Many ideas about poverty and discrimination are nothing more than politically driven assertions unsupported by evidence. And even politically neutral studies that do try to assess evidence are often simply unreliable. In Poverty and Discrimination, economist Kevin Lang cuts through the vast literature on poverty and discrimination to determine what we actually know and how we know it.
Using rigorous statistical analysis and economic thinking to judge what the best research is and which theories match the evidence, this book clears the ground for students, social scientists, and policymakers who want to understand—and help reduce—poverty and discrimination. It evaluates how well antipoverty and antidiscrimination policies and programs have worked—and whether they have sometimes actually made the problems worse. And it provides new insights about the causes of, and possible solutions to, poverty and discrimination.
The book begins by asking, “Who is poor?” and by giving a brief history of poverty and poverty policy in the United States in the twentieth century, including the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Among the topics covered are the changing definition of poverty, the relation between economic growth and poverty, and the effects of labor markets, education, family composition, and concentrated poverty. The book then evaluates the evidence on racial discrimination in areas such as education, employment, and criminal justice, as well as sex discrimination in the labor market, and assesses the effectiveness of antidiscrimination policies.
Throughout, the book is grounded in the conviction that we must have much better empirical knowledge of poverty and discrimination if we hope to reduce them.
Awards and Recognition
- Honorable Mention for the 2007 Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Sociology and Social Work, Association of American Publishers
"This volume could be usefully employed as a textbook in upper-level undergraduate and more advanced courses in poverty and discrimination, as well as a reference work for specialists. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice
"Poverty and Discrimination is social science at its best. The issues are interesting, the analysis is first rate, the organization is excellent, and . . . [the] data is exemplary."—Arnold Kling, EconLog
"Kevin Lang has written a significant book that assesses recent developments in the study of poverty and discrimination, reviews the formal theories, and provides insight into their validity through statistical analysis; in essence, a book that addresses the basic issues of poverty and discrimination. It is an excellent text for economists, social scientists, and public policy makers."—Kathryn Goering Reid, Journal of Children and Poverty
"Readers of the book will become better critics of statistical evidence used in policy debate sand more skeptical of strong claims about a policy's success (or failure). They also will more fully understand the difficulty of conducting highly credible policy research and crafting effective policies."—Rohert D. Plotnick, Industrial and Labor Relations Review
"Lang has written an excellent book that can serve as a useful tool for researchers, students, and policymakers. The author clearly is an expert in the field who has thoroughly researched his topic."—Casey P. Homan, Monthly Labor Review
"Poverty and Discrimination provides a wide-ranging discussion of all the aspects of social policy that are related to economic disadvantage, from welfare programs to education to labor markets, with a particular emphasis on discrimination. The text provides an excellent overview of facts, of research results, and of policy debates. Interspersed in this discussion are many good lessons in data analysis and research methodology. This book is a great reference and review of many areas and will work as an excellent text for undergraduate and graduate-level courses on poverty, inequality, or discrimination."—Rebecca M. Blank, University of Michigan
"Kevin Lang's new textbook on poverty and discrimination is at once lucid, rigorous, and topical. He shows how the conceptual insights of modern economic theory can be combined with state-of-the-art statistical techniques in order to answer the questions, 'What do we know about poverty and how do we know it?' This elegant, learned, and highly accessible book will, I predict, exert a major and beneficial influence in the years ahead on the study of poverty and discrimination in the United States."—Glenn C. Loury, author of The Anatomy of Racial Inequality
"Kevin Lang is engaging and always thought-provoking, and he covers a lot of ground. I don't agree with him on all issues, but that is really the point of the book—to show that reasonable people can differ on some of the most important social issues of our day and then give students the tools to assess arguments critically and make their own decisions. This book is an excellent resource for any class on poverty issues."—Janet M. Currie, author of The Invisible Safety Net: Protecting the Nation's Poor Children and Families
"This volume will be an extraordinarily helpful tool for anyone teaching in the field of poverty and discrimination. It assembles the latest data, weaves it together with competing theories, and highlights the policy options and dilemmas that we struggle with in the United States. We have not had a textbook like this in decades and it will be a tremendous asset to students and faculty alike."—Katherine S. Newman, author of Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market
"This book provides a theoretically grounded and empirically up-to-date review of both economic research and economic policies related to poverty and discrimination. It is a welcome contribution reflecting Kevin Lang's broad knowledge of both the massive academic literature and current policy debates."—Joshua D. Angrist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
