Term
| How Unions function as anti-poverty vehicles during the 20th Century |
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Definition
1) Unions empower workers through collective bargaining. Unions increase workers’ bargaining power in contract negotiations. Therefore, workers are able to attain higher wages, better benefits, and increased job protection.
2)Unions set standards for wages, hours, benefits, etc. in the labor market. If non-union employers wish to compete for workers with union employers, they must match the compensation standards promised to union members.
3)Unions serve as effective lobbyists for pro-worker legislation. Unions promote the interests of the working class as a whole, including workers who do not belong to labor unions. |
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Term
| Wagner/National Labor Relations Act (1935) |
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Definition
| Granted workers the right to join labor unions |
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Term
| Social Security Act (1935) |
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Definition
| provided old age, pensions, unemployment compensation, and worker's compensation for job related injuries |
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Term
| Fair Labor Standards Act (1964) |
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Definition
| mandated a federal minimum wage, maximum work hours per week, and overtime pat at time and a half |
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Term
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Definition
| established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to end discrimination in the workplace |
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Term
| Occupational Health and Safety Act (1970) |
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Definition
| made workplace safety a federal responsibilty |
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Term
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Definition
| Unions are right not just for workers, but for America as a whole. |
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Term
| Reasons Trade Unionists argue why unions are important |
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Definition
1)They helped life the poor into the middle class
2) They helped bring democracy to the workplace via elections, grievance procedures, and written contracts that spelled out the rights of workers.
3)Seemed to represent the story of American freedom |
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Term
| 1960's-"Golden Age of American Capitalism" |
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Definition
-appeared the U.S. had largely solved the problem of class conflict
-employers had negotiated with industrial unions under the watchful supervision of the federal government to create a regulated capitalist economy
-one w/ a prominent middle class and w/out labor strikes and violence of an earlier era |
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Term
| Current Trends in Unionization |
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Definition
| It’s not that workers and activists don’t try to organize unions anymore – in fact, they still do, with the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, now under Andrew Stern, being the most successful. SEIU organizes low-paid service workers primarily in the health care and office sectors, and is now the largest union in the country. |
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Term
| The current and future federal minimum wage rate in relation to the 2007 poverty thresholds for single individuals, a single parent family with two children, and a four person family (two parents and two children) with one parent working full-time (2,000 hours) and the other working half-time (1,000 hours) at the federal minimum wage. |
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Definition
May 25, 2007-President Bush signed a bill to increase federal minimum wage in three steps:
1)to $5.85 per hour effective July 24, 2007;
2)to $6.55 per hour effective July 24, 2008;
3)to $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009 |
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Term
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Definition
| Support given either in the form of money or money that is paid on your behalf. you must report cash support as untaxed income. Direct money aid. |
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Term
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Definition
| Free good or housing that a family receives, usually in exhange for work or services. You usually don't report such support. |
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Term
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Definition
-Restrict eligibility for benefits to persons with non-welfare income below a certain level.
EX: Food stamps and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).
-provide cash and noncash benefits and are restricted to families or individuals whose income falls below defined levels and who meet other eligibility criteria established for each program
-Most are entitlements (medicaid, food stamps, SSI), but in the case of a few such programs budeget authority for the program is provided |
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Term
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Definition
| don't take into account anything other than an individuals net income to determine their eligibility for a program |
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Term
| 7 Largest Programs by Spending Amount |
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Definition
1)Medicaid-258 billion
2)SSI 39 billion
3)EITC 28 billion
4)Food Stamps 24 billion
5)TANF cash, services, child care, and work 24 billion
6)Section 8-low income housing assistance 18 billion
7)Pell Grants 11 bilion |
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Term
| Trends in Federal Spending |
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Definition
-federal spending climbed from $60 billion in FY1968 to $373 billion in FY2002, 529% increason
-cash aid was teh leading form of federal welfare until 1980 when medical aid overtook it |
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Term
| Trends in Local/State Spending |
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Definition
-State and Local real spending climbed from $24.5 billion in FY1968 to $149 billion in FY2002, an increase of 508 percent.
-Medical assistance overcame cash aid as the leading form of income-tested assistance in1976. |
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Term
| 8 Categories of Welfare % Total Costs |
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Definition
1)Medical Aid: $282 billion, 54%
2)Cash Aid: $102 billion, 20%
3)Food Aid: $39 billion, 7%
4)Housing Aid: $36 billion, 7%
5)Education Aid: $30 billion, 6%
6)Other Services: $22 billion, 5%
7)Jobs and Training Aid: $8 billion, 2%
8)Energy Aid: $2 billion, 0.3% |
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Term
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Definition
-54 cents of every welfare dollar went for medical assistance
-80% of State and Local dollars went to medical aid
-Spending in each of 6 programs exceeds $10 billion and accounts for 77 percent of total spending. |
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Term
| Proportion of the Poor in the U.S. living in Households Receiving Some Form of Welfare |
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Definition
| -Census Bureau found 23 million poor persons (two out of every three with pre-tax money income below the poverty threshold) lived in a household that received means-tested assistance. |
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Term
| Percent of Poverty Population of the U.S. Living in Households Receiving Some Form of Welfare |
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Definition
-Medicaid: 53 percent
-Food Stamps: 33 percent
-Cash assistance: 22 percent
-Subsidized or public housing: 18 percent |
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Term
| Percent of Total Population Living in a household that Received Some Form of Medicaid |
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Definition
-Medicaid: 19 percent
-Food Stamps: 6 percent
-Cash assistance: 7 percent
-Subsidized or public housing: 4 percent
-Some form of major means-tested aid: 25 percent |
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Term
| How Employment Opportunities for Low-Skilled Workers Fluctuate With the State of the Economy |
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Definition
Employers are more likely to hire low-skilled workers when the economy is growing and demand for workers is high.
Political lesson--If you want to enact tougher welfare laws, do it during an economic expansion. |
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Term
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Definition
| reading, writing, and math |
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Term
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Definition
Skills that are less quantifiable, but employers find essential.
-Examples mentioned in Shipler: punctuality, diligence, a can-do attitude, ability to take initiative, relates well to colleagues, can take directions, know to call when they’re not coming in, come to work on time, dress well, etc. |
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Term
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Definition
| Is a safety net that improves the material dimension of life. |
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Term
| Strategies and Keys to success of Training Programs |
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Definition
-Encouragement through group meetings that give trainees confidence they have never experienced before.
-“One way to crack the shell was a morning routine of brief talks by team members…At first, the experience was excruciating…Gradually, though, through a sense of community emerged within the team…and again were beginning to succeed at a crucial element of life on the job: communicating with people. (pg. 256)”
-Training treated like a real job:
-“He was steady, demanding, and warmly supportive, creating in the large classroom the businesslike atmosphere of a real office where you were expected to come to work punctually, dress appropriately ,apply yourself diligently, and produce. (255)”
-Advisors were very involved in the life of the participants:
-“When they organized their lives, she advised them, they should think about how it would look on their resumes. ‘It’s important,’ she said, ‘to do community service and not to do dumb things.” |
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Term
| Affects of Poor Teen Parenting on Infants and Young Children in Poverty |
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Definition
•Low levels of attachment (disorganized/disorientated and anxious-avoidant) and low IQ for children of teen mothers
•Mild mental retardation/learning disabled, low achievement average
•Unhealthy levels of stress hormones
•Psychological effects on the child: aggression, don’t finish school
•Inadequate nutrition and exposure to environmental toxins
•Biggest effects on language and memory
•American children born to parents in the bottom fourth of the income distribution have a 50% chance of staying there—2/3 chance of remaining stuck if black |
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Term
| Reasons poor adolescent and Teen Mothers have Parenting Skills Detrimental to their Children |
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Definition
•Maternal history of childhood abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual)
•Maternal cognitive readiness depends on maternal adjustment, substance abuse, history of neglect/abuse, social supports, and maternal learning ability
•Overall, did not have a good childhood, do not know what model of good parenting looks like
•Little attachment/interaction with child—passing them off (child also cannot attach to anyone else)
•Intervention to include: interaction (reading, talking to child), touch and massage, playing and learning, authoritative parenting, emotional coaching |
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Term
| "Poverty Poisons the Brain" and the Implication of this Phenomenon for Cognitive Development |
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Definition
•“Neuroscientists have found that many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development. The effect is to impair language development and memory—and hence the ability to escape poverty—for the rest of the child’s life.”
•Excessive levels of stress hormone disrupt synaptic connections between cells in brain as it develops (can also affect blood supply=bad), disrupt the brain architecture (don’t allow it to form correctly)
•Brain builds upon itself, without initial foundation, cannot be expected to learn as well
•Parental status=child in poverty, with high levels of stress—trumps any IQ ability
•Behavioral biology and sociocultural impact (people in power, systems of classification, systematic disenfranchisement) |
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Term
| Reasons Low-Income Children Receive Inferior Educational Opportunities and the Programs that Attempt to Improve this Situation |
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Definition
•Linear trend between parent’s income and test scores, social class/parent’s income is main determinant of success
•Coleman Report (1966)
oFamily background is strongest predictor of student achievement
oMost variation in achievement is within not between schools
oAchievement depends on race, SES (socioeconomic) composition, and teacher quality
oDid not depend on school spending, resources, ect.
•Less opportunities to learn, teacher quality in poor schools
•Carbonaro’s proposals:
oPrevent families from falling into poverty in the first place (change labor markets, family support systems)
oDo not segregate schools by socioeconomic status (by neighborhood is bad idea)
oMore resources for the poor students—more instruction time, tutoring
oHope—labor market and vocational and post-secondary schooling opportunities
•Actual programs that attempt to improve situation: Head Start, Summer schooling for poorer children (remember the trend that kids with better backgrounds continued to learn and grow during the summers putting them ahead of the poorer children)
•“Do all of this by persuading the public that high levels of inequality are bad for the economy” |
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Term
| OTL (Opportunities to Learn), Effort, Ability |
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Definition
-The theoretical model that sociologists use to explain student learning
oOTL—structure (malleable, not by students), between and within: schools, families, neighborhoods, peer groups
oEffort—agency (within our control), also sensitive to social context (expectations)
oAbility—learning rate vs. capacity, innate vs. learned
•How you play your hand matters (choices), but so does the hand that you are dealt (structure)
•Resource decks: home environment, school, friends/peers |
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