social policy
Domestic poverty and who it serves
Matthew Desmond unties the knot of being poor in the US—and shows the rest of us that we hold the strings.
Sometimes government works
When it comes to conversations about government spending, two subjects tend to get conflated. The first is an ideological debate about whether or not the government is in general any good at doing things. The second regards the actual effectiveness of specific things the government does. And the second conversation is far more concrete, productive, and important, which is why it drives me crazy when the first one prevents people from engaging the second.
Ron Haskins's new book is pretty wonky, but the articles he's written to promote it are quite readable.
The poor are still with us: Peter Edelman, policy advocate
"I don't think we have laid the ground for a national conversation on poverty. People just don't know the facts."
by Amy Frykholm
Rethinking Poverty, by James P. Bailey
James Bailey has written a superb, creative and timely book whose
primary audience should be the U.S. Congress. Unfortunately, the
current members of Congress do not seem to possess the intellectual
wattage necessary to profit from it.
reviewed by Shaun Casey