Suchergebnisse

Poverty is an important socio-political issue in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Children's Commissioner's Child Poverty Monitor has established the following measures of poverty: material hardship (households that go without things they need), and income poverty (where household income is less than 60% of the current median income). It was also identified that households in extreme poverty (including 80,000 children) are experiencing both material hardship and income poverty. Various policy proposals are made to government to relieve poverty in both the short and long term. Short-term measures will not involve high cost and include greater child-support payments to sole parents who are receiving a benefit. Long-term measures involve increased child-related benefits and greater commitment by government to social housing and continuing free healthcare. This paper also recognises the importance of a cultural shift in the Department of Work and Income in relation to staff treatment of benefit applicants.

Poverty is an important socio-political issue in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Children's Commissioner's Child Poverty Monitor has established the following measures of poverty: material hardship (households that go without things they need), and income poverty (where household income is less than 60% of the current median income). It was also identified that households in extreme poverty (including 80,000 children) are experiencing both material hardship and income poverty. Various policy proposals are made to government to relieve poverty in both the short and long term. Short-term measures will not involve high cost and include greater child-support payments to sole parents who are receiving a benefit. Long-term measures involve increased child-related benefits and greater commitment by government to social housing and continuing free healthcare. This paper also recognises the importance of a cultural shift in the Department of Work and Income in relation to staff treatment of benefit applicants.

The World Bank's concern for global poverty is described as "affected" & argued to be a response to two contradictory needs of global capitalism: (1) to represent the interests of a single class as those of society as a whole & (2) to operate as a single system across a "fragmented world of competing states with no overarching political authority." After reviewing Karl Marx's perspective on the relationship between poverty & capitalism, the mechanisms used by the World Bank in its attempt to eradicate poverty are analyzed. Focus is on the Comprehensive Development Framework & its Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, which, it is argued, are actually an attempt to make poverty "work" for capitalism. It is contended that, in concert with the International Monetary Fund & the World Trade Organization, the World Bank is promoting & enacting programs in both poor & middle-income countries that are, in reality, designed to "impose universally the conditions through which poverty is created & maintained," ie, proletarianization, exploitation, & market dependence. K. Hyatt Stewart

The World Bank's concern for global poverty is described as "affected" & argued to be a response to two contradictory needs of global capitalism: (1) to represent the interests of a single class as those of society as a whole & (2) to operate as a single system across a "fragmented world of competing states with no overarching political authority." After reviewing Karl Marx's perspective on the relationship between poverty & capitalism, the mechanisms used by the World Bank in its attempt to eradicate poverty are analyzed. Focus is on the Comprehensive Development Framework & its Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, which, it is argued, are actually an attempt to make poverty "work" for capitalism. It is contended that, in concert with the International Monetary Fund & the World Trade Organization, the World Bank is promoting & enacting programs in both poor & middle-income countries that are, in reality, designed to "impose universally the conditions through which poverty is created & maintained," ie, proletarianization, exploitation, & market dependence. K. Hyatt Stewart

The ambiguities of the terms 'austerity' and 'poverty' make it difficult to tie down any firm or clear relationship between the two. The idea of 'austerity' is variously used to refer to economic deflation, the reduction of public debt, the retrenchment of public services, or a change in the balance of public and private provision. 'Poverty' is used at different times refers to deprivation, inequality and social exclusion. Underlying the two fields of discourse, there is an irresistible sense that they must be connected: if the economy is shrinking, or if people are getting less support from the public sphere, then people who have little must be worse off still. However, conflicting interpretations, political spin and the inadequacies of the informational base make it hard to prove that austerity is at the root of these problems, or to offer any firm proof that poverty and austerity are intimately linked.