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- Poverty decreasing now – aid and development projects are providing education and resources.
- Improving Now
- Current welfare programs solving poverty – their statistics stating otherwise are wrong.
- Alt Causes/Can’t Solve
- Job production doesn’t solve poverty – no skill compatibility, and wages aren’t high enough.
PovertyDecreasing NowPoverty decreasing now – increased economic growth has halved poverty rates since 1990.The Economist 13 (News site providing analysis of global economics and politics, “Towards the end of poverty,” The Economist, 1 June 2013, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-billion-people-have-been-taken-out-extreme-poverty-20-years-world-should-aim, *fc) The world’s achievement in the field of poverty reduction is, by almost any measure, impressive. Although many of the original MDGs—such as cutting maternal mortality by three-quarters and child mortality by two-thirds—will not be met, the aim of halving global poverty between 1990 and 2015 was achieved five years early. The MDGs may have helped marginally, by creating a yardstick for measuring progress, and by focusing minds on the evil of poverty. Most of the credit, however, must go to capitalism and free trade, for they enable economies to grow—and it was growth, principally, that has eased destitution. Poverty rates started to collapse towards the end of the 20th century largely because developing-country growth accelerated, from an average annual rate of 4.3% in 1960-2000 to 6% in 2000-10. Around two-thirds of poverty reduction within a country comes from growth. Greater equality also helps, contributing the other third. A 1% increase in incomes in the most unequal countries produces a mere 0.6% reduction in poverty; in the most equal countries, it yields a 4.3% cut. China (which has never shown any interest in MDGs) is responsible for three-quarters of the achievement. Its economy has been growing so fast that, even though inequality is rising fast, extreme poverty is disappearing. China pulled 680m people out of misery in 1981-2010, and reduced its extreme-poverty rate from 84% in 1980 to 10% now. Poverty decreasing now – aid and development projects are providing education and resources.McVeigh 13 (Tracy McVeigh, Chief reporter at the Observer, “World poverty is shrinking rapidly, new index reveals,” The Guardian, 16 March 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/17/aid-trade-reduce-acute-poverty, *fc) Some of the poorest people in the world are becoming significantly less poor, according to a groundbreaking academic study which has taken a new approach to measuring deprivation. The report, by Oxford University's poverty and human development initiative, predicts that countries among the most impoverished in the world could see acute poverty eradicated within 20 years if they continue at present rates. It identifies "star performer" nations such as Rwanda, Nepal and Bangladesh as places where deprivation could disappear within the lifetime of present generations. Close on their heels with reductions in poverty levels were Ghana, Tanzania, Cambodia and Bolivia. The study comes after the UN's latest development report published last week which stated that poverty reduction drives in the developing world were exceeding all expectations. It says: "The world is witnessing a epochal 'global rebalancing' with higher growth in at least 40 poor countries helping lift hundreds of millions out of poverty and into a new 'global middle class'. Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast." The brighter global picture is the result of international and national aid and development projects investing in schools, health clinics, housing, infrastructure and improved access to water. The UN also pointed to trade as being a key factor which was improving conditions in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. These improvements have not been picked up in the past when poverty has been measured strictly in income terms without taking into account other factors – health, education and living standards. Improving NowPoverty is decreasing now – food stamps, unemployment benefits, social security, and tax credits solve.Kasperkevic 14 (Jana Kasperkevic, Reporter at the Guardian with a B.A. in Political Science and Government from Baruch College, “Welfare programs shown to reduce poverty in America,” The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/nov/12/social-welfare-programs-food-stamps-reduce-poverty-america, *fc) Food stamps. Unemployment benefits. Social security. Earned income tax credits. Do these social welfare programs work? Yes, according to a new study from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Safety nets like food stamps prevent millions more people from struggling to put food on the table, says Jake Grovum, who analyzed the data for the Pew Charitable Trusts. Consider Grovum’s findings: For people of all ages, the official poverty rate in the US was 14.5%. That’s equivalent to 45.3 million people. Without food stamps, the poverty rate would be 17.10% – another 8 million Americans would be living in poverty. Without social security, the poverty rate for Americans 65 and older would be 52.67% instead of the current 14.6%. Without tax credits like the federal earned income tax credit, poverty for children under 18 would be 22.8% instead of the official poverty rate of 19.9%. These numbers are important. US lawmakers have long struggled to show exactly how and where certain types of government assistance are helping Americans stay out of poverty. Current welfare programs solving poverty – their statistics stating otherwise are wrong.The Economist 13 (“Anti-poverty programmes: Are we helping the poor?,” The Economist, 18 December 2013, http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/12/anti-poverty-programmes, *fc) A new study led by Christopher Wimer and Liana Fox, researchers at Columbia University, calls the second claim into question. The safety net, they say, has saved millions of Americans from falling into poverty over the past four decades. Why are we just learning about this now? Well, it turns out we've been using bad statistics. “[S]tatistics using the official poverty measure do not provide an accurate picture of poverty or the role of government policies in combating poverty,” say the authors. The Census Bureau corrected this in 2010 by adopting a new measure that takes fuller account of nutrition and housing payments, means-tested transfers and social insurance programmes on one side of the ledger, and taxes on the other. Using similar methods, the authors recalculated poverty figures for the period of 1967-2010 and concluded: Poverty rates would have actually increased slightly over the time period, from 27% to nearly 29%. But after accounting for taxes and transfers, poverty falls by approximately 40%, from 26% to 16%. The figure also shows the growing anti-poverty role of taxes and transfers in reducing poverty, from only about 1 percentage point in 1967 to nearly 13 percentage points in 2012. Bringing down poverty by 40% is a big deal, and as Kevin Drum notes, the fact that poverty only ticked up slightly since the economy tanked in 2008 shows that the safety net has “significantly ameliorated a human catastrophe over the past five years.” According to the Columbia study, welfare programmes have also made a significant dent in child poverty and in “deep poverty”, the percentage of the population earning under 50% of the poverty line. Rates of deep poverty were around 5% for most of the period, but would have been triple or quadruple that figure without the welfare programmes. Alt Causes/Can’t SolveThey can’t solve poverty – solutions need to address self-sufficiency by building connections within communities.Bradshaw 6 (Ted K. Bradshaw, Professor of Community Studies and Development at UC Davis, “Theories of Poverty and Anti-Poverty Programs in Community Development,” Rural Poverty Research Center, February 2006, http://www.vistacampus.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/37/PovertyInAmerica/Theories_Pov_AntiPov_Programs.pdf, *fc) The complexity of the cycle of poverty means that solutions need to be equally complex. Poverty is not just one cause but many, while our antipoverty efforts seem to focus on only part of the solution. Community developers are specialists in appreciating the interdependence of different parts of the community and their solution is to try to address issues like poverty from a multifaceted approach. Steps taken to break the cycle of poverty are necessarily complex, but they are a better solution to poverty than most single factor efforts, and it is embedded in some of the most successful anti-poverty programs from the community development corporations, local neighborhood revitalization projects, and other efforts linking grass roots problem solving with diversified organizational management. The limitations to the first four theories of poverty lead us to want to look closely at the cyclical theory. On the whole the cycle of poverty is rarely mentioned by poverty scholars but its success by programs such as the Family Independence Initiative (FII) in Oakland give hope. I highlight this program just as an example of the cycle breaking efforts of many innovative community based development organizations. Helping poor people achieve “self-sufficiency” is an increasingly significant phase in poverty reduction. While called various names, the emphasis is on providing both “deep and wide” supports and services for people. A full step from poverty requires six interdependent elements of self-sufficiency that can be identified and tracked (Miller et al, 2004). 1. Income and economic assets 2. Education and skills 3. Housing and surroundings (safe, attractive) 4. Access to healthcare and other needed social services 5. Close personal ties, as well as networks to others 6. Personal resourcefulness and leadership abilities. A key piece of this comprehensive approach to helping individuals from poverty is that there is no way the public can do all of this for every person without first increasing social capital among communities or subcultures of the poor. Miller has a strong belief that strong interpersonal ties as in villages or organized groups can provide shared assistance that professionals can not. The key is helping groups of poor people build supportive communities with shared trust and mutuality. This program consciously seeks the benefits of building social capital (following Putnam 2000) based on ‘affinity groups’ where people share common interests from their ethnicity, religion, family history, living area, or other sources of friendship. Building the personal ties and leadership linking individual families to their community is perhaps the most challenging part of the FII model. Thus, in this model the key is to see the interrelation between financial and material resources and ties to the community. In facing the overwhelming task of helping both poor people and their poverty neighborhoods, there is no easy answer to breaking the cycle of poverty. Asset mapping (Kretzman and McKnight, 1993) is a way to identify whatever strengths the community has and to use them to solve problems in the most effective way rather than to spend time identifying problems for which there may not be adequate answers. Moreover, existing organizations with roots in the community are generally more effective in bridging the range of problems in a community facing poverty cycles than new single purpose organizations. Job production doesn’t solve poverty – no skill compatibility, and wages aren’t high enough.Page 14 (Marianne Page, Professor of economics at the University of California at Davis and the deputy director of the Center for Poverty Research, “Are Jobs the Solution to Poverty?,” Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, Summer 2014, https://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/pathways/summer_2014/Pathways_Summer_2014_Page.pdf, *fc) Skill compatibility: Why, then, is job growth reducing poverty less than it once did? It’s partly because the economy is not delivering the types of jobs that poor people can fill. As David Autor has shown, most of the job growth since the late 1980s has occurred within either the low-skill or high-skill sectors, with a consequent hollowing out of opportunities in the middle.2 One reason is that technological advances have led to the automation of (and ultimately to the displacement of) many jobs that involve “routine” tasks. Manufacturing jobs, which used to provide opportunities for workers with moderate levels of education (such as a high school diploma), have sharply declined. The Great Recession has exacerbated this trend, as employment losses have been most severe in middle-skill jobs, both in the white-collar and blue-collar sectors. The higher prevalence of jobs at the bottom should help the poor, but what’s unclear is whether the associated hollowing out in the middle is a countervailing force that increases the competition between the poor and those who had before secured middle-class jobs. All else being equal, this competition may increase unemployment at the bottom of the labor market or lower wages among those who do get jobs. Wage adequacy: Even if a low-skill job is acquired, it won’t be poverty-reducing unless it delivers enough in the way of wages (or transfers) to push the recipient over the poverty threshold.4 Over the last 40 years, the wages of low-skill jobs have been stagnant for a number of reasons, including, for example, the declining real value of the minimum wage. Between 1975 and 1995, the 20th percentile of the weekly wage distribution declined from $473 to $386, resulting in fewer jobs that provided an above-poverty wage. Recent studies have shown that a $100 reduction in the real weekly wage among workers in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution reduces the annual probability of escaping poverty by about 15 percent.5 The declining payoff to work could also reduce the incentive to work at all, which may in turn lead to a deterioration of skills, further reducing the likelihood of escaping poverty.
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