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Full-Text Articles in Law
Poverty Knowledge, Coercion, And Social Rights: A Discourse Ethical Contribution To Social Epistemology, David Ingram
Poverty Knowledge, Coercion, And Social Rights: A Discourse Ethical Contribution To Social Epistemology, David Ingram
Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works
In today’s America the persistence of crushing poverty in the midst of staggering affluence no longer incites the righteous jeremiads it once did. Resigned acceptance of this paradox is fueled by a sense that poverty lies beyond the moral and technical scope of government remediation. The failure of experts to reach agreement on the causes of poverty merely exacerbates our despair. Are the causes internal to the poor – reflecting their more or less voluntary choices? Or do they emanate from structures beyond their control (but perhaps amenable to government remediation)? If both of these explanations are true (as I …
Massachusetts Immigrants By The Numbers, Second Edition: Demographic Characteristics And Economic Footprint, Alan Clayton-Matthews, Paul Watanabe
Massachusetts Immigrants By The Numbers, Second Edition: Demographic Characteristics And Economic Footprint, Alan Clayton-Matthews, Paul Watanabe
Institute for Asian American Studies Publications
With this update to the original groundbreaking study of Massachusetts Immigrants by the Numbers in 2009, we continue to focus on the economic and social contributions that immigrants have made in building the vibrant Massachusetts economy. It shows that, despite heightened public debate, the demographic characteristics and economic trends of the state’s immigrant population have remained largely unchanged. Immigrants continue to have a positive impact on the Commonwealth.
Occupying America: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The American Dream, And The Challenge Of Socio-Economic Inequality, Trina Jones
Occupying America: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The American Dream, And The Challenge Of Socio-Economic Inequality, Trina Jones
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Undo Undue Hardship: An Objective Approach To Discharging Federal Students Loans In Bankruptcy, Aaron N. Taylor
Undo Undue Hardship: An Objective Approach To Discharging Federal Students Loans In Bankruptcy, Aaron N. Taylor
All Faculty Scholarship
A debtor seeking to discharge student loans in bankruptcy must prove that paying the debt would cause an undue hardship upon him and his dependents. Undue hardship, however, is an undefined concept, flummoxing debtors, creditors and judges alike. The result of this ambiguity is rampant inconsistency in the manners in which similarly-situated debtors (and creditors) are treated by the courts. This article argues that the undue hardship standard should be replaced by a framework that uses debt service thresholds to determine the propriety of federal student loan bankruptcy discharges. Eligibility for discharge would depend on outstanding loan amounts, debtor income …
Community Economic Development And The Paradox Of Power, Michael R. Diamond
Community Economic Development And The Paradox Of Power, Michael R. Diamond
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This article starts from the premise that poverty is a growing problem in the United States. Intergenerational poverty, the entrenchment of a class of very poor people, is a major sub set of that problem and is tied very closely to the issue of race. The author claims that missing in the fight by the poor and their allies against stratified poverty is the creation and utilization of power. This paper examines the disparate ways in which commentators have defined power. It suggests that those seeking to obtain power must understand the concept’s varying meanings and direct their activities to …
Pledge Your Body For Your Bread: Welfare, Drug Testing, And The Inferior Fourth Amendment, Jordan C. Budd
Pledge Your Body For Your Bread: Welfare, Drug Testing, And The Inferior Fourth Amendment, Jordan C. Budd
Law Faculty Scholarship
Proposals to subject welfare recipients to periodic drug testing have emerged over the last three years as a significant legislative trend across the United States. Since 2007, over half of the states have considered bills requiring aid recipients to submit to invasive extraction procedures as an ongoing condition of public assistance. The vast majority of the legislation imposes testing without regard to suspected drug use, reflecting the implicit assumption that the poor are inherently predisposed to culpable conduct and thus may be subject to class-based intrusions that would be inarguably impermissible if inflicted on the less destitute. These proposals are …
Maximum Feasible Participation Of The Poor: New Governance, New Accountability, And A 21st Century War On The Sources Of Poverty, Tara J. Melish
Maximum Feasible Participation Of The Poor: New Governance, New Accountability, And A 21st Century War On The Sources Of Poverty, Tara J. Melish
Journal Articles
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for a Nationwide War on the Sources of Poverty to “strike away the barriers to full participation” in our society. Central to that war was an understanding that given poverty’s complex and multi-layered causes, identifying, implementing, and monitoring solutions to it would require the “maximum feasible participation” of affected communities. Equally central, however, was an understanding that such decentralized problem-solving could not be fully effective without national-level orchestration and support. As such, an Office of Economic Opportunity was established – situated in the Executive Office of the President itself – to support, through …
Massachusetts Immigrants By The Numbers: Demographic Characteristics And Economic Footprint, Alan Clayton-Matthews, Faye Karp, Paul Watanabe
Massachusetts Immigrants By The Numbers: Demographic Characteristics And Economic Footprint, Alan Clayton-Matthews, Faye Karp, Paul Watanabe
Institute for Asian American Studies Publications
An analysis of data on the impact of immigrants on the Massachusetts economy. Along with demographic characteristics, the study examines variables such as income, poverty status, occupation, and home-ownership. In addition, the report addresses the impact of immigrants on taxes, social services, and transfer payments.
Well-Being, Inequality And Time: The Time-Slice Problem And Its Policy Implications, Matthew D. Adler
Well-Being, Inequality And Time: The Time-Slice Problem And Its Policy Implications, Matthew D. Adler
All Faculty Scholarship
Should equality be viewed from a lifetime or “sublifetime” perspective? In measuring the inequality of income, for example, should we measure the inequality of lifetime income or of annual income? In characterizing a tax as “progressive” or “regressive,” should we look to whether the annual tax burden increases with annual income, or instead to whether the lifetime tax burden increases with lifetime income? Should the overriding aim of anti-poverty programs be to reduce chronic poverty: being badly off for many years, because of low human capital or other long-run factors? Or is the moral claim of the impoverished person a …
Efficiency And Social Citizenship: Challenging The Neoliberal Attack On The Welfare State, Martha T. Mccluskey
Efficiency And Social Citizenship: Challenging The Neoliberal Attack On The Welfare State, Martha T. Mccluskey
Journal Articles
In the face of rising economic inequality and shrinking welfare protections, some scholars recently have revived interest in T.H. Marshall's theory of "social citizenship." That theory places economic rights alongside political and civil rights as fundamental to public well-being. But this social citizenship ideal stands against the prevailing neoliberal ("free market") ideology, which asserts that state abstention from economic protection generates societal well-being. Using the examples of AFDC and workers' compensation in the 1990s, I analyze how arguments about economic efficiency have worked to characterize social welfare programs as producers of public vice rather than public virtue. A close examination …
Intimacy Outside Of The Natural Family: The Limits Of Privacy, Martha Albertson Fineman
Intimacy Outside Of The Natural Family: The Limits Of Privacy, Martha Albertson Fineman
Faculty Articles
In this paper I undertake a very pragmatic and focused consideration of whether it is possible to rework existing legal concepts of privacy in a way that would be ideologically compatible with dominant social norms in order to shield single mothers from excessive state regulation and supervision. I ultimately conclude that my desire to protect the decisionmaking autonomy and the dignity of poor and/or single mothers cannot be satisfied by resort to this area of law. At the constitutional level, this is so because notions of privacy are typically articulated as rights belonging to individuals, not family entities. And …