ISBN10: 0199933952, ISBN13: 9780199933952, [publisher: OUP USA 2013-11-28, Oxford] Softcover Language: ENG
[London, United Kingdom] [Publication Year: 2013]

ISBN10: 0199933952, ISBN13: 9780199933952, [publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, New York] Softcover Paperback. First published in 1989, The Undeserving Poor was a critically acclaimed and enormously influential account of America's enduring debate about poverty. Taking stock of the last quarter century, Michael B. Katz's new edition of this classic is virtually a new book. As the first did, it will force all concerned Americans to reconsider the foundations of our policies toward the poor, especially in the wake of the Great Recession that began in2008.Katz highlights how throughout American history, the poor have been regarded as undeserving: people who do not deserve sympathy because they brought their poverty on themselves, either throughlaziness and immorality, or because they are culturally or mentally deficient. This long-dominant view sees poverty as a personal failure, serving to justify America's mean-spirited treatment of the poor. Katz reminds us, however, that there are other explanations of poverty besides personal failure. Poverty has been written about as a problem of place, of resources, of political economy, of power, and of market failure. Katz looks at each idea in turn, showing how they suggest more effectiveapproaches to our struggle against poverty. The Second Edition includes important new material. It now sheds light on the revival of the idea of culture in poverty research; therehabilitation of Daniel Patrick Moynihan; the ...