Table Of ContentRoger White
Multidimensional
Poverty in America
The Incidence and
Intensity of Deprivation,
2008–2018
Multidimensional Poverty in America
Roger White
Multidimensional
Poverty in America
The Incidence and Intensity of Deprivation,
2008–2018
Roger White
Department of Economics
Whittier College
Whittier, CA, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-45915-4 ISBN 978-3-030-45916-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45916-1
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for everything.
P
reface
The message of this book is simultaneously commonplace and necessary.
We know that deprivation exists in contemporary America. We also know
that it has existed to varying degrees throughout the nation’s history. And
it is true that deprivation need not exist in such a wealthy and advanced
society. The resources and means required to eliminate deprivation in
America are in place and, frankly, have been for quite some time.
Unfortunately, even when adequate resources are available, the elimina-
tion of deprivation requires that several conditions are fulfilled, one or
more of which may be lacking. First, it is necessary to identify the forms of
deprivation that are to be countered. Second, accurate measurement of
these deprivations in both incidence and severity is needed. Finally, and
likely most essential, the public and the nation’s policy makers must
acknowledge that deprivation exists and consider its elimination an impor-
tant goal.
My intention is to provide useful information that may contribute to
the reduction or elimination of deprivation in America. We begin by intro-
ducing multidimensional poverty, discussing the associated literature, and
detailing the process of measuring deprivation. This serves to provide a
basic understanding for any readers who are not deeply familiar with the
topic while also communicating the necessary details regarding our appli-
cation of multidimensional analysis to those who are more familiar with
the topic. Once our preliminaries are in place, we present a detailed
accounting of America’s multidimensionally poor. This is followed by
three studies that serve as examples of how multidimensional poverty anal-
ysis can inform public policy and a counterfactual analysis of the
vii
viii PREFACE
deprivation-reducing effects of several public policies. We close with a
general discussion of the associated public policy implications. Throughout
our empirical treatments, we examine data from the 2008 through 2018
American Community Surveys. This large and detailed data set is well-
suited for our purposes as, for our reference period of 2008–2018, it pro-
vides information for more than 34 million U.S. residents.
I hope that this work proves useful to policy makers, while also being of
interest to students, faculty, researchers, and members of the general pub-
lic. Because this work is intended to serve both as a record and as an
examination of multidimensional poverty in the U.S., remaining objective
and providing a largely descriptive portrait of deprivation is a key impera-
tive. To that end, while every effort has been made to remain neutral and
objective, there is some risk that neutrality has not been achieved or sus-
tained throughout the work and, as a result, objectivity has suffered. To
the extent that this has occurred, I take full responsibility. Likewise, I take
complete responsibility for all errors of commission or of omission.
Whittier, CA Roger White
a
cknowledgments
I wish to convey my gratitude to the administration of Whittier College
for their continued funding of my research efforts. Accordingly, I acknowl-
edge the generous research support provided by the Douglas W. Ferguson
Chair in International Economics.
I am indebted to a number of individuals without whose contributions
and support the completion of this book would not have been possible.
First and foremost, I owe a debt of thanks to my friend, Feridoon Koohi-
Kamali, for introducing me to the topic of multidimensional poverty. My
work has also benefitted greatly from the efforts of three Whittier College
students: Lindsey Macdonald ’17, Kiara Pojoy ’21, and Lindley Lee-
Niegas ’22. Each of these bright, hard-working, and creative individuals
has provided outstanding research support during different stages of this
project. Additionally, the work presented here benefitted considerably
from prior research efforts. Namely, I wish to thank two additional
Whittier College students, Stacy Yamasaki ’17 and Thomas Bailleul ’19,
with whom I was fortunate to have co-authored works on the subject of
multidimensional poverty. Stacy and I completed a chapter titled,
“Multidimensional Poverty among the Native- and Foreign-born in the
U.S.: Evidence from the 2010–2014 American Community Surveys” that
was published as part of Palgrave Macmillan’s Measuring Multidimensional
Poverty and Deprivation: Incidence and Determinants in Developed
Countries. Similarly, Thomas and I contributed a chapter named,
“Multidimensional Poverty Across the Life Cycle: The United States as an
Empirical Example” to the Routledge International Handbook of Poverty.
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
These specific works serve as the foundations for the examples of multidi-
mensional poverty analysis that are presented as Chaps. 9 and 10.
I would be remiss if I did not also express my gratitude to Elizabeth
Graber, commissioning editor, and to Sophia Siegler, editorial assistant,
and to their colleagues at Palgrave Macmillan for their confidence in this
project and for their feedback, continued support, and help during the
completion of this book.
Lastly, very special thanks are in order for Michelle Espaldon for her
tremendous friendship, continued patience, and much-appreciated loving
support, and to Scout for continuing to be her usual, charming, goofy,
and wonderful self.
c
ontents
Part I Introducing Multidimensional Poverty 1
1 Poverty and Deprivation in America 3
2 A Survey of the Literature on Multidimensional Poverty 29
3 Measuring Multidimensional Poverty 61
Part II America’s Multidimensionally Poor 89
4 A Profile of Multidimensional Poverty in America 91
5 Variation in Multidimensional Poverty Across Geographic
Locales 109
6 Variation in Multidimensional Poverty Across Socio-
Demographic Cohorts 153
7 Identifying the Determinants of Multidimensional Poverty 173
xi
