The Effect of Policies Programs on Poverty in Urban Areas - Research Paper Example

The Effect of both and Federal Policies and Programs on Poverty in Urban Areas The Effect of both and Federal Policies and Programs on Poverty in Urban Areas Introduction In a 2015 report on poverty in the United States that provided an analysis of the poverty levels in the country as at 2013, Gabe (2015) notes that an estimated over 45.3 million people across the country were categorized as being poor under the guidelines provided for by the official poverty measure. Although this figure represents a drop from the 46.5 million people that were estimated to be poor as at 2012, Gabe (2015) argues that the poverty levels in the United States have remained statistically unchanged as the poverty rate are reported to have dropped to 14,5% in 2013 from a high of 15.0% in 2012. Poverty in the United States is seen to vary to a great degree depending on a number of factors; some of these factors include an individual’s education level, age, family living arrangements, area of residence and labor force attachment. Poverty is noted to generally be more highly concentrated in some areas as compared to others. This aspect is clearly demonstrated by the fact that poverty levels are found to be considerably higher in the center of cities as compared to a city’s suburban areas. In addition to this, poverty rates are also found to be about three times as high in the poorest states as compared to the least poor states. Of note is that it is normal for some neighborhoods to be characterized as having a higher concentration of poverty as compared to others. According to Gabe (2015), the incidence of poverty in central city areas is generally found to be considerably higher at 19.1% than that in suburban areas 11.1% within metropolitan areas. As at 2013, nonmetropolitan areas were recorded as having poverty rates averaging about 16.1%. A typical pattern in poverty rates in metropolitan areas is for the poverty rates to generally be highest in the center city areas. These high rates of poverty then proceed to gradually drop off as one moves towards the suburban areas before experiencing a subsequent increase with increasing distance from the core of the metropolitan area. Ever since President Lyndon Johnson first moved to declare a War on Poverty in the United States and the subsequent passage of the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act, the optimism that first surrounded these measures is noted to have rapidly faded over the years. Both the Federal and the State governments have over the years designed and implemented a number of policies designed to help to reducing poverty rates but these have been met with moderate success. Research Question To attain its objectives, this paper will seek to answer one key question: What are the effects of some of the policies that have been enacted by the federal government and different states in the United States to tackle the issue of poverty? Literature Review The rather unwelcome corollary that has resulted from rural-urban migration is that metropolitans are now generally experiencing higher poverty rates. Tacoli (2012) points out that as urbanization is currently concentrated in the Global South, urban poverty has been able to grow at a rapid pace and in some countries, it has now become more significant as compared to rural poverty. There are a number of specific aspects that Tacoli (2012) argues help to differentiate urban poverty from rural poverty. One of the main differences between the two is the higher dependence on cash incomes that urban residents seem to exhibit as a means through which they can be able to satisfy their needs. Efforts by the federal and state governments to address urban poverty have triggered the growth of a large number of relatively well articulated theoretical notions on poverty that have been coupled with a series of serious efforts attempting to ground these ideas in empirical analysis (Teiz & Chapple, 1998). Most of this work is seen to not specifically be addressing the issue of poverty in urban areas or the conditions of life in the ghettos of major cities and Teiz & Chapple (1998) assert that this is in part due to the origins of the policy research in most of the national debates pertaining to issues such as education, welfare and health. As a result of this, disillusionment with federal and state policies as well as shifting political attitudes are now seen to be giving rise to a new surge in reform and debate. Most of the federal and state policies on poverty are seen to be targeted at the reformation of the welfare system so as to try and increase work incentives in addition to also limiting the misuse of the welfare system as a long-term source of support for able bodied American adults across the country even in the event that these individuals happen to have small children. State and Government Anti-Poverty Policies and Programs While a number of Federal and State policies are noted to have contributed towards increasing the urban poverty rates within the country, Shanks & Danziger (2010) point out that the United States is yet to institute a comprehensive Federal policy that will be able to provide an adequate response to child poverty. Prior to 1935, the Federal government did not provide any cash in aid to the country’s poor families and the only assistance that families could be able to obtain was mainly from private charities as well as from the local and state governments. As part of the 1935 Social Security Act, the Federal government created the Aid to Dependent Children which was later changed to the AFDC and was the first ever Federal welfare program in the United States. Shanks & Danziger (2010) point out that despite there currently being an array of Federal anti-poverty programs, no program or policy has ever been able to reach all the eligible individuals in the country. Another Federal policy that is seen to have been designed as an antipoverty measure is the 2008 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This program was developed as part of the 2008 Food, Conservation and Energy Act. Under SNAP, the Federal government is able to provide the poor with food assistance. The food assistance is provided to the poor by their being issued with electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards. These cards are designed to function in a similar manner to debit cards at all retail grocery stores. As a Federal entitlement program, SNAP is open to all the country’s citizens that are found to be income eligible. It helps families in easing their budgets as it covers their food costs. Another important federal policy that has proven to be an instrumental government urban antipoverty program is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. This program is designed to be a federal food support program that is targeted at aiding low-income postpartum and pregnant women as well as their young children. However it is the individual states that are responsible for the administration of the WIC and they are responsible for setting the program’s eligibility requirements. The funding of this program is seen to be via the mechanism of what is a limited block grant that is given to the states as opposed to its being an open-ended entitlement program. Another important anti-poverty program that has been developed by the Federal government is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The program generally provides a refundable tax credit to some of the country’s low-income workers and their families. It has been estimated that the program is able to successfully lift an estimated 2.5 million children with working parents out of dire poverty levels each year (McKernan & Ratcliffe, 2006). The SSI is available to not only American children and adults suffering from debilitating disabilities, the program is also available to persons that are either 65 years of age or older. Prospective recipients of the aid that is afforded by this program are required to satisfy a number of eligibility requirements and pass several tests designed to determine if they qualify for the program. Another important federal government program that is seen to be quite instrumental in providing aid to the poor and helping to alleviate their suffering is the Food Stamp Program. This program is seen to be designed to help the poor purchase food items by providing them with grocery credit. Similarly to the Supplemental nutrition program, the beneficiaries of this program are issued with electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards that act as ATM-like debit cards that can easily be used in the purchase of food from a number of authorized supermarkets and grocery stores. Of note is that this benefit is generally adjusted on an annual basis on account of the constantly changing food costs (Trenkamp & Wiseman, 2007). Impact of State Policies Encouraging Companies to Move to Suburban Areas One of the reasons as to why poverty in inner cities has been noted to be on the increase in the enactment by states of policies designed to encourage firms to expand or move their operations to the suburbs areas in a bid by these cities to promote development and economies of these areas. This has resulted in a situation whereby firms offering low-skill jobs such as those in the manufacturing industry have now left the inner city for the suburbs. However the minority low-skilled workforce of these firms have not followed due to discrimination in the housing markets and the fact that the houses in most suburbs are priced well above what the low income works can be able to afford. The access to jobs of inner-city residents has become more problematic as the cost of travel from the inner-city regions to the suburbs is often prohibitive and has the effect of lowering the net wages of these individuals. In addition to this limitation, the effectiveness of the information networks that are used by these individuals to learn about the availability of open job positions is seen to decrease as they are not in frequent contact with employees of these firms and this in turn results in causing their job search costs to increase significantly. Impact of Federal and State Policies Affecting Public Housing While the spatial policies enforced by both the Federal and State governments helped to rebuild inner cities, facilitated suburbanization and raise a number of families out of poverty, it can be noted that these polices also had the effect of greatly hindering the upward mobility of others. These Federal polies have indirectly affected poverty via their impact on spatial mismatch, migration and the underclass. This can be illustrated by the fact that without the availability of Federal aid for highway construction and home buying, it would not have been possible for the middle-class exodus to have occurred on the relatively great scale in which it did. Teiz & Chapple (1998) also argue that Federal and state policies saw to it that most of the publicly built low-income housing were concentrated in the inner city areas, this aspect combined with the weak Federal enforcement of anti-discrimination legislation created a situation where most minority segments of the population are now unable to follow jobs more effectively. Based on the fact that participation in the Federal urban renewal program was voluntary for all states, it can be observed that public housing construction varied significantly within and across the different regions. Rosenbaum (1995) Points out that numerous studies have been able to conclusively show that concentrated urban public housing has indeed served to reinforce poverty in these areas, this is because individuals that reside in suburban areas often tend to have higher educational attainment as well as record higher employment rates as compared to urban movers. Federal policies created in response to poverty such as the policy that created Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program are argued to have contributed to poverty in urban areas across the country. Teiz & Chapple (1998) point out that it during the 1980’s that a number of conservative theorists first advanced the now popular argument that all forms of government assistance to families in a bid to try and aid them in the alleviation of poverty had the unintended and negative effect of creating a permanently dependent population. These critics argued that this is because government assistance promotes social deviance such as family disintegration and promiscuity in addition to also eroding the work ethics of the individuals it was trying to aid. As the case load adopted by the TANF continued to rapidly grow, elected officials started promoting the idea that the country’s welfare system was at itself at fault for the creation of poverty; by doing this, the elected officials hoped to successfully build up a political momentum that would help them in triggering welfare reform. Persons with disabilities in the United States are noted to often suffer from high poverty rates as a result of their physical conditions that sometimes impede them from working. One of the government programs that has been developed to help these individuals is the Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The SSI is designed to provide persons with disabilities a basic national monthly income guarantee that is referred to as the Federal Benefit Rate (FBR) with the aim of creating a safety measure that will aid these individuals from experiencing extreme poverty levels (Trenkamp & Wiseman, 2007). Impact of Poverty on Individual Quality of Life and Outcomes According to Engle & Black (2008), poverty has been shown to have a negative effect on a person’s educational outcomes and development. This effect is seen to start during the earliest years of life as a result of the moderated, mediated and transactional process that the individual goes through. Engle & Black (2008) further observe that the issue of poverty is universal and is seen to present what can be perceived to be a chronic stress for families and children that may severely interfere with the ability of a child to adjust to various developmental tasks including the expected level of school achievement. Of particular concern is that children that happen to be raised in the low-income families tend to not only be at a higher risk for academic problems, they also tend to be at a significantly higher risk of social problem in addition to poor health and well being. The observations made by Engle & Black (2008) are seen to be supported by data presented in article by Lacour & Tissington (2011), who point out that a study conducted to try and assess the educational achievements of students from low-income families found that whereas poor students tend to been routinely ranked in the 19th percentile on assessment, students from mid-upper families were shown to be routinely ranked in the 66th percentile on the same assessments. Lacour & Tissington (2011) further observe that poverty often tends to significantly affect the resources that are made available to students and is as a direct result of this lack of resources that many students from low-income economic backgrounds often have to struggle so as to be able to reach the same academic achievement levels as that which is attained by students that are not living in poverty. Conclusion While some of the government policies and programs are noted to have been successful in helping to reduce urban poverty, these programs and policies have nevertheless received a considerable amount of criticism, part of the backlash that these programs have received is seen to be as a result of the fact that most of welfare programs in the United States are found to be generally less effective as compared to those that have been employed in a number of other developed European countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom. The failure of most of the existing social-welfare policies and Programs to make any significant headway in the reduction of the high urban poverty rates across the United States has had the effect of causing a growth in frustration among policy makers and voters in the country. The growing dissatisfaction in the country over the failure of the antipoverty programs and policies is seen to be further fuelled by growing job instability, stagnated wage levels as well as by the current intense global economic competition. These factors have served to promote the common perception that all antipoverty aid programs that derive their support that are funded by generous government benefits and high tax rates are no longer affordable. It is due to these factors that the federal welfare program has come under increasing criticism in addition to its also having become quite influential among policy makers and intellectuals. As such, it is imperative that that current government policies and measures be reexamined to ensure that they are able to address the issue of growing poverty rates in urban areas across the country. References Gabe, T. (2013). Poverty in the United States: 2015. Retrieved on April 4, 2015 from https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33069.pdf McKernan, S. M., & Ratcliffe, C. E. (2006). The effect of specific welfare policies on poverty. The Urban Institute, April. Retrieved on April 4, 2015 from http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411334_welfare_policies.pdf Shanks, T. R., & Danziger, S. K. (2010). Anti-poverty policies and programs for children and families. Social policy for children and families: A risk and resilience perspective, 25-26. Retrieved on April 4, 2015 from http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/37821_Chapter2.pdf Tacoli, C. (2012). Urbanization, gender and urban poverty: paid work and unpaid carework in the city (p. 48). Human Settlements Group, International Institute for Environment and Development. Retrieved on April 4, 2015 from http://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resource -pdf/UEPI%207%20Tacoli%20Mar%202012.pdf Teitz, M. B., & Chapple, K. (1998). The causes of inner-city poverty: Eight hypotheses in search of reality. Cityscape, 33-70. Trenkamp, B., & Wiseman, M. (2007). Food Stamp Program and Supplemental Security Income, The. Soc. Sec. Bull., 67, 71. Engle, P. L., & Black, M. M. (2008). The effect of poverty on child development and educational outcomes. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,1136(1), 243-256. Lacour, M., & Tissington, L. D. (2011). The Effects of Poverty on Academic Achievement. Educational Research and Reviews, 6(7), 522-527. Read More