SOCI201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Negative Income Tax, Treatment And Control Groups, Deindustrialization

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCI201
• Professor: Moore,Dionne Chanele

Document Summary

Poverty- condition of deprivation due to economic circumstances, may be absolute or relative, generally thought to be severe enough that the individual cannot live with dignity in his or her own society. Culture of poverty- poor people adopt certain practices that differ from those of the middle class in order to adapt and survive in difficult economic circumstances. Illegal work, multi family households, pooling of community resources, etc. Rational response to a tenuous financial situation. Swapping- you do something for me i do something for you, but kind of holds people back because if you make it you still would have to help people anyway. Asked about his culture of poverty thesis. Rejected a lot because there was a concern that it made it easy to blame the victims of poverty for their inability to escape it. Negative income tax experiment- scientists enrolled poor people in treatment and control groups. Control group- got their welfare checks as before.