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When most people think of policies designed to help the poor, welfare is the first program that comes to mind. Traditionally welfare has served individuals who do not work—hence much of the stigma that some attach to the program. An equally important strand of American social policy, however, is meant to support low-wage workers and their families. In Boosting Paychecks, Daniel Gitterman illuminates this often neglected part of the American safety net. Gitterman focuses on two sets of policy instruments that have been used to aid the working poor since the early twentieth century: the federal tax code and the minimum wage. The income tax code can be fine-tuned in many ways—through exemptions, deductions, credits, changing tax brackets and rates—to alter the amount of income workers are left with at the end of the day. In addition, it interacts with the minimum wage to determine the economic well-being of many lowincome households. Boosting Paychecks analyzes the partisan politics that have shaped these policies since the New Deal era, with particular attention paid to the past three decades. It also examines the degree to which they have succeeded in lifting low-wage workers and their families out of poverty. Forging a new political bargain that balances labor market flexibility with security for poor working families is one of the most critical challenges facing government today. Boosting Paychecks sheds new light on the scope of this challenge and the political constraints and opportunities policymakers face.
In the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the United States suffered the most sustained and extensive wave of job destruction since the Great Depression. When families in need sought help from the safety net, however, they found themselves trapped in a system that increasingly tied public assistance to private employment. In The Workfare State, Eva Bertram recounts the compelling history of the evolving social contract from the New Deal to the present to show how a need-based entitlement was replaced with a work-conditioned safety net, heightening the economic vulnerability of many poor families. The Workfare State challenges the conventional understanding of the development of modern public assistance policy. New Deal and Great Society Democrats expanded federal assistance from the 1930s to the 1960s, according to the standard account. After the 1980 election, the tide turned and Republicans ushered in a new conservative era in welfare politics. Bertram argues that the decisive political struggles took place in the 1960s and 1970s, when Southern Democrats in Congress sought to redefine the purposes of public assistance in ways that would preserve their region's political, economic, and racial order. She tells the story of how the South—the region with the nation's highest levels of poverty and inequality and least generous social welfare policies—won the fight to rewrite America's antipoverty policy in the decades between the Great Society and the 1996 welfare reform. Their successes provided the foundation for leaders in both parties to build the contemporary workfare state—just as deindustrialization and global economic competition made low-wage jobs less effective at providing income security and mobility.
This book closely examines controversial claims and beliefs surrounding poverty and anti-poverty programs in the United States. It authoritatively dismantles falsehoods, half-truths, and misconceptions, leaving readers with an unbiased, accurate understanding of these issues. Poverty and Welfare in America: Examining the Facts, like every book in the Contemporary Debates series, is intended to puncture rather than perpetuate myths that diminish our understanding of important policies and positions; to provide needed context for misleading statements and claims; and to confirm the factual accuracy of other assertions. This book clarifies some of the most contentious and misunderstood aspects of American poverty and the social welfare programs that have been crafted to combat it over the years. In addition to providing up-to-date data about the extent of American poverty among various demographic groups in the United States, it examines the chief causes of poverty in the 21st century, including divorce, disability, and educational shortfalls. Moreover, the book provides an evenhanded examination of the nation's social welfare agencies and the effectiveness of various social service programs managed by those agencies in addressing and reducing poverty.
In 1970, a single mother with two children working full-time at the federal minimum wage in the US received no direct cash benefits from the federal government. Today, after a period of austerity, that same mother would receive $7,572 in federal cash benefits. This money does not come from social assistance, family allowances, or other programs we traditionally see as part of the welfare state. Instead, she benefits from the earned income tax credit (EITC) and the child tax credit (CTC)-tax credits for low-income families that have become a major component of American social policy. In The Fiscalization of Social Policy, Joshua McCabe challenges conventional wisdom on American exceptionalism, offering the first and only comparative analysis of the politics of tax credits. Drawing comparisons between similar developments in the UK and Canada, McCabe upends much of what we know about tax credits for low-income families. Rather than attributing these changes to anti-welfare attitudes, mobilization of conservative forces, shifts toward workfare, or racial antagonism, he argues that the growing use of tax credits for social policy was a strategic adaptation to austerity. While all three countries employ the same set of tax credits, child US poverty rates remain highest, as their tax credits paradoxically exclude the poorest families. A critical examination of social policy over the last fifty years, The Fiscalization of Social Policy shows why the US government hasn't tackled poverty, even while it implements greater tax benefits for the poor.
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Few clothing items are as ubiquitous or casual as blue jeans. Yet, their simplicity is deceptive. Blue jeans are nothing if not an exercise in opposites. Americans have accepted jeans as a symbol of their culture, but today jeans are a global consumer product category. Levi Strauss made blue jeans in the 1870s to withstand the hard work of mining, but denim has since become the epitome of leisure. In the 1950s, celebrities like Marlon Brando transformed the utilitarian clothing of industrial labor into a glamorous statement of youthful rebellion, and now, you can find jeans on chic fashion runways. For some, indigo blue might be the color of freedom, but for workers who have produced the dye, it has often been a color of oppression and tyranny. Blue Jeans considers the versatility of this iconic garment and investigates what makes denim a universal signifier, ready to fit any context, meaning, and body. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
In the last half century, North Carolina and the South have experienced rapid economic growth. Much of the best analysis of this progress came from two North Carolina-based research organizations: the Southern Growth Policies Board and MDC (originally a project of the North Carolina Fund). Their 1986 reports are two of the best assessments of the achievements and limitations of the so-called Sunbelt boom. On November 17, 2011, the Global Research Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Institute for Emerging Issues at North Carolina State University co-hosted a public discussion to build on these classic reports and to offer fresh analyses of the current challenges facing the region. A Way Forward, which issued from this effort, features more than thirty original essays containing recommendations and strategies for building and sustaining a globally competitive South.
Mary Norton of New Jersey: Congressional Trailblazer tells the compelling story of Mary Norton, who served in the United States House of Representatives for 13 terms from 1925 to 1951, featuring her significant role as a congressional pioneer for women and American workers. The daughter of Irish immigrants, Norton grew up in a Roman Catholic, working-class family and was prodded to enter politics by Jersey City mayor Frank Hague. One of the first five women elected to the United States Congress, she cut a fresh path for women of ordinary means as the first female elected to the House from the Democratic Party, an eastern state, or urban center east of the Mississippi River. Norton’s political career paralleled mayor Hague’s tight control of Jersey City and president Franklin Roosevelt’s national leadership during the Depression and World War II. Norton’s connection with Hague’s Jersey City Democratic Party political machine clouded her career, but Hague seldom tried to influence her legislative behavior. Norton, the first woman to chair four House committees including a major committee, consistently supported legislation helping economically disadvantaged Americans and encouraged women to enter politics. At the helm of the District of Columbia Committee from 1931 to 1937, she served as unofficial mayor of Washington, D.C. and helped enact long-needed political, economic, and social legislation for its citizens. Her most valuable work came as head of the powerful Labor Committee from 1937 to 1947. Norton helped secure House passage of the landmark Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, establishing a national minimum hourly wage and maximum workweek. She sought to improve working conditions for America’s newly industrialized workers and defended the Wagner Act of 1935, allowing employees to bargain collectively for the value of their work. Norton also helped secure federal funding for several Hudson County projects benefitting her Irish, Roman Catholic, working-class constituents. The expansion of mayor Hague’s gargantuan Medical Center Complex and the construction of Roosevelt Stadium provided numerous jobs for unemployed Hudson County residents. Norton, who never lost an election and was reelected by decisive margins, was the first woman elected as a freeholder in New Jersey and to direct a state Democratic Party.
"Pay, and particularly others' pay, is a topic of interest to all of us. While we may deem it inappropriate to ask our boss what others in the organization are earning, that doesn't mean we wouldn't like to know. Nor is this due merely to curiosity. Knowing the figures on others' paychecks is important because, lacking such information, it's difficult for us to assess how fair our own pay is, whether we are justified in seeking a raise, or whether it's worth our while to seek our fortune in some other organization or career. Moreover, we might look favorably upon greater transparency in pay-related matters not only as employees, but also as citizens. Greater pay transparency might serve as a means to (a) better ensure that labor markets efficiently match individuals with those employers most able to leverage their talent, and (b) make it harder for employers to discriminate, whether intentionally or not, against women, minorities, and other disadvantaged groups with respect to pay"--
Purpose and a Paycheck tells the compelling story of how a growing movement of older entrepreneurs and part-time workers are creating a stronger and more vibrant economy. People 65 and older will account for 20 percent of the population in 2030, up from 13 percent in 2000. Many prognosticators blame the aging population for the stagnating economy, citing that as more people retire, they will stop working as relatively fewer working people have to support growing numbers of dependent elderly. Purpose and a Paycheck debunks this line of thought by showing how a growing movement of elderly entrepreneurs and part time workers are creating conditions for a stronger economy Growing numbers of Americans are no longer retiring in the traditional sense, and the numbers are striking such as: the labor force participation rate of men 60 years and over has risen nearly one-third from a low of 26 percent in 1996 to 35 percent in 2014, the comparable rate for women is from 15 percent to 25 percent, and 25.5 percent of new business ventures in 2016 were started by the 55-to-64-year-old age group, up from 14.8 percent in 1996. America’s aging society and workforce is redefining work for all generations and is a strong force in shaping the U.S. economy and society, alongside globalization, automation, and climate change. Reframing aging will result in faster rates of economic growth and higher living standards for all of us in addition to a more fulfilling and financially secure second half of life for our aging population.
Considers H.R. 13000, to establish a permanent system for adjusting salaries of Federal employees, through the Federal Employee Salary Commission, and to provide an immediate pay increase for postal employees.