Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Margaret T. Gordon and Stephanie Riger, The Female Fear. New York: The Free Press, 1989, pp. xvi, 230, $ 19.95 (cloth)

Margaret T. Gordon and Stephanie Riger, The Female Fear. New York: The Free Press, 1989, pp. xvi,... 117 Although there is an air of pessimism running through this book, there is also a recognition of accomplishments: transfer programs have improved the lives of millions of persons even though the official poverty statistics fail to record such improvements. By using a simple money income measure of household well-being, the Census Bureau ignores the real income gains provided by the in-kind transfers: food stamps, free school lunches, supplemental food for women, infants, and children (WIC), rent vouchers, public housing subsidies, medicaid, energy assistance, etc. These programs, which provide substantial benefits to some thirty million low income persons, are the central core of the war on poverty; they now make up over 70 percent of the budget for all income-tested programs but are not counted as income. Hence it is not surpris- ing that policy analysts relying on poverty rates as the best indicator of social progress have become pessimistic. Glazer recognizes the deficiency of the poverty statistics, but that does not assuage his pessimism: relieving poverty through transfer payments to dependent, fragmented welfare households is not enough. We now have a more demanding measure of success; we want to bring these people into the mainstream of society. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Comparative Sociology (in 2002 continued as Comparative Sociology) Brill

Margaret T. Gordon and Stephanie Riger, The Female Fear. New York: The Free Press, 1989, pp. xvi, 230, $ 19.95 (cloth)

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/margaret-t-gordon-and-stephanie-riger-the-female-fear-new-york-the-SH0jZqvAsW

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1990 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0020-7152
eISSN
1745-2554
DOI
10.1163/002071590X00187
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

117 Although there is an air of pessimism running through this book, there is also a recognition of accomplishments: transfer programs have improved the lives of millions of persons even though the official poverty statistics fail to record such improvements. By using a simple money income measure of household well-being, the Census Bureau ignores the real income gains provided by the in-kind transfers: food stamps, free school lunches, supplemental food for women, infants, and children (WIC), rent vouchers, public housing subsidies, medicaid, energy assistance, etc. These programs, which provide substantial benefits to some thirty million low income persons, are the central core of the war on poverty; they now make up over 70 percent of the budget for all income-tested programs but are not counted as income. Hence it is not surpris- ing that policy analysts relying on poverty rates as the best indicator of social progress have become pessimistic. Glazer recognizes the deficiency of the poverty statistics, but that does not assuage his pessimism: relieving poverty through transfer payments to dependent, fragmented welfare households is not enough. We now have a more demanding measure of success; we want to bring these people into the mainstream of society.

Journal

International Journal of Comparative Sociology (in 2002 continued as Comparative Sociology)Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1990

There are no references for this article.