Poverty and Protectionism

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Y. Wilson

The United States had a trade deficit of $170 billion in 1987 and, even though the value of the dollar has been declining, the deficit has shown no consistent pattern of improvement. The magnitude and persistence of the trade imbalance has led to a great deal of discussion of its impact on the U.S. economy and of policies that might be used to correct the imbalance. One major consideration that is often overlooked is the distributional and equity effect of the trade situation on the poor. While some advocates embrace protectionist policies as a means of “saving” jobs for low-income Americans, others argue that these measures raise the cost of goods used by the poor with no guarantee that jobs are actually saved. The following article reviews the available evidence on the position of low-income Americans under a policy of protectionism.

1991 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-13
Author(s):  
David S. Wiley

Linking scholars to the Congress is difficult primarily because of the weakness of Congressional interest in Africa, but also due to the low levels of interest among academics in both Congress and its Africa foreign policy and the poor resources of African studies in the U.S. to build a foundation of knowledge useful to the Congress.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S64-S65
Author(s):  
Emma Aguila ◽  
Jaqueline L Angel ◽  
Kyriakos Markides

Abstract The United States and Mexico differ greatly in the organization and financing of their old-age welfare states. They also differ politically and organizationally in government response at all levels to the needs of low-income and frail citizens. While both countries are aging rapidly, Mexico faces more serious challenges in old-age support that arise from a less developed old-age welfare state and economy. For Mexico, financial support and medical care for older low-income citizens are universal rights, however, limited fiscal resources for a large low-income population create inevitable competition among the old and the young alike. Although the United States has a more developed economy and well-developed Social Security and health care financing systems for the elderly, older Mexican-origin individuals in the U.S. do not necessarily benefit fully from these programs. These institutional and financial problems to aging are compounded in both countries by longer life spans, smaller families, as well as changing gender roles and cultural norms. In this interdisciplinary panel, the authors of five papers deal with the following topics: (1) an analysis of old age health and dependency conditions, the supply of aging and disability services, and related norms and policies, including the role of the government and the private sector; (2) a binational comparison of federal safety net programs for low-income elderly in U.S. and Mexico; (3) when strangers become family: the role of civil society in addressing the needs of aging populations; and (4) unmet needs for dementia care for Latinos in the Hispanic-EPESE.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-65
Author(s):  
Ilya Slavinski ◽  
Kimberly Spencer-Suarez

Over the last several decades, with the rise of mass incarceration in the United States and its steep costs, governments at the federal, state, and local levels have dramatically ramped up monetary punishment. Monetary sanctions are now the most common type of criminal penalty in the United States. The growth of fines, fees, and other legal financial obligations (LFOs), and the ensuing legal debt, reflect a shifting of the system’s costs onto its primarily low-income and indigent subjects. This study provides an exploration of previously underexamined ways in which monetary sanctions impose distinct burdens on the poor. Interviews with 121 defendants in Texas and New York, along with courtroom observations, demonstrate that criminal legal debt is particularly challenging for people with low incomes in three meaningful ways. First, systems set up to handle indigency claims do not adequately address the needs or complex individual circumstances of those who simply do not have the ability to pay. Oftentimes, alternatives are unavailable or statutorily prohibited. Second, the lack of alternatives to payment lead to compromising situations, which then compel indigent defendants to make difficult choices about how to allocate scant resources. Finally, being encumbered with fines and fees and participating in alternatives like community service comes with taxing time requirements that can prove uniquely challenging for those who are poor. These three findings lead us to propose a series of policy recommendations revolving around three key themes: (a) enhancement of indigency procedures, (b) equity in monetary sanctions, and (c) alleviating burdens by improving accessibility.


1979 ◽  
Vol 1979 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
Alan P. Bentz ◽  
Stanley L. Smith

ABSTRACT In several recent court cases, evidence of an oil “fingerprint” has been used to identify the source of an oil spill. As a result, those responsible for the spill have been required to pay a civil penalty and to reimburse the United States for the cost of cleaning up the oil. The use of such evidence in court supports the conclusion that the U.S. Coast Guard's oil spill identification system is both scientifically and legally sound.


2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (8) ◽  
pp. 971-999 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Victoria Murillo ◽  
Andrew Schrank

Why did Latin American governments adopt potentially costly, union-friendly labor reforms in the cost-sensitive 1980s and 1990s? The authors answer the question by exploring the relationship between trade unions and two of their most important allies: labor-backed parties at home and labor rights activists overseas. While labor-backed parties in Latin America have locked in the support of their core constituencies by adopting relatively union-friendly labor laws in an otherwise uncertain political and economic environment, labor rights activists in the United States have demonstrated their support for their Latin American allies by asking the U.S. government to treat the protection of labor rights as the price of access to the U.S. market. The former trajectory is the norm in traditionally labor-mobilizing polities, where industrialization encouraged the growth of labor-backed parties in the postwar era; the latter is more common in more labor-repressive environments, where vulnerable unions tend to look for allies overseas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Torres ◽  
Russell Rudman

Experts have determined that the cost of attending college is rising (Williams, 2006) and as a result, it has altered college graduates’ cumulative debt levels. In addition, research shows that those who attend college are more likely to earn higher salaries (Ma et al., 2016). Consequently, the existence of a low-income college graduate population would be considered a paradox. Simultaneous to such changes mentioned, homeownership among young individuals is declining in the United States (Dettling & Hsu, 2014). As of today, research has focused on the relationship between student loan debt and homeownership but has neglected the relationship between cumulative debt and homeownership. This study will answer the following question: What is the relationship between cumulative debt acquired by low-income college graduates between the ages of 23-40 in the United States in the 21st century and the corresponding likelihood of homeownership? Through interviews with five low-income college graduates, I collected narratives describing their outlooks on cumulative debt and its influences on homeownership. Through thematic analysis, I drew connections between common themes that indicated how cumulative debt affected one’s actions or thoughts regarding purchasing a home.  The results showed that cumulative debt has negative effects on homeownership. Subjects disclosed that their struggle to pay their cumulative debt and inability to accumulate wealth were the two most common hindrances of purchasing a home. This is significant because cumulative debt predetermines how the subject manages their finances to pursue purchasing a home and such data may influence the financial decisions of future generations.


FEDS Notes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (2945) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hunter L. Clark ◽  
◽  
Anna Wong ◽  

The United States' bilateral goods trade deficit with China appeared to have narrowed substantially since the escalation of the U.S.-China trade conflict in 2018, or so U.S. trade data suggest. By contrast, the Chinese data tell a much different story: the deficit, as implied by China's bilateral surplus, nearly reached historical highs by the end of 2020.


2015 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
The Editors

<div class="buynow"><a title="Back issue of Monthly Review, May 2015 (Volume 67, Number 1)" href="http://monthlyreview.org/back-issues/mr-067-01-2015-05/">buy this issue</a></div>As we write these notes in March 2015, the Pentagon's official Vietnam War Commemoration, conducted in cooperation with the U.S. media, is highlighting the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. ground war in Vietnam, marked by the arrival of two Marine battalions in De Nang on March 8, 1965. This date, however, was far from constituting the beginning of the war. The first American to die of military causes in Vietnam, killed in 1945, was a member of the Office of Strategic Services (a precursor of the CIA). U.S. intelligence officers were there in support of the French war to recolonize Vietnam, following the end of the Japanese occupation in the Second World War and Vietnam's declaration of national independence as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The French recolonization effort is sometimes called the First Indochina War in order to distinguish it from the Second Indochina War, initiated by the United States. In reality, it was all one war against the Viet Minh (Vietnamese Independence League). By the time that the Vietnamese defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the United States was paying for 80&ndash;90 percent of the cost of the war.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-1" title="Vol. 67, No. 1: May 2015" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>


2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 42-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yung Chul Park ◽  
Chi-Young Song

This paper argues that renminbi (RMB) internationalization and China's strategic interests in ASEAN will combine to deepen economic integration and pave the way for creating a de facto RMB bloc consisting of the 10 ASEAN countries, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan—a grouping we call ASEAN+New3. Such a currency bloc is likely to weaken the initiatives of the existing ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, and Korea) for regional monetary-financial cooperation because neither Japan nor can Korea join the new currency bloc for economic and political reasons. This paper also argues that RMB internationalization would delay the resolution of the trade imbalance between East Asia and the United States because China would be pressured by the other members of ASEAN+New3 to maintain stability of the RMB vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar.


Author(s):  
Jung Yun (Jennifer) Yang

China has had a long history of high levels of piracy and counterfeiting. Leaders of China’s Food and Drug Administration have confessed that their pharmaceutical market is immersed in fake and deadly drugs.1 In addition, DVD’s and VCD’s 2 containing pirated versions of Chinese and foreign films or television series are easily found in China’s major cities.3 Since China is the world’s fastest growing economy and the contributor of the largest trade deficit to the United States (U.S.) (U.S. $268 billion in 2008), 4 it is no surprise that the issue of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) counterfeiting and piracy are of national interest to the U.S..


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