This review explains how and why the U.S. has systemically high poverty. Descriptive evidence shows U.S. poverty is: (a) a huge share of the population; (b) a perennial outlier among rich democracies; (c) staggeringly high for certain groups; (d) surprisingly high for those who "play by the...

This study assesses if structural theory explains the variation in poverty across rich Western democracies. With unbalanced panel analysis of 18 countries, two poverty measures and controlling for the welfare state and economic performance, I examine five structural factors: manufacturing...

Despite its centrality to contemporary inequality, working poverty is often popularly discussed but rarely studied by sociologists. Using the Luxembourg Income Study, we analyze whether an individual is working poor across 18 affluent democracies circa 2000. We demonstrate that working poverty...

Although many have expressed concern over whether generous welfare policies discourage the employment of single mothers, scholars have rarely exploited cross-national variability in the generosity of social policies to assess this question. This is the case even though much previous scholarship...

Our study analyzes how political context, embodied by the welfare state and Leftist political actors, shapes individual poverty. Using the Luxembourg Income Study, we conduct a multilevel analysis of working-aged adult poverty across 18 affluent Western democracies. Our index of welfare...

This study investigates the relationship between the welfare state and poverty with multiple measures of the welfare state and poverty in an unbalanced panel of 18 Western nations from 1967 to 1997. While addressing the limitations of past research, the analysis shows that social security...

Despite its centrality to contemporary inequality, working poverty is often popularly discussed but rarely studied by sociologists. Using the Luxembourg Income Study, we analyze whether an individual is working poor across 18 affluent democracies circa 2000. We demonstrate that working poverty...