Updating Poverty

When the official poverty numbers were released on September
10, the Census Bureau revealed that poverty is on the rise. But these figures
have not told the whole story. The economic crisis has increasingly made
poverty a realistic worry for many of those who thought they were safely
outside its grasp. Many more families will be confronting the combination of
job loss, rising debt, and economic insecurity.

One of the challenges of the fight against poverty is to identify a set of
effective policies suitable for both good times and bad. Now more than ever, we
need access to resources that help people move up the economic ladder and into
the financial mainstream. From a policy standpoint, we may be in better shape
than it seems. Even as poverty has been largely off the political agenda in
recent years, it has been a time of quiet experimentation and fresh thinking.
These efforts have produced a number of strategies that hold promise, such as
in the fields of asset building which have identified a series of impactful
incentives, policies, and programs that help families move into the economic
mainstream. An additional challenge is how to see that these ideas make
progress in the political context and recent experience has generated insights
in this process as well.

These topics were thoroughly explored in a Special Report on
Poverty in the September issue of The American Prospect. On September 8,
the New America Foundation hosted four authors featured authors in the Special
Report. Asset Building Program Director
Reid Cramer provided opening remarks, followed by Mark Schmitt’s, editor of The American Prospect, discussion on the
conceptual framework behind the Special Report’s focus on a new agenda for
tackling rising poverty in the U.S. Shelley Waters Boots, consulting editor for
the Special Report, discussed the core principles of what a modern safety net
program should offer. Associate Editor Dana Goldstein touched upon behavioral
theory, with a particular focus on Mayor Bloomberg’s conditional cash transfer
program in New York City.
Finally, Darrick Hamilton addressed the racial disparities that characterize
poverty in the United States.

Participants
Featured speakers
Mark Schmitt
Editor, The American Prospect
"A New Agenda for Tough Times"

Shelley Waters Boots
Consulting Editor of the Special Report
"A New Agenda for Tough Times" and "A Modern Safety Net"

Reid Cramer
Director, Asset Building Program, New America Foundation
"The Assets Report 2009"

Dana Goldstein
Associate Editor, The American Prospect
"Behavioral Theory"

Darrick Hamilton
Assistant Professor at Milano, The New School for Management and Urban Policy
"Race, Wealth, and Intergenerational Poverty"