Soc 10000 1st Edition Lecture 16 Outline of Last Lecture II. Myth of raceIII. SlaveryIV. Racial GroupsV. Prejudice & DiscriminationOutline of Current Lecture VI. PovertyVII. Culture of PovertyVIII. Difference in U.SCurrent LectureWhat is poverty?- Condition of deprivation due to economic circumstances that is severe enough that the individual cannot live with dignity in his or her society- Whether poverty is the cause of social ills such as crime, poor educational outcomes, divorce, and so on, or whether it is their result.- During a recession, poverty rates may be highero A recession is a period of economic decline lasting half a year or moreIntroduction- Lyndon Johnson established wide range of anti-poverty programs in the 1960so For example, programs for education, job training and placement, housing- as a part of its “war on poverty”What stymies efforts- Perverse incentives= are reward structures that lead to suboptimal outcomes by stimulating counterproductive behavior- Unintended consequences= results of a policy that were not fully anticipated at the timethat policy was implemented, particularly, outcomes that are counter to the intentions of the policymakers.These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.Culture of poverty- Culture of poverty theory argues that poor people adopt certain practices which differs from those of middle-class, “mainstream” society, in order to adapt and survive in difficult economic circumstances- Well it may be true that reliance on welfare generates a sense of helplessness and dependency in some people, there are also structural reasons why it can be difficult to transition from welfare to work- Sociologists William Wilson turned the focus from welfare to factors such as deindustrialization, globalization, suburbanization, and discrimination as causes of urbanpoverty- In the past 20 to 30 years, policies to combat poverty have focused on encouraging workand offering benefits that directly serve childrenDoes poverty impact us?- In her book, “What Money Can’t Buy,” sociologist Susan Mayer writes that she found very little evidence to support that widely held belief that parental income affects children- In the “Bell Curve,” Murray and Hernstein argued that it’s not poverty or education or parenting that ultimately has the most impact on the children’s outcomes, but simply genes- James Rosenbaum’s study of the Gautreaux Assisted Living Program in Chicago and the Moving to Opportunity study began in 1994o Designed to see if moving to less impoverished communities might affect quality of lifeo MTO study in particular seemed to show that living in a quieter, less stressful environment did have very positive effects on children Did not help out parent’s incomePoverty among plenty- Absolute poverty= at the point at which a household’s income falls below the necessary level to purchase food to physically sustain its members- The official poverty line in the U.S is calculated using a formula developed in the 1960s by Mollie Orshanskyo Estimates food costs for minimum food requirements to determine whether a family can afford to surviveo Can be problematic, as the cost of food has decreased but the cost of living (rent,utilities) have increased- There are three basic theories about how poverty negatively affects children:o One focuses on the material deprivation caused by family’s low socioeconomic statuso The second focuses on bad parenting practices that are related to a family’s low socioeconomic statuso The third focuses on differences between poor parents and higher-income parents, but without much faith that anything can be done to affect these differencesWhy is the U.S so different?- Relative poverty= is a measurement of poverty based on a percentage of the median income in a given location- The U.S has a much broader range of inequality (our rich are much richer than our poor) than any other developed nation in the world, as well as higher poverty rates( We played a game the rest of