Work and employment are central to people's lives, health, and wellbeing. Through participation in the labour market, income and related life chances are improved, social protection and security are strengthened, and important psychological and social needs are met, such as striving for skill development, autonomy, social recognition, and social belonging. Yet, globally, only a minority of working people experience these favourable conditions. In developing countries, substantial parts of the population are excluded from paid work, or are confined to informal, poor, and dangerous work. In developed countries, adverse working and employment conditions contribute to a burden of disease. With the advent of economic globalisation and ground-breaking technological innovations, new occupational health risks have emerged, such as stressful high psycho-mental work pressures, increased job insecurity and flexibility, and widely prevalent social tensions and conflicts. These risks are aggravated
As David K. Shipler makes clear in this study, the invisible poor are engaged in the activity most respected in American ideology - hard, honest work. But their version of the American Dream is a nig
Researchers in the three areas discuss concerns that touch them all, including poverty, the proliferation of low-wage work and the fate of low-wage workers. They cover the political forces involved, i
Fueled by her own contact with migrant farm workers, most of them Mexican immigrants, Dolores became an outspoken activist and organizer. At the time, these workers had virtually no access to the syst
“Nobody who works hard should be poor in America,” writes Pulitzer Prize winner David Shipler. Clear-headed, rigorous, and compassionate, he journeys deeply into the lives of individual store clerks a
This volume analyses poverty and welfare reform within a context of low-wage work and the contours of the labour market that welfare recipients are entering. It aims to bring labour into the discussio
The word “shantytown” conjures images of crowded slums in developing nations. Though their history is largely forgotten, shantytowns were a prominent feature of one developing nation in particular: th
The United States introduced the earned income tax credit (EITC) in 1975, where it remains the most significant earnings-based refundable credit in the Internal Revenue Code. While the United States was the first country to use its domestic revenue system to deliver and administer social welfare benefits to lower-income individuals or families, a number of other countries, including New Zealand and Canada, have experimented with or incorporated similar credits into their tax systems. In this work, Michelle Lyon Drumbl, drawing on her extensive advocacy experience representing low-income taxpayers in EITC audits, analyzes the effectiveness of the EITC in the United States and offers suggestions for how it can be improved. This timely book should be read by anyone interested in how the EITC can be reimagined to better serve the working poor and, more generally, whether the tax system can promote social justice.
The United States introduced the earned income tax credit (EITC) in 1975, where it remains the most significant earnings-based refundable credit in the Internal Revenue Code. While the United States was the first country to use its domestic revenue system to deliver and administer social welfare benefits to lower-income individuals or families, a number of other countries, including New Zealand and Canada, have experimented with or incorporated similar credits into their tax systems. In this work, Michelle Lyon Drumbl, drawing on her extensive advocacy experience representing low-income taxpayers in EITC audits, analyzes the effectiveness of the EITC in the United States and offers suggestions for how it can be improved. This timely book should be read by anyone interested in how the EITC can be reimagined to better serve the working poor and, more generally, whether the tax system can promote social justice.
San Diego, California, is frequently viewed as a model for American urban revitalization. It looks like a success story: blight and poverty replaced by high rises and jobs. But David J. Karjanen shows
This book shines a spotlight on the causes and consequences of working poverty, revealing how the lives of low-wage workers are affected by differences in health care, labor, and social welfare policy
Migrants made up a growing class of workers in late sixteenth- and seventeenth- century England. In fact, by 1650, half of England’s rural population consisted of homeless and itinerant laborers.Unset
"Powerful and poignant.... Newman's message is clear and timely." --The Philadelphia InquirerIn No Shame in My Game, Harvard anthropologist Katherine Newman gives voice to a population for whom work,
This book shines a spotlight on the causes and consequences of working poverty, revealing how the lives of low-wage workers are affected by differences in health care, labor, and social welfare policy
For most people, the Great Crash of 2008 has meant troubling times. Not so for those in the flourishing poverty industry, for whom the economic woes spell an opportunity to expand and grow. These merc
During the 1990s, growing demands to end chronic welfare dependency culminated in the 1996 federal “welfare-to-work” reforms. But regardless of welfare reform, the United States has always been home t
For most people, the Great Crash of 2008 has meant troubling times. Not so for those in the flourishing poverty industry. These mercenary entrepreneurs have taken advantage of an era of deregulation t
