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Poverty Industry
The terms poverty industry or poverty business refer to a wide range of money-making activities that attract a large portion of their business from the poverty, poor. Businesses in the poverty industry often include payday loan centers, pawnbroker, pawnshops, rent-to-own centers, casinos, liquor stores, lotteries, tobacco stores, credit card companies, and bail-bond services. Illegal ventures such as loansharking might also be included. The poverty industry makes roughly US$33 billion a year in the United States. In 2010, elected American federal officials received more than $1.5 million in campaign contributions from poverty-industry donors. In poorer countries, the poverty industry exploits the bottom of the pyramid and its extent can at times be used as a litmus test to assess the effectiveness of poverty-alleviation initiatives. In some cases, the poverty industry directly takes advantage of poverty-alleviation initiatives (e.g. formal, government-supported microfinance). For ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poverty
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in statistics or economics there are two main measures: ''absolute poverty'' compares income against the amount needed to meet basic needs, basic personal needs, such as food, clothing, and Shelter (building), shelter; ''relative poverty'' measures when a person cannot meet a minimum level of living standards, compared to others in the same time and place. The definition of ''relative poverty'' varies from one country to another, or from one society to another. Statistically, , most of the world's population live in poverty: in Purchasing Power Parity, PPP dollars, 85% of people live on less than $30 per day, two-thirds live on less than $10 per day, and 10% live on less than $1.90 per day ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghetto Tax
A cost of poverty, also known as a ghetto tax, a cost of being poor, or the poor pay more, is the phenomenon of people with lower incomes, particularly those living in low-income areas, incurring higher expenses, paying more not only in terms of money, but also in time, health, and opportunity costs. "Costs of poverty" can also refer to the costs to the broader society in which poverty exists. Economic principles A ghetto tax is not a tax in literal sense. It is a situation in which people pay higher costs for equivalent goods or services simply because they are poor or live in a poor area. A paper by the Brookings Institution, titled ''From Poverty, Opportunity: Putting the Market to Work for Lower Income Families'', is widely cited as a study into ghetto taxes, although the report itself does not use the term. The problem of ghetto taxes is closely associated with mobility; one study in the United States showed that higher prices might be prevalent in some neighborhoods, but peop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wage Slavery
Wage slavery or slave wages refers to a person's dependence on wages (or a salary) for their livelihood, especially when wages are low, treatment and conditions are poor, and there are few chances of upward mobility. The term is often used by critics of work to criticize the exploitation of labor and social stratification, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital, particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, such as in sweatshops, and the latter is described as a lack of workers' self-management, fulfilling job choices and leisure in an economy.. The criticism of social stratification covers a wider range of employment choices bound by the pressures of a hierarchical society to perform otherwise unfulfilling work that deprives humans of their "species character" not only under threat of extreme poverty and starvation, but also of social stigma and status diminution... Historically, many socialist organisations and ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Working Poor
The working poor are working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line due to low-income jobs and low familial household income. These are people who spend at least 27 weeks in a year working or looking for employment, but remain under the poverty threshold. In the US, the official measurement of the working poor is controversial. Many social scientists argue that the official measurements used do not provide a comprehensive overview of the number of working poor. One recent study proposed over 100 ways to measure this and came up with a figure that ranged between 2% and 19% of the total US population. There is also controversy surrounding ways that the working poor can be helped. Arguments range from increasing welfare to the poor on one end of the spectrum to encouraging the poor to achieve greater self-sufficiency on the other end, with most arguing varying degrees of both. Measurement Absolute According to the US Department of Labor, the working poor "are pers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Predatory Lending
Predatory lending refers to unethical practices conducted by lending organizations during a loan origination process that are unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent. While there are no internationally agreed legal definitions for predatory lending, a 2006 audit report from the office of inspector general of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) broadly defines predatory lending as "imposing unfair and abusive loan terms on borrowers", though "unfair" and "abusive" were not specifically defined. Though there are laws against some of the specific practices commonly identified as predatory, various federal agencies use the phrase as a catch-all term for many specific illegal activities in the loan industry. Predatory lending should not be confused with predatory mortgage servicing which is mortgage practices described by critics as unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices during the loan or mortgage servicing process, post loan origination. One less contentious definition of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pay-to-stay (imprisonment)
In the United States, pay-to-stay is the practice of charging prisoners for their accommodation in jails. The practice is controversial, because it can result in large debts being accumulated by prisoners who are then unable to repay the debt following their release, preventing them from successfully reestablishing themselves in society. In 2015, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio published a comprehensive study of the pay-to-stay policy throughout the state of Ohio, the first detailed study of its kind. In 2017, The Marshall Project published a study of jails in Southern California, where wealthier prisoners could pay to be housed in a more comfortable, safer prison in a different jurisdiction, sometimes with more furlough privileges. The facilities are located in Seal Beach, Anaheim, Arcadia, Burbank, Glendale, Huntington Beach, Pasadena, Santa Ana and Torrance. These prisons offer many benefits, including private cells, less violence and even the opportunity for convict ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Misery Index (economics)
The misery index is an economic indicator, created by economist Arthur Okun. The index helps determining how the average citizen is doing economically and it is calculated by adding the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate to the annual inflation rate. It is assumed that both a higher rate of unemployment and a worsening of inflation create economic and social costs for a country. Misery index by US presidential administration Variations Harvard Economist Robert Barro created what he dubbed the "Barro Misery Index" (BMI), in 1999. The BMI takes the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates, and adds to that the interest rate, plus (minus) the shortfall (surplus) between the actual and trend rate of GDP growth. In the late 2000s, Johns Hopkins economist Steve Hanke built upon Barro's misery index and began applying it to countries beyond the United States. His modified misery index is the sum of the interest, inflation, and unemployment rates, minus the year-over-year percent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economic Inequality
There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of wealth people own). Besides economic inequality between countries or states, there are important types of economic inequality between different groups of people. Important types of economic measurements focus on wealth, income, and consumption. There are many methods for measuring economic inequality, the Gini coefficient being a widely used one. Another type of measure is the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, which is a statistic composite index that takes inequality into account. Important concepts of equality include equity, equality of outcome, and equality of opportunity. Whereas globalization has reduced global inequality (between nations), it has increased inequality within nations. Income inequality between nations peak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Payday Loan
A payday loan (also called a payday advance, salary loan, payroll loan, small dollar loan, short term, or cash advance loan) is a short-term unsecured loan, often characterized by high interest rates. The term "payday" in payday loan refers to when a borrower writes a postdated check to the lender for the payday salary, but receives part of that payday sum in immediate cash from the lender. However, in common parlance, the concept also applies regardless of whether repayment of loans is linked to a borrower's payday. The loans are also sometimes referred to as "cash advances", though that term can also refer to cash provided against a prearranged line of credit such as a credit card. Legislation regarding payday loans varies widely between different countries, and in federal systems, between different states or provinces. To prevent usury (unreasonable and excessive rates of interest), some jurisdictions limit the annual percentage rate (APR) that any lender, including payday l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intermediation
Intermediation involves the "matching" of lenders with savings to borrowers who need money by an agent or third party, such as a bank.''The Theory of Financial Intermediation'' by Franklin Allen and Anthony M. Santomero If this matching is successful, the lender obtains a positive rate of return, the borrower receives a return for risk taking and ship and the er receives a return for making the successful match. If the |
Microfinance
Microfinance is a category of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings and checking accounts; microinsurance; and payment systems, among other services. Microfinance services are designed to reach excluded customers, usually poorer population segments, possibly socially marginalized, or geographically more isolated, and to help them become self-sufficient.Christen, Robert Peck Christen; Rosenberg, Richard; Jayadeva, Veena. ''Financial institutions with a double-bottom line: Implications for the future of microfinance''. CGAP, Occasional Papers series, July 2004, pp. 2–3. ID Ghana is an example of a microfinance institution. Microfinance initially had a limited definition: the provision of microloans to poor entrepreneurs and small businesses lacking access to credit. The two main mechanisms for the delive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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