Deck 10: Poverty

Question 1

According to your text,what drives American poverty rates?

A) social structure
B) lopsided economic rewards
C) the richest 10 percent of the population
D) unequal access to resources

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Susan Mayer,author of What Money Can't Buy: Family Income and Children's Life Chances,found in her study:

A) confirmation of reports of the devastation of poverty.
B) that poverty caused many social ills.
C) that the effect of income on children's outcomes has been overstated.
D) that increased incomes made big differences in children's outcomes.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

People who are born into poverty and ultimately raise their own children in poverty learn "how" to live in poverty.They learn the norms and values associated with that particular way of life.This is known as Oscar Lewis's:

A) War on Poverty.
B) swapping.
C) culture of poverty.
D) lack of accessibility culture.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Which U.S.president was responsible for the War on Poverty and programs like Head Start and Job Corps?

A) Woodrow Wilson
B) Lyndon Johnson
C) John F. Kennedy
D) George W. Bush

Question 5

A politician who argues that poverty causes people to reject the practices of "mainstream" society is making a(n)____________ argument?

A) functionalist
B) Marxist
C) culture of poverty
D) anarchist

Question 6

You are a policy maker interested in reducing behavioral problems among school-age children on Native American reservations.Based on results of a study of the Cherokee Nation,which of the following proposals will you make?

A) implement a program of alcohol and drug counseling among expectant mothers
B) legalize gambling, and allow the tribe to retain the profits
C) raise the minimum wage on the reservation
D) make the work requirements for receiving welfare more stringent

Question 7

One of the explanations of continued racism in America is that we have:

A) found that racial minorities have lower IQs (Herrnstein).
B) become post-racial, like Puerto Rico.
C) colonized others within the country itself, as with slavery.
D) found that racism is a biological trait, something that is impossible to eliminate.

Question 8

What is one fundamental change that critics argue is necessary for reforming the poverty threshold calculation?

A) including all possible sources of income, both documented and under the table
B) using the cost of food as a baseline for poverty calculations
C) reformulating it from scratch every few years to adjust for changes in the cost of living
D) using a measure of absolute poverty instead of relative poverty

Question 9

Susan Mayer wrote What Money Can't Buy: Family Income and Children's Life Chances.Her findings were similar to what Marlin Card was suggesting would have helped his chances in life.Which of the following might have addressed this issue?

A) parenting classes
B) higher-paying jobs
C) higher welfare payments
D) desegregation of schools

Question 10

One of the richest men in America,Tom Monaghan,thought being poor was "one of the most exciting things in the world" because:

A) it is possible to get by on very little if you live very frugally.
B) it provides great motivation to work hard and get rich.
C) poor people are more willing to work at his company.
D) he believes in Social Darwinism.

Question 11

What is one shortcoming of the current calculation of the poverty rate?

A) Its measure of wealth may be inaccurate.
B) It only focuses on income and ignores wealth.
C) There are currently no surveys to assess people's wealth.
D) It only focuses on wealth and ignores income.

Question 12

A policy maker wants to recalculate poverty based on a set percentage of the median income for each metropolitan area in the United States instead of a national average.This is an example of ____________ poverty.

A) absolute
B) relative
C) median
D) variable

Question 13

Which nation has one of the highest poverty rates in the advanced world?

A) United States
B) Great Britain
C) Canada
D) France

Question 14

The story of Marlin Card,who was born into poverty as a child and has lived his life in and out of prison,demonstrates what,according to Card himself?

A) the need for more strict sentencing policies to keep criminals off the street
B) the importance of quality time spent between parents and children, which is so difficult for the poor to find
C) the need for a higher minimum wage to keep more people out of poverty
D) the difficulty those in poverty have maintaining regular employment

Question 15

What percentage of American employees work for an employer that does not offer a traditional pension or retirement plan?

A) 10 percent
B) almost 25 percent
C) almost 50 percent
D) 90 percent

Question 16

Which of the following people "busted her digit"?

A) one who got a high-paying job and lost her eligibility for welfare payments
B) one on welfare who got in trouble for stealing someone's social security number and collecting two welfare payments
C) one who cashes her welfare check
D) one who skips out on a long line at the welfare agency

Question 17

What population was Oscar Lewis studying when he coined the term "culture of poverty"?

A) blacks
B) single mothers on welfare
C) the underclass
D) Mexicans

Question 18

Your text defines poverty as a condition of deprivation due to:

A) economic circumstances.
B) social circumstances.
C) structural circumstances.
D) all of the above.

Question 19

According to Daniel Patrick Moynihan,what is the root cause of African Americans' economic problems?

A) multigenerational living arrangements
B) the patrifocal family
C) welfare
D) the matrifocal family

Question 20

What method is usually used to evaluate poverty?

A) objective analyses of statistics and economics
B) the Gini coefficient
C) subjective evaluations of mathematical measurements
D) evaluation of policies already in place

Question 21

According to the underclass thesis,the poor are:

A) undependable.
B) no different from the rest of us.
C) deviant and dangerous to mainstream society.
D) unmotivated and lazy.

Question 22

A lot of people who are eligible for food stamps in the United States don't apply for them.Why?

A) They can't get to the government offices administering food stamps during
Operating hours.
B) They would prefer to diet.
C) Because most people live in multigenerational homes, they don't see the need.
D) They prefer to steal food.

Question 23

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was also referred to as the:

A) "end of welfare as we know it."
B) War on Welfare.
C) "deserving poor" tax credit.
D) War on Poverty.

Question 24

Why is the official formula for calculating the poverty line outdated?

A) The dollar amount has not been increased in a decade.
B) The minimum wage has increased.
C) The poor have many unrecorded sources of income.
D) Housing now makes up a larger proportion of household budgets than in the past.

Question 25

What do policy experts mean by the terms perverse incentives and unintended consequences?

A) Poverty is both cause and effect.
B) Poverty is a condition that acts as a proxy for an underlying social disease.
C) Poverty endeavors are a waste of money.
D) Aiding the poor creates more problems than it solves.

Question 26

Your text suggests that the researchers for the negative income tax should have focused on:

A) income over time.
B) the outcome of gambling.
C) different research questions.
D) the children rather than the parents.

Question 27

Herrnstein and Murray argued that there is a relationship between high IQ and:

A) good parenting.
B) welfare.
C) racism.
D) job status.

Question 28

One of the major ways that poverty affects children's life chances is through:

A) higher stress levels among parents.
B) making it more difficult to survive in areas with a higher cost of living.
C) access to more material goods.
D) creating motivation and ambition to escape it in adulthood.

Question 29

Jane is a single mother in poverty.She has intermittent,low-paying employment.Because she is forced to move a lot,she hasn't established a reliable social network for support or friendships for her children.In order to determine what effect this has on her children's outcomes,what factors would the parenting stress hypothesis examine?

A) Jane's ability to secure the basic necessities of life, including food, clothing, and socio-emotional support for her children
B) household stress levels and their effect on Jane's patience and parenting style
C) parental coping strategies, including drug or alcohol use
D) parental and children's IQ

Question 30

Minimizing the amount of time welfare programs require of their recipients was one of the many rationales behind:

A) the War on Poverty.
B) the negative income tax.
C) President Clinton's 1996 end to welfare.
D) the Office of Economic Opportunity.

Question 31

In general,a major goal of Clinton's 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was to:

A) get people back into the labor market as soon as possible.
B) eliminate poverty among children.
C) increase government assistance for those in poverty.
D) expand employment opportunities in government and civil service.

Question 32

The Smith family would rather spend their money on luxuries now than put it in a retirement account.This preference describes their ____________ rate.

A) appreciation
B) savings
C) application
D) discount

Question 33

Which program shifted more of the responsibility of running welfare programs onto individual states and mandated time limits for the number of months a person can receive aid?

A) Women, Infant, and Children Nutrition Program
B) Economic Opportunity Act
C) Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act
D) War on Poverty

Question 34

One of the results of the negative income tax experiment was that more and more women left their marriages.This was because:

A) they were less financially dependent on their (possibly) abusive husbands.
B) the tax code provided a significant advantage to singles versus couples.
C) women found it easier to open independent businesses.
D) women misunderstood the tax code, thinking they were getting more money than they actually were.

Question 35

The stress that poor parents experience manifests itself in:

A) lower IQs among children.
B) more punitive parenting behaviors.
C) more of the children's time spent in day care and with babysitters.
D) poor parents providing cheaper educational environments for their children.

Question 36

Government offices administering food stamps:

A) are not always optimally located for recipients.
B) have unlimited employees to assist recipients.
C) are arguing for a universal basic income.
D) are reducing the number of recipients eligible for aid.

Question 37

Social Darwinism suggests that only the fittest survive,that people (and plants and animals)who are the smartest and most capable for survival are the ones who succeed in a society.This can be compared to:

A) Oscar Lewis's culture of poverty thesis.
B) Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's bell curve thesis.
C) Clinton's War on Poverty thesis.
D) Gautreaux's Moving to Opportunity thesis.

Question 38

In the 1980s,journalist Ken Auletta coined the term "underclass." He said that the underclass was different from the "rest of us" in that they:

A) tended to be more dangerous than the rest of us.
B) tended to have higher levels of education but did not use this to their advantage.
C) tended to like spending their time waiting in the welfare line talking to their
Friends all day.
D) had lower IQs than the rest of us.

Question 39

Poverty has a strong effect on children's life chances because:

A) they experience material deprivation and it affects their parents' parenting behaviors.
B) it motivates them to work harder to escape it.
C) it makes them more creative because it forces them to think of new ways to get by.
D) it teaches them to embrace poverty and thwarts their motivation.

Question 40

Some policy experts believe that welfare creates more problems than it solves because it discourages people from finding work.This is also known as:

A) a social disease.
B) a perverse incentive.
C) the cycle of poverty.
D) an intended consequence.

Question 41

From her research,Susan Mayer concluded that it was not poverty,but rather ____________ that really mattered.

A) our desires
B) our perception of money
C) wealth
D) the media

Question 42

Country A has a Gini coefficient of .3,and Country B has a Gini coefficient of .5.Which has more inequality?

A) Country A
B) Gini doesn't measure inequality
C) Country B
D) Country A and Country B have essentially the same level of inequality

Question 43

How does politics matter for the level of inequality in the United States?

A) The U.S. political system is fragmented, making it difficult to establish a comprehensive safety net.
B) The welfare state in the United States is more developed than in European countries.
C) Capitalist institutions make it possible to maintain low levels of inequality.
D) The lack of a feudal history makes inequality less of an issue in the United States.

Question 44

The definition of relative poverty takes into account which important factor when determining poverty based on a percentage of median income?

A) education level
B) location
C) employment status
D) wealth

Question 45

When the official poverty line was first set,food made up the largest percentage of household budgets.In today's society,what now makes up the largest percentage?

A) transportation
B) housing
C) heating homes
D) health care

Question 46

Herrnstein and Murray questioned whether poverty was a side effect of ____________ conditions or whether it actually caused limited opportunities for children.

A) educational
B) environmental
C) biological
D) structural

Question 47

What was the problem with the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program?

A) There weren't enough houses for all the families.
B) It produced no improvement or changes.
C) Families brought destructive behaviors from the ghetto to the new neighborhood.
D) Participants were self-selected.

Question 48

A family that cannot afford the basic necessities of life,or purchase enough to physically sustain its members,lives in:

A) material deprivation.
B) marginal poverty.
C) absolute poverty.
D) relative poverty.

Question 49

Mollie Orshansky used the U.S.Department of Agriculture's recommendations for the minimum amount of healthy food,estimated the cost for a variety of family types,and multiplied this figure by a factor of three to measure:

A) relative poverty.
B) the poverty threshold.
C) the official poverty line.
D) absolute poverty.

Question 50

Gautreaux v.Chicago Housing Authority was a class action suit that alleged public housing was:

A) keeping the underclass poor.
B) de facto government segregation.
C) keeping the poor on public assistance.
D) not up to sanitary code.

Question 51

Theorists who believe poverty is relational measure poverty by determining:

A) what it takes to feed a family of four and multiplying that number by three.
B) health care costs and multiplying that number by four.
C) the median income in a given location, and anything under that number is considered poverty.
D) the average income in a given location, and anything under that number is considered poverty.

Question 52

Gated communities are an example of which factor that is mixing with wealth inequality to increase the gap between the rich and the poor?

A) racism
B) redlining
C) real estate equality
D) economic segregation

Question 53

The Moving to Opportunity study found that those in the group who received assistance in relocating and life-skills training in addition to housing vouchers:

A) experienced hostility from their new neighborhoods.
B) were not testable because many participants could not be found later.
C) were no different than those in the control group.
D) experienced less stress and better health.

Question 54

James Rosenbaum found that those who moved out of the ghetto and into low-poverty areas:

A) had no change in their life situation.
B) had a better employment situation.
C) destroyed the neighborhood within a short time.
D) scared away the previous residents.

Question 55

An economist surveying lottery winners found that people who had zero earnings and who were not in the workforce before winning:

A) spent their money quickly.
B) increased their commitment to work.
C) gave most of their winnings to family and friends.
D) volunteered in their communities.

Question 56

Attempts at establishing an absolute poverty measure can be traced to:

A) Roman times.
B) England, beginning in the late 1700s.
C) New York at the time of European immigration in the early 1900s.
D) the War on Poverty in the 1930s Depression.

Question 57

The Moving to Opportunity study didn't show any change in which factors between the control and treatment groups?

A) test scores and truancy
B) injuries and asthma
C) employment and earnings
D) violence and health

Question 58

Which term describes the measurement of poverty where a household's income falls below the necessary level to purchase food to physically sustain its members?

A) relative poverty
B) absolute poverty
C) poverty threshold
D) official poverty rate

Question 59

Income-based measurements are deceptive because they hide the real influence of:

A) wealth.
B) social status.
C) employment.
D) education.

Question 60

How has the history of feudalism actually reduced the level of inequality in many modern European nations?

A) It has instilled a recognition of the importance of family values.
B) It has eliminated class differences.
C) It thwarted the rise of capitalism.
D) It created a tradition of state paternalism, which set the stage for the modern welfare state.

Question 61

The Gini coefficient is:

A) a comparison of poverty rates.
B) the U.S. poverty line.
C) a measure of economic inequality.
D) a measure of poverty rates.

Question 62

Why is it difficult for almost half of Americans to save for retirement?

A) They are living beyond their means.
B) Financial pressures are too high.
C) They don't have pension or retirement savings plans.
D) They have unlimited needs and wants.

Question 63

What do Murray and Herrnstein suggest is the cause of poverty? If this argument were supported by policy makers,what would happen to the poor? How would the self-fulfilling prophecy fit into this?

Question 64

Some would argue that a country with a history of feudalism (as opposed to the United States)would more likely develop a culture of:

A) individualism.
B) strict capitalism.
C) paternalism.
D) racial prejudice.

Question 65

Why is there such unequal distribution of wealth in the United States? How does the United States compare to other nations?

Question 66

Status consumption is discussed in the text in Chapter 7 on stratification.How does this affect poverty?

A) It shows us what we need to work toward, thus making us work even harder at getting ahead.
B) Along with the media, it gives us goals that are unreachable for most of us, thus plunging us into debt.
C) It shows us what absolute poverty is when we compare ourselves to people like Paris Hilton.
D) It reduces poverty by giving people more jobs in producing the goods we all want.

Question 67

A higher Gini coefficient score means:

A) more inequality.
B) less inequality.
C) higher poverty.
D) lower poverty.

Question 68

Explain the culture of poverty thesis.How well does it explain the persistence of poverty in the United States? Use evidence and examples to support your claim.

Question 69

What term do economists use to describe the relative value of present consumption versus future savings?

A) future wage incentive
B) discount rate
C) long-term matches
D) future interest yields

Question 70

What does Susan Mayer argue are the effects of income on poor children? How could her research affect the programs (current and future)designed to help poor children?

Question 71

Which of the following is NOT one of the explanations for the vast disparity of wealth in the United States mentioned in your text?

A) timing
B) institutional structure
C) government
D) race

Question 72

Explain the reason for Gautreaux v.Chicago Housing Authority and its outcome.What are some possible future results of the lawsuit? Include a discussion on the Moving to Opportunity study,which was influenced by this case.How would you feel about Section 8 housing in your neighborhood?

Question 73

Explain the official poverty line of the United States,which was created by Mollie Orshansky.Is this a good way to measure poverty? Why or why not?

Question 74

The parenting stress hypothesis is a paradigm that looks at the psychological aspects of poverty and its effects on children's life chances.Discuss this and apply it to Marlin's situation growing up in poverty.What might be some ways to avoid Marlin's problems?

Question 75

Your text lists several explanations for why the United States has the highest inequality of all English-speaking nations.Which of the following is NOT an explanation your text cites?

A) the division of power within the U.S. government
B) lack of a feudal history
C) the system of inequality in the United States originated in Europe
D) racism within U.S. borders

Question 76

What is the key that government could use to get low-income earners to commit to saving?

A) get them to use a small percentage of their tax refund
B) offer added incentives
C) get them to commit to saving future income
D) make it mandatory for employers to have a retirement fund

Question 77

One of the problems with "aiding the poor" is what experts call perverse incentives.What does this term mean? Give some examples from U.S.history.

Question 78

How was the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program named,and what were the methodological problems surrounding the study? What study attempted to address these issues and how?

Question 79

Propose a social policy that would give children born into poverty a better chance of escaping it in their adult lives.What issues would the policy need to address? What social institutions (e.g.,work,family,government)would need to be changed?

Question 80

Discuss the no effect paradigm and suggest how Marlin and his brother could have had a better life using this theory.