Search Results

This chapter takes a look at thrift among low-income populations today, analyzing institutions that support and discourage thrift among the poor. Personal savings itself is institutionally arranged to be easily available to the prosperous and relatively inaccessible to the low-income worker. The sale of lottery tickets and the high-interest lending of payday loan centers, on the other hand, are available at every corner store and strip mall. In this way, government and mainstream market forces are discouraging the practice of thrift among low-income populations (often, as in the case of credit card companies, in the name of “democratization”) more forcefully than ever before. The rising tide of this “debt culture” has been countered by the growing influence of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), which offer a range of services from savings accounts to mortgage lending to venture capital investing in low-income areas, and usually enjoy support from government funding and partnership with commercial financial organizations. They have popularized the notion of a “double bottom line” that measures investment success by both financial return and social impact. The overall impact of CDFIs, however, has been too small to counteract substantially the anti-thrift forces among the American poor.

This chapter explores the spatial inequality that occurs in the safety net assistance programs of the American welfare state. It argues that the safety net does not provide equitable access to social service programs that have become such an essential part of the American welfare state. It explains that spatial inequalities in the safety net are important to understand as they undermine the success of policy, bias research on poverty, and even create obstacles for community organizations working with low-income populations.

This chapter examines the differences and similarities between secular and faith-based organizations by comparing the service provision across secular nonprofit organizations and various types of faith-based organizations (FBO). Survey data from the Multi-City Survey of Social Service Providers grasp the characteristic of FBOs and religious congregations that claim to provide social services to low-income populations. It adds that although places of worship offering informal or infrequent aid, counselling, or relief, were not included in the survey, the organizations interviewed showed the faith-based providers are most ready to take advantage of a faith-based service initiative and most likely to have the capability to increase social service activities.