
to emphasize how a
segmented welfare state fused race and social policy in ways to
benefit whites
(white skin privilege) and adversely affecting people of color.
2

Slavery and Black Poverty
■ Every effort blacks made to exercise their right to fully
participate in the economic and
political processes in America was met with great resistance
■ Slavery is the foundation of poverty for African Americans
■ Rapidly expanding frontier, chromic labor shortage, and lack
of tools and technology
made slavery inevitable
■ Ownership of their labor, land or the tools of the industry,
slaves had not have control
over their life circumstances and accumulation of wealth
■ The contradictory forces of politics under-girding the
Southern slave economy and
Northern industrialism would lead to civil war.

3
Political Contradictions Lead to Civil War
■ Contradictions between the southern slave economy and the
north’s industrial
revolution with a wage economy cause a national division
■ Constitutional declarations
– Slaves were property and 3/5 of a person
o Counting slaves as people gave political domination for the
south
– Slaves have no rights and did not own their labor. Free labor
and wealth for
planation owners
■ North could not defeat south unless slavery was abolished

4
Aftermath of the Civil War
■ Freedom for the former slave was illusive
– Demand from ex-slaves and poor whites for land disruptions
was ignored
– Joining forces of the Southern and Northern elites that results
in re-enslaving Blacks into
the harsh and unrewarding system of sharecropping
– Low level technology in agricultural production which
necessitated the use of Black labor
■ Blacks did not own resources before or after the Civil War
■ There was plenty of vacant and abandoned land but elites kept
the freedman and poor whites
landless.
– “40 acres and the mule” never happened

– Needed to keep them landless in order to exploit their labor
■ American lacked tools to replace Black labor
■ Black suffrage and political participation was up to the states
therefore blacks and other
minorities could be excluded from the political process
5
Reconstruction Legislation
■ 13th Amendment- Abolished slavery
■ 14th Amendment- Granted citizenship
■ 15th Amendment- Guaranteed the right to vote for males
6
Pre-History of the American Welfare State

■ Post-Civil war there was a displacement of thousands of
civilians and soldiers and the
destructions of crops and farmlands.
■ There needed to be relief and formal support of former slaves
and refugees. It was up to
the state and local government to provide aid, not federal
government
■ Before the 1930s, private charities, not the government were
the only sources of aid for
poor Americans
■ Two initiatives after the Civil War that were precursor for
welfare were the Freedman’s
Bureau (officially the Bureau of Freemen, Refugees, and
Abandoned Land) and Civil War
Veteran Pension
– Both programs started out serving both races but became

associated with a
specific race
■ Civil War veterans pension was justified on the grounds that
they earned these privileges
because they fought for the country however blacks did deserve
aid the Bureau
provided
7
Freedmen’s Bureau
■ General Howard was the Commissioner of the Freedmen’s
Bureau
■ There was no money allotted to this agency- it was supported
through taxing the
confiscated and taxed lands
■ The Bureau had limited power and were not unable to
redistribute land

■ It was made to be temporary (lasted 7 years) and therefore
was housed War Department
■ Accomplishments of Bureau: feeding the starving, building
hospitals, schools/colleges
(i.e. HBCUs)
■ Was made to meet the needs of the recently freed person and
white refugees
– Benefits from the agency were increasingly being associated
with blacks
o These benefits were seen as handouts to the lazy
o Bureau was viewed as serving the undeserving poor
8
Freedman’s Bureau
■ General Howard issued Circular 13

– Allowing agents to set aside 40 acres for freedmen
– President Johnson replaced Circular 13 with Circular 15:
o Restored redistributed land amongst freedmen to their original
owners
o Left blacks without means of self sufficiency and dependent
on whites for
work and government for aid
■ Williams: “elites were vigorous in seeking to restore
southern white dominance and
impede Blacks’ attempt at autonomy through landownership”
– Blacks were a source of cheap labor for southern planters and
northern
industrialists
■ Bureau denied rations and aid to those who were incapable of
supporting themselves

– Unmarried mothers were encouraged to work-wanted kids to
work with old
planation masters so mothers could work
9
Racialized Social Policy
■ Set the precedent for negatively influenced social policy
■ Demonstrated the lack of willingness of the federal
government to pursue social rights
for blacks
■ Advanced stereotypes for blacks as lazy, who preferred
handouts over work
■ Aid should be short lived and welfare agencies should put
themselves out of business as
quickly as possible
– Provide the most meager aid for as little time as possible

■ Fiscal problems require cutting back programs for the poor
■ Blacks must be forced to work so they will learn the ‘work
ethic’ like whites
■ Family caps-families could only have a certain amount of
children can have aid
■ Because of the racist policies, Blacks were deemed
underserving and thus induced
dependency
10
Civil War Veteran Pension
■ “Provided monthly payments to men totally disabled and to
the widows, orphans, and
other dependents for those who died for causes traceable to
their union military service”

■ Soldier's pension was for the deserving poor and
disproportionally distributed to white
soldiers and their families
■ Over the course of the pension, exclusionary requirements
were dismantled and more
people where included.
– Dependent Pension Act of 1890: did not require disability to
be a result of
participation in the Civil War and included honorably
discharged veterans
■ Provided higher levels of cash assistance and covered more
people than the Bureau
11
Black Soldiers
■ Soldier's pension was for the deserving poor and
disproportionally distributed to white

soldiers and their families
– Black soldiers were barred from receiving pensions
o They were unable to have witnesses or money to pay for
lawyers
o Birthdates were unknown
o Marriage was not easy for black widows to prove because
slave marriages
were not legally recognized and therefore not eligible for
marriage licenses
o Blacks were barred from serving as officers (the group that
was paid the
highest)
o Health of black soldiers were poorer than white soldiers
■ The ideological construction of the differences surrounding

the two programs
foreshadowed debates on social policy for more than a century
12
PERSPECTIVES OF
POVERTY
!
Question 3 from Lectures and Schiller: Chapters 1 & 2
1
Question 3
Discuss two of the most important formulations of the poverty
line (i.e. the President
Council of Economic Advisor (CEA), and the Social Security
Administration (SSA
Index), showing their (a) strengths, and (b) glaring errors ETC.

2
CEA and SSA Index
■ Both the President Council of Economic Advisor (CEA), and
the Social Security
Administration (SSA Index) first determine what poverty is and
then determine who
qualifies as such
■ Determining what constitutes poverty and then based on that
determination, deciding
who is impoverished
3
CEA Poverty Budget, 1963
■ One third allocated to food and two-thirds allocated to non-
food items

■ Three meals a day would cost $2.74 per family
■ The average family spends one-third of its disposable income
on food budget
■ “Typical family” is undefined
Category Amount Total
Food Budget $2.736/day x 365 days $998.64
Nonfood budget 2 x food budget $1,997.28
Total Budget $2,995.92
4
Glaring Error in CEA Estimation
Procedure■ The husband in Family 1 is 37 years old and
supports six children and a pregnant wife
on his income of $3,200 a year.
■ Family 2 consists of a soon-to-be-retried couple, both in their
mid-sixties. The wife

does not work and the husband’s earnings amount to $2,800 per
year. They own their
home, having mad the final mortgage payment last Christmas.
■ Family 3 consists of a struggling graduate student, his
working wife, and their three
month-old child. They both work at the college carry-out store
in their spare time.
Their combined earnings, including overtime and tips, amount
to $2,400 a year.
How did these three families place in the CEA’s measurement
of poor Americans? Family
1, consisting of eight and one-half persons, was officially
classified as non-poor. Families
2 and 3 were counted as poor, as their incomes were under
$3,000 limit. But how many
people would be willing to accept CEA’s classification of these
families? Family 1 was
clearly desperate, while Family 2 was living a quiet and perhaps
comfortable life. Our
graduate-student family was not exactly affluent, but they were

not desperate on $200 a
month.
5
Social Security Administration (SSA
Index)■ By Ms. Mollie Orshansky to offer a more reliable
estimation of those suffering from
poverty
■ This approach makes its subjectively explicit
■ SSA began with the minimum cost living for a family of four
and adjusted cots for
smaller and larger families sizes. The SSA estimation also made
yearly adjustments
due to inflation. However, the SSA ignores how increases in the
standard of living can
influence real poverty.

■ This approach adjusted for family size, then for varying
family needs based on
whether or not the family lived on a farm, whether the family
was headed by a man or
woman, and the number of children
■ Ms. Orshansky devised 124 family types and different needs
6
The Social Security Administration (SSA) by Ms.
Orshanskey
SOURCE: Department of Health and Human Services, Federal
Register, vol. 72, no. 15 January 24, 2007, pp. 3147–
3148.
Register, vol. 75, no. 148 August 3, 2010 pp. 45628–
45629
Size of Family 2006 2007 2010

One Member $9,800 $10,210 $10,830
Two Members $13,200 $13,690 $14,570
Three Members $16,600 $17,170 $18,310
Four Members $20,000 $20,650 $22,050
Five Members $23,000 $24,130 $25,790
Six Members $26,800 $27,610 $29,530
Seven Members $30,200 $31,090 $33,270
Eight Members $33,600 $34,570 $37,810
7
U.S Census Bureau Poverty Threshold, 2012
Size of Family Unit Poverty Threshold
One Person (unrelated
individual)
$11,720
Under age 65 $11,945
Age 65 or older $11,011
Two People $14,937
Householder under age 65 $15,450
Householder age 65 or older $13,892

Three people $18,284
Four people $23,492
Five people $27,827
Six people $31,471
Seven people $35,743
Eight people $39,688
Nine people or more $47,297
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Weighted Average Poverty
Thresholds, 2012, released in September 2013.
8
SSA Index
■ This approach accounts for rising prices of good and services
but not for steadily
increasing standard of living.
– Poverty line is only relative to poverty over time
– Poverty lines adjusted only for inflation imply, a growing
disparity between the
status of the poor and the rest of the population

■ The lines that separate the poor from non-poor does not
indicate what is enough—it
only asserts what is too little.
■ Ratio between food and non-food cost have changed over time
but there is a same
assumption that the poor spend 1/3 of their income on food and
2/3 on non-food items.
– The poor spend 43% not 33% of their income on food
– Changing the rationale would increase the number of poor.
■ If incomes of the poor were assessed after taxes, the number
of poor would increase
■ By adding cash, food, housing, and medical benefits the
number of poor will decrease
9
Weakness of CEA and SSA Index

■ Poverty lines use pre-tax definitions of income and post-tax
definition of expenses
■ Fail to account for geographical differences, exclude non-cash
governmental benefits,
childcare and medical care expenses
■ The lines are simple and straight forward and neglect to
establish what is enough for a
family to live
■ CEA
– Not all families are a ‘typical’ size with two parents and two
children nor
have the same need
– The council’s definition of poverty line must be adjusted for
varying family
size
10

!
Question 1 from Lectures and Schiller
PERSPECTIVES OF POVERTY
1
Question 1
There are two opposing perspectives relative to the causes of
poverty. (1) The
Individualistic Perspective and (2) the Structural Perspective.
From the two (2) categories
listed below select two (2) theories from each category:
Category 1 and Category 2.
Discuss in detail how each theory explains why people or
countries are poor. Include in
your discussion the strengths and weaknesses of each theory,
you should discuss a total

of four (4) theories.
CATEGORY 1: Individualistic Perspective
a. Flawed Character Theory
b. Human Capital Theory
c. Biological Theory
d. Cultural Theory
!
!
!
!
!
!
CATEGORY 2: Structural Perspective
2
Individualistic Perspective

■ Personal responsibility of the individual
■ The poor are poor because of their individual traits and
actions/inactions.
■ Four Theories
1. Flawed Character Theory
2. Human Capital Theory
3. Biological Theory
4. Cultural Theory
3
Flawed Character Theory
■ Micro-level theory
■ Poor people lack of motivation, aspirations, and work ethic
■ Meritocracy: if you work hard you will get rewarded based on
your individual

ability or achievement
■ Major component of liberal individualism
– Based on self interest and profit maximization
– Measures a person by their wealth
■ Assumptions of Flawed Character Theory
– There are abundant opportunities
– Individuals are in full control of their socio-economic status
4
Human Capital Theory
■ People are poor because of lack of education, skills, and work
experience
■ Those the get ahead made the necessary investments
– The poor did not invest enough time, energy, or money into

the
development of their own human capital
■ Assumptions
– Human capital is rewarded in the marketplace
– Everyone starts out with a certain set of abilities
– Rational Choice: people know their options and can choose
from them.
They are poor because they make the wrong choices.
o There are universal opportunities for everyone
■ Flaws
– Does not adequately deal with structural constraints
– Misleading views of the labor market-the process which
individuals convert
their human capital into employment and earnings.
5

Biological Theory
■ Poor people have innate inferiority and are naturally
unintelligence- they are born that
way
– Genetically handicapped
– Innate is a term typically used for animals
■ Darwinism: “survival of the fittest,” only the strongest will
survive due to natural
selection and the inferior are eliminated
■ Social Darwinism and Herbert Spencer
– The poor are at the bottom and the elite are at the top of
social hierarchy
because of natural development
– Free and natural competition: the most able will be able to
rise to the top and
the least able will sink to the bottom

■ Welfare programs to help the poor will not be able to help the
poor
6
Cultural Theory
■ Anthropologist Oscar Lewis first articulated term
■ People are poor because of “the culture of poverty:” a set of
norms and values
that are characteristic of the poor
■ Internalizing poor values becomes inherent and passed on one
generation to
another through socialization
■ Poor people are not psychologically geared to adapt to change
or the
mainstream. They have a lack of control, are impulsive, have
female-headed

families, less interested in education, etc.
■ Flaws
– How they explain culture is not how sociologists would define
culture
– Does not focus on economic conditions, oppression or lack of
opportunities
– The only thing which poor people have in common is that they
are poor, all
other aspects of culture can not be generalized across
ethnicities, races,
religions, etc.
7
Structural Perspective
■ Forces outside the individual-poor are poor because of
structures
■ Six Theories

1. Political Economy Theory
2. Restricted Opportunity Theory
3. Big Brother Theory
4. Critical Race Theory
5. Modernization Theory
6. Dependency Theory
8
Table 1 The Quintile Distribution of Household
Income
Table 1 reveals that a household needed to earn only $100,241
in yearly income in 2012 to make it into the
highest quintile. Other highlights of household income delve
further in quintiles, identifying the top 10
percent, top 5%, or the top one (1) percent.
As shown in Table 1, without question, the U.S. distribution of
income is highly unequal. The top 20 percent
household income is more than 14 times larger than the lowest

(bottom 20%) quintile.
Source: US Census Bureau, Income, Poverty and Health
Insurance in the United States: 2008 (Table 1)
Quintile Income Range Income Shares
Top 5% $191,157 or more 22.1%
Highest $ 104,097 or more 49.9%
Fourth $ 64,583 – 104,096 22.9%
Third $ 39,765 – 64,582 14.8%
Second $ 20,600 – 39,764 9.0%
Lowest $ below – 20,599 3.4%
9
Table 2: Global Comparison of the Percentage of Income
Share Country Bottom 10% Top 10%
Industrialized Nations
Australia 2.0 25.4
Canada 2.8 23.8

Germany 3.3 23.7
Japan 4.8 21.7
Sweden 3.7 20.1
United Kingdom 2.6 27.3
United States 1.8 30.5
Developing Nations
Brazil 1.0 47.6
China 2.4 30.4
Ethiopia 3.0 33.7
India 3.5 33.5
Philippines 2.3 36.6
Zimbabwe 1.8 46.9
10
Figure 1: Pie Chart of Global
Income Shares among

Table 2 shows provides comparisons of the percentage of
income shares among industrialized nations,
the United States appears to be the least equal in how the pie is
sliced (Figure 1). Inequality is generally
more severe in poor nations (smaller middle class and a huge
working and peasant classes). China has
an income share very close that of the United States (Figure 2)
Figure 2: Pie Chart of Global
Income Shares among
Developing Nations
11
The median of white families ($55,530)
substantially exceeds that of minority families
(Blacks $34,218, and Hispanics $37,913). Married
couples have the highest median incomes
($73,010), followed by father-only families
($49,186), and mother-only families ($33,073).
Mother-only families make less than half of the
income of married couples. In 2007, women

earned 77.5 cents for each dollar earned by men,
statistically unchanged from 2005. Real median
earning of both men and women who worked full-
time, year-round declined between 2005 and
2006. The median earnings for men fell 1.1
percent to $42,300; for women, the corresponding
numbers were 1.2 percent and $32,500.
!
Source: United States Census Bureau.
Retrieved September 7, 2010 http://www.census.gov/
PressRelease/www/releases/income_wealth/010583
Table 3: Median Incomes by Race and Family Structures
12
Political Economy Theory
■ Economic, political and social systems obstacles caused by
social forces and
arrangement set up by society

■ Nature of American capitalism perpetuates poverty
– What and how much one gets is determined by private profit
rather than
collective need
– Business owners makes investments decisions in order to
reduce costs by
using new technologies, such as robots, to replace workers
■ Michael Herrington- wrote the book The Other American
– “The real explanation of why the poor and where they are is
that they made
the mistake of being born to the wrong parents, in the wrong
section of the
country, in the wrong industry, or in the wrong racial or ethnic
group” (Harrison, 1963:21).
– Structural conditions are to blame
13

Restricted Opportunity Theory
■ When the Great Depression occurred, people started to see a
flaw in the individual
perspective
■ The New Deal came out of the Great Depression
■ No amount of work ethic can get you out of poverty
■ To end poverty, improve opportunities for people
■ According to the Restricted Opportunity Theory:
1. Poverty may result from forces beyond the control of the
individual
2. Poor are poor because they do not have adequate access to
good schools, jobs,
and income

3. Poor are discriminated on the basis of color, sex income, or
class
4. Poor are not furnished with a fair share of government
protection, subsidy, or
services
14
Big Brother Theory
■ Social welfare policies of the federal government produced
poverty by making people
dependent on aid
■ “Blight of dependency”- the poor are lazy and less motivated
to work because they
depend on the welfare system
■ Destroyed work incentives and rewards poor for not working

■ Government is trying too hard to take care of people and they
should do less and force
the poor to stand on their own
■ Government spending and taxes should be reduced and there
should be a cut back on
affirmative action
15
Critical Race Theory
■ Race lies at the very nexus of American life
■ There are not a set of methodologies that defines CRT but
have several broad ideas:
1. Race is a social construction
2. Racism is a normal fact of daily life in America

– White privilege is so ingrained in the nation’s political and
legal structures that it
is almost unrecognizable
3. Racial separation has complex historical and socially
constructed purposes that
ensure the location of political, economic, and legal power in
groups considered
superior to people of color
4. Racism has been virtually permanent and periods of
“progress” have been
followed by white privilege backlash
■ Social polices are analyzed as part of the discursive practiced
that reproduce white
privilege
16

Modernization Theory
■ Changing from traditional society to modern society
(urbanization and industrialization)
■ Nations need modern technology
– To improve society there needs to be technology, industries,
factories, assembly lines, etc.
– Need computing power, and endless electrical grid necessary
to organize production
■ Developing nations need modern ideas
– Traditional values such as fatalism, patience humility,
communal cooperation need to be
replaced with modern values such as ambition,
entrepreneurship, advancement,
achievement and competition
■ Developing nations need modern institutions
– Electoral democracy should replace theocracy and monarchy
– Modern banks, financial institutions, schools, insurance

companies and free market
institutions
■ Modern technology brought multinational corporations and
international organizations such as the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank
17
Dependency Theory
■ The Western World (first world) brought many things to poor
nations (third world) and most of it was
negative and destructive. The poor was not always poor, they
were made poor
■ Countries were robbed of their resources and then exploited
for their cheap labor
– Trade was rigged against the poor countries
– Capitalist nations took raw materials and the countries cannot

afford to buy them back
■ Domination of countries and companies over poor nations and
peoples
– Military threat and interventions from western countries if
countries did not comply
■ Distortion of the poor countries by multinational countries
– Countries get help or borrow money to build roads and rails
but these roads/rails lead to port
cities to facilitate exports
– Goods are produced to serve foreign markets not local needs
– Countries never have more than 2 or 3 cash products
■ Immanuel Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory (1974):
Wealthy core countries are supported by the
poor periphery
18

!
Question 2 from Lectures and Schiller, Chapters 1 & 2
PERSPECTIVES OF
POVERTY
1
Question 2
To achieve a workable and acceptable definition of poverty, two
basic economic approached to
the concept of poverty were suggested (i.e. Absolute Approach
and Relative Approach).
!
Discuss in detail the two approached showing their (a)
similarities/differences, (b) strengths, and
(c) weaknesses.
2

Absolute Approach
■ Costs of basic goods and services necessary for life,
calculated their costs, and determines one’s
poverty by their ability to afford that predetermined bundle of
goods and services
■ Highly subjective and vague
■ Concept of minimum needs- there are a particular amount of
goods and services essential to an
individual or family’s welfare
■ Those who do not possess the economic resources to obtain
the goods and services are
considered poor
■ In the most severe conception of this approach this bundle of
good and services consists of the
minimum caloric intake to human existence and some form of
shelter (minimum needs)

■ Additional frills are tacked onto this basic diet and shelter
according to the generosity of the
analyst. A frill is something that is desirable but not a
necessity. It is a form of luxury.
3
Hypothetical Minimum Needs
■ Example of minimum food, clothing, shelter, fuel,
transportation requirements by experts
■ For example:
– How are 2,471 calories translated? There are many ways a
person can consume
calories.
– 4 lbs of clothing does not take into consideration the type of
clothing or weather

Category Amount
Minimum food requirement 2,471 calories per day
Minimum fuel requirement 37 kilowatt hours
Minimum shelter requirements 60 board feet
Minimum clothing requirement 4 pounds
Minimum transportation
requirements
7 miles
4
Monetary Measures
■ In a market economy the ability of an individual to obtain
needed goods and services
is determined by his or her purchasing power. (i.e. income)
■ Although we need the food, shelter, and other items on our

shopping list daily, it is
not necessary to have the right amount of cash everyday
■ The best indicator of a person’s purchasing power over a
period of time is income.
■ Where credit is available, goods and services can be borrowed
– No current income is necessary, just a promise to make
repayment when time
and circumstances permit
■ Assets of goods and services can be acquired without income
■ Government can provide when here is insufficient income or
assets such as food
stamps
5

Weaknesses of Absolute Approach
■ No agreement of frills
■ Minimum needs varies from state to state and public opinion
to government opinion
■ Who should determine the basic needs of individuals?
■ On what basis is the determination of absolute poverty be
made?
■ The conception of family needed will change based on their
own economic position
■ It is vague and subjective
■ List of absolute necessitates should change over time and
have universal
applicability but it does not
6

Relative Approach
■ Inequality and poverty are interrelated but separated, but
nevertheless separate
entities
■ It assumes a person is poor when their income is significantly
less than one-half
of the average income of the population
■ The reduction of the income gaps does not necessarily mean
elimination of
poverty
■ Less subjective than the Absolute Approach
■ Defines poverty at the lower end of the income distribution.
– Persons at the lower end of the income distribution are
considered poor
7

Weaknesses of Relative Approach
■ Perpetuates poverty in the statistical sense, that some fixed
proportion of the
population is always regarded as poor
■ The relative measure alone says nothing about the quality of
life for people at the
bottom of the income distribution
■ This approach deals with elimination of reduction of
inequality of income, but not
elimination of poverty, since by this definition poverty will
always persist.
■ There is some point below which people are unhappy or poor,
above which people
are content

■ With whom should we compare our incomes? Different types
of family, young people,
old people, similar size of family, age, etc.
■ Average income fluctuates and the definition of poverty
should follow suit.
8
Sociology of Poverty
HANDOUT #1
!
You will use theses graphs and statistics to support your
answers for some questions.
!
Question I: Structural Perspective Explanation of Power !
!!
Table 1 reveals that a household needed to earn only $100,241
in yearly income in 2012 to make

it into the highest quintile. Other highlights of household
income delve further in quintiles,
identifying the top 10 percent, top 5%, or the top one (1)
percent. !
As shown in Table 1, without question, the U.S. distribution of
income is highly unequal. The
top 20 percent household income is more than 14 times larger
than the lowest (bottom 20%)
quintile. !
!
Table 1 The Quintile Distribution of Household Income
Quintile Income Range Income Shares
Top Five Percent $191,157 or more 22.1%
Highest $ 104,097 or more 49.9%
Fourth $ 64,583 – 104,096 22.9%
Third $ 39,765 – 64,582 14.8%
Second $ 20,600 – 39,764 9.0%

Lowest $ below – 20,599 3.4%
!
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports,
Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance
Coverage in the United States: 2012
Table 2: Global Comparisons of the Percentage of Income Share
Country Bottom 10% Top 10%
Australia 2.0 25.4
Canada 2.8 23.8
Germany 3.3 23.7
! 1
HANDOUT #1

!!!
Table 2 shows provides comparisons of the percentage of
income shares among industrialized
nations, the United States appears to be the least equal in how
the pie is sliced (see Figure 1
below). Inequality is generally more severe in poor nations
(smaller middle class and a huge
working and peasant classes). China has an income share very
close that of the United States (see
Figure 2). !!
!
Figure 1: Pie Chart of Global Income Shares among
Japan 4.8 21.7
Sweden 3.7 20.1
United Kingdom 2.6 27.3
United States 1.8 30.5
Developing Nations

Brazil 1.0 47.6
China 2.4 30.4
Ethiopia 3.0 33.7
India 3.5 33.5
Philippines 2.3 36.6
Zimbabwe 1.8 46.9
Australia
Canada
Germany
Japan
Sweden
United Kingdom

United States
! 2
HANDOUT #1
!
Figure 2: Pie Chart of Global Income Shares among
Developing Nations !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brazil
China
Ethiopia
India
Philippines
Zimbabwe

! 3
HANDOUT #1
Table 3: Median Incomes by Race and Family Structures !
!
Source: US Census Bureau, Income, Poverty and Health
Insurance in the United States: 2008 (Table 1)
The median of white families ($55,530) substantially exceeds
that of minority families (Blacks
$34,218, and Hispanics $37,913). Married couples have the
highest median incomes ($73,010),
followed by father-only families ($49,186), and mother-only
families ($33,073). Mother-only
families make less than half of the income of married couples. !
In 2007, women earned 77.5 cents for each dollar earned by
men, statistically unchanged from
2005. Real median earning of both men and women who worked
full-time, year-round declined

between 2005 and 2006. The median earnings for men fell 1.1
percent to $42,300; for women,
the corresponding numbers were 1.2 percent and $32,500. !
Source: United States Census Bureau. Retrieved September 7,
2010 from http://www.census.gov/Press-
Release/www/releases/income_wealth/010583 !!!!!!!
$55,530
$34,218
$37,913
$73,010
$49,186
$33,073
$0
$10,000
$20,000
$30,000

$40,000
$50,000
$60,000
$70,000
W
hi
te
B
la
ck
H
is
pa
ni
c

M
ar
rie
d
C
ou
pl
es
F
at
he
r-
on
ly
F

am
ili
es
M
ot
he
r-
on
ly
F
am
ili
es
! 4

HANDOUT #1!
Question II: The Absolute Approach Hypothetical Minimum
Needs !
Table 4 Hypothetical Minimum Needs
CATEGORY AMOUNT
Minimum Food Requirements 2,471 calories per day
Minimum Fuel Requirements 37 kilowatt hours
Minimum Shelter Requirements 60 board feet
Minimum Clothing Requirements 4 pounds
Minimum Transportation Requirements 7 miles !!!
Question III: President Council of Economic Advisor (CEA)
Poverty Budget
(1963) !
Table 5 The CEA Poverty Budget, 1963
Food Budget $2.736 per day X 365 days = $ 998.64
Nonfood Budget 2 X food budget = 1,997.28

Total Budget 2,995.92 !
Glaring Error in the C.E.A. Estimation Procedures !
The husband in Family 1 is 37 years old and supports six
children and a pregnant wife on
his income of $3,200 a year. !
Family 2 consists of a soon-to-be-retried couple, both in their
mid-sixties. The wife does
not work and the husband’s earnings amount to $2,800 per year.
They own their home, having
mad the final mortgage payment last Christmas.
Family 3 consists of a struggling graduate student, his working
wife, and their three
month-old child. They both work at the college carry-out store
in their spare time. Their
combined earnings, including overtime and tips, amount to
$2,400 a year. !
How did these three families place in the CEA’s census of poor
Americans? Family 1,
consisting of eight and one-half persons, was officially
classified as non-poor. Families 2 and 3
were counted as poor, as their incomes were under $3,000 limit.

But how many people would be
willing to accept CEA’s classification of these families?
Family 1 was clearly desperate, while
Family 2 was living a quiet and perhaps comfortable life. Our
graduate-student family was not
exactly affluent, but they were not desperate on $200 a month. !
! 5
HANDOUT #1!!!!
The Social Security Administration (SSA) by Ms. Orshansky !
!!
!
Table 6 Poverty Standard by Household Size
Size of Family 2006 2007 2010
One member $9800 $10,210 $10,830

Two members $13,200 $13,690 $14,570
Three members $16,600 $17,170 $18,310
Four members $20,000 $20,650 $22,050
Five members $23,000 $24,130 $25,790
Six members $26,800 $27,610 $29,530
Seven members $30,200 $31,090 $33,270
Eight members $33,600 $34,570 $37,810
Register, vol. 72, no. 15 January 24, 2007, pp.
3147–3148.
Register, vol. 75, no. 148 August 3, 2010 pp.
45628–45629.
U.S. Census Bureau Poverty Thresholds, 2012
Size of Family Unit Poverty Threshold

One person (unrelated individual) $11,720
Under age 65 11,945
Age 65 or older 11,011
Two people 14,937
Householder under age 65 15,450
Householder age 65 or older 13,892
Three people 18,284
! 6
HANDOUT #1
Four people 23,492
Five people 27,827

Six people 31,471
Seven people 35,743
Eight people 39,688
Nine people or more 47,297
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Weighted Average Poverty
Thresholds, 2012, released in
September 2013.
! 7
!
Assignment Questions based primarily from textbooks by
Williams and de Garcia, assigned readings by Schiller and
lecture notes.
!
Answer ALL eight (8) questions. Responses must reflect

information
from lectures, handouts materials from Blackboard, and
assigned
textbooks. Responses should be a MINIUMUM of three (3)
typed, double-spaced pages for each question. Number each
question and response.
Questions from Lectures and Reading Assignments:
Question 1
There are two opposing perspectives relative to the causes of
poverty. (1) The
Individualistic Perspective and (2) the Structural Perspective.
From the two
(2) categories listed below select two (2) theories from each
category:
Category 1 and Category 2. Discuss in detail how each theory
explains why
people or countries are poor. Include in your discussion the
strengths and
weaknesses of each theory, you should discuss a total of four
(4) theories. !
CATEGORY 1: Individualistic Perspective
a. Flawed Character Theory

b. Human Capital Theory
c. Biological Theory
d. Cultural Theory !
CATEGORY 2: Structural Perspective
a. Restricted Opportunity Theory
b. Big Brother Theory
c. Political Economy Theory
d. Critical Race Theory
e. Modernization Theory
f. Dependency Theory !
Question 2: From assigned reading Schiller Chapters 1 and 2
and lecture notes
To achieve a workable and acceptable definition of poverty, two
basic economic
approaches to the concept of poverty were suggested (i.e.
Absolute Approach and
Relative Approach). !
Discuss in detail the two approaches showing their (a)
similarities/differences, (b)
strengths, and (c) weaknesses.
Question 3: From assigned reading Schiller Chapters 1 and 2
and lecture notes

Discuss two of the most important formulations of the poverty
line (i.e. the President
Council of Economic Advisor (CEA), and the Social Security
Administration (SSA
Index), showing their (a) strengths, and (b) glaring errors ETC.
!
Questions from Lectures and Textbook: The Constraint of Race
(Introduction and
Chapter 1
Question 4
Compare and contrast the politics that created the Freedman’s
Bureau with the
politics that created the Civil War veteran’s pensions. Be sure
to emphasize how a
segmented welfare state fused race and social policy in ways to
benefit whites (white
skin privilege) and adversely affecting people of color
(Introduction and Chapters 1). !
Question 5: From lecture notes and textbook: The Constraints of
Race (Chapter 2)

Critically discuss in detail how the New Deal policies (rather
than eliminating White
privilege)
expanded White privilege legally, and excluded many African
Americans and the
poor from
many of its programs (see especially Chapter 2). !
Question 6 : From lecture notes and textbook: The Constraints
of Race (Chapter 3)
Discuss the various factors, during the 1960’s and mid 1970’s,
that led toward the
partial inclusion of African Americans and the poor in the
American Welfare State.
Be sure to also discuss how each leg of the Welfare State
continues to privilege
Whites (Chapter 3). !
Questions from Lectures and Text: Today’s Globalization
Question 7
Discuss the interrelationships among the interests of the
economic elites in the stages

of the great depressions and the beginning of the Welfare State
Reform (1929-1945)
the period of Economic Expansion and Welfare State Reform
(1945-1970’s),
Globalization in the Electronic Age (1980’s-2000) Global
Corporation Rule and Neo-
Liberalism and end of the Welfare State as “we know it.”
(Breaking of the Social
Contract) !!
Question 8: From lecture notes and textbook: Today’s
Globalization
What forces gave rise to the weakening and breaking of
the social safety net/
social contract in the period from the 1980s and 1990s to the
present? What do we
call this new period?

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