Poverty Law Prof Blog

Call For Newsletter Submissions from Poverty Law Professors

If you are on the poverty law professor listserv, you have already seen this, but if not...

In the interest of sharing what we are doing individually and in the hopes that doing so will inspire connections that might not otherwise happen, I am putting together a Poverty Law Newsletter in advance of the AALS conference.  If you could email me with what you have been up to in the following categories (feel free to suggest other categories as well), I will put together such a newsletter.  Categories:

• Upcoming Conferences
• Books and Book Updates
• Articles and Other Publications
• Speeches and Presentations
• Legislative and Regulatory Activities
• Personal Notes

For inclusion in the newsletter, please email me by Nov. 5th (extended deadline) at erosser@wcl.american.edu.

Thoughts on Moments of Change

This is a non-partisan blog, but that having been said, I think that come Wednesday the poverty law community might be in a situation somewhat analogous to the change in administration period between Bush Sr. and Clinton.  A wonderful article from that period captures this very well.  The article: Fran Ansley, Standing Rusty and Rolling Empty: Law, Poverty, and America's Eroding Industrial Base, 81 Geo. L.J. 1757 (1993).  Below are some excerpts that resonate strongly today (or at least perhaps by Wednesday):

"This is an important moment for anti-poverty advocates.  There are economic changes at work that threaten to exacerbate and entrench disparities that are already a disturbingly salient feature of American society. . . . The advent of a new administration in Washington, while holding out the hope of a welcome end to much that was brutal and wrong-headed in our recent national economic policy, is hardly the end of the story. . . . A strategy that used the power of the executive to give traditionally unrepresented groups an effective voice would greatly increase the executive's available options.  The nation's new leadership currently faces a set of exceedingly difficult constraints imposed by global competition, the world-wide recession, and the crippling debt burden inherited from the Reagan-Bush years, all situated in an impoverished political landscape dominated overwhelmingly by corporate interests.  The new administration does not have the tools to change that landscape alone if it wanted to, but a number of concrete steps that are within its power could help to unleash a popular energy and motion that could move toward real democratic change.  The question is whether the Administration will have the courage and the vision to follow such a strategy." 

For a decidedly partisan election related video that is great to send to friends, click here (this version attacks me but it can be customized). 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

New Blog and New Book: "Philanthrocapitalism"

Bob Giloth, the Director of the Family Economic Success Initiative at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has a new blog, www.bobgiloth.com, available here. 

A recent post of interest for example calls attention to "Philanthrocapitalism," and the new book by Matthew Bishop & Michael Green, Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World (2008).  See also, Michael Edwards, Just Another Emperor? The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism (2008), blogged about by Bob Giloth here. 

-Thanks to Josh Nelson for the heads up!  E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Conference Announcement: Urban Child Symposium at Univ. of Baltimore

The University of Baltimore School of Law's Center for Families, Children and the Courts' first Urban Child symposium, "Solving the Drop-Out Crisis: Getting the Other Half to Attend and Achieve," April 2, 2009. 

From the website: "Panelists will focus on the correlation between truancy and drop-out rate in a series of discussions about the challenges facing urban children and the best ways to help children face those challenges successfully." 

-Thanks to the Legal Scholarship Blog for the heads up.  E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

ABA Commission on Homelessness and Poverty

Older book that I came across today: ABA Commission on Homelessness and Poverty's book, Lawyers Working to End Homelessness (2006).  The table of contents is here, bios of contributors are here, and an overview is below:

NPR Coverage of redefining poverty and Poll results

National Public Radio's coverage of poverty has two things of note:

• The NPR/Kaiser/Kennedy School Poll Results on Poverty in America are here (2001).
  
• "Redefining poverty in the U.S." Oct. 17, 2008.  Summary below:
  • The U.S. definition of poverty is more than 40 years old, and critics think it's time for an overhaul. Mayors from all over the country met in L.A. to come up with a plan for resetting the poverty line. Rachel Dornhelm has more.

-Thanks to Stephanie Humphries for the heads up.  E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Pro Bono is Anti-Social!

At least according to Judge Dennis Jacobs, Chief Judge of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.  See blog posting on clinicians with not enough to do here.

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 2008

The Institute for Research on Poverty at Wisconsin has a lot of helpful resources, including recent discussion papers that were presented at the IRP Conference "Changing Poverty," May 29-30, 2008. 

• Poverty Levels and Trends in Comparative Perspective, by Daniel R. Meyer and Geoffrey L. Wallace
• Economic Change and the Structure of Opportunity for Less-Skilled Workers, by Rebbeca M. Blank
• Family Structure, Childbearing, and Parental Employment: Implications for the Level and Trend in Poverty, by Maria Cancian and Deborah Reed
• Immigration and Poverty in the United States by Steven Raphael and Eugene Smolensky
• Enduring Influences of Childhood Poverty, by Katherine Magnuson and Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal
• Mobility in the United States in Comparative Perspective, by Markus Jantti
• Trends in Income Support, by John Karl Scholz, Robert Moffitt, and Benjamin Cowan
• The Role of Family Policies in Anti-Poverty Policy, by Jane Waldfogel
• Improving Educational Outcomes for Poor Children, by Brian A. Jacob and Jens Ludwig
• Workforce Development as an Antipoverty Strategy: What Do We Know? What Should We Do? by Harry J. Holzer
• Health Care for the Poor: For Whom, What Care, and Whose Responsibility? by Katherine Swartz
• Poverty Politics and Policy, Mary Jo Bane
• What Does It Mean to Be Poor in a Rich Society? by Robert Haveman [Also available on the IRP website are slides from the Robert J. Lampman Memorial Lecture entitled "What Does It Mean to be Poor in a Rich Society?" by Robert H. Haveman.]

-Thanks to Susan Bennett for the heads up. E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Poverty in America & Report on Credit Impact from Wall St to Main St-- Summary from Joint Economic Committee of Congress

The Joint Economic Committee of Congress puts out occasional, brief, fact sheets and reports.  Two recent ones of note that present how Congress sees these issues are:

• Poverty in America (Aug. 26, 2008)
• From Wall Street to Main Street: Understanding How the Credit Crisis Affects You (Oct. 3, 2008)
• And from a year ago: The Subprime Lending Crisis: The Economic Impact on Wealth, Poverty Values, and Tax Revenues, and How We Got There (Oct. 25, 2007)

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Cool graphic on the components of inflation

The New York Times has a somewhat dated multimedia graphic showing the components of the Consumer Price Index that is pretty interesting and good for in-class explanations. 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Focus on Working Class

A quick report, Working Hard, Still Falling Short, was just released by the Working Poor Families Project.  Relatedly, the upcoming New York Times Sunday Magazine features the story, Matt Bai, "Working for the Working Class Vote," Oct. 15, 2008. 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Congratulations to Paul Krugman

Given the number of times I have linked to one of Krugman's op-eds, it seems worth noting that Krugman just won a Nobel Prize in Economics!

=) E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Executive Compensation and the Financial Crisis

In the wake of the financial crisis, or rather in the midst of the current crisis, there are a number of resources from various outlets on executive pay.  Below are some, but if you have others, let me know and I'll add them:

• MSNBC Slideshow, "These Guys Made How Much? Their companies went belly-up, but they walked away with a fortune." 
• AFL-CIO 2008 Executive Paywatch.
• New York Times, Apr. 5, 2008, "Executive Pay: The Bottom Line for Those at the Top," very good multimedia/graphic link with info on a large number of CEOs. 
• House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Hearing on "Executive Compensation II: CEO Pay and Mortgage Crisis," March 7, 2008, with transcripts, video, and testimony.  A USA Today story on the hearing is here. 
• Center for Corporate Policy's Executive Compensation webpage. 
• Video of Lehman Brother's CEO's testimony before Congress.  Rep. Henry Waxman asks Richard S. Fuld, Jr. the basic question of whether the CEO's compensation was "fair?"  Fuld questions the numbers but does not really answer the question.  GREAT video.  Here is the New York Times story on the same hearing. 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Op-Ed of Interest: "The Class War Before Palin"

David Brooks has an interesting op-ed, "The Class War Before Palin," New York Times, Oct. 10, 2008.  The majority is about the anti-elite aspects of Republican Party rhetoric, exemplified by Sarah Palin, but ends by noting that the Republican Party has had policies that do not address the concerns of the working class. 

My only concern with this sort of writing is that it arguably suffers from a bit too much of the mirror-looking sort of analysis that finds explanations in decisions that if the Republicans were winning than those same decisions would be seen as being brilliant; it made me think of The Right Nation, a book describing the rise of the right written by two British journalists.  Maybe it isn't the anti-elite or the rhetoric of politicians that has made the Republican Party weak, it is the fact that even McCain's own commercial has to acknowledge that most Americans feel, correctly, that they are worse off than they were four years ago (and really 8 years ago).  These law prof blogs are not supposed to be political, but I think that anti-elite, anti-intellectual rhetoric could work but for the current troubles of the country under a Republican administration. 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Article of Interest: "Lifting the Floor: Sex, Class and Education"

The paper is: Naomi Cahn & June Carbone, Lifting the Floor: Sex, Class and Education, forthcoming in U. Balt. Forum 2009 (available from SSRN).  The abstract is below:

This paper was written for a conference on third wave feminism. Third wave feminism recognizes the importance of "raising the floor," and this paper - from two second wave feminists - helps in developing an agenda for achieving that goal. After a brief exploration of two different models that we label "red families" and "blue families," this paper makes two critical points: first, it correlates the different models to the varying approaches to parental leave laws; and second, it expands our discussion of women and care beyond the workplace and child care, exploring what contributes to women's ability to care for their children (and others) - education - an outcome that is associated with deferred childbearing and higher income and the newer family model. Our conversation about third wave feminism must examine women's means of moving between classes and being able to provide better care to themselves and to others (whether it be children or parents or significant others).

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Property article critiquing excessive reliance on law and economics

A recent property article by Eduardo M. Peñalver entitled "Land Virtues" has been posted to SSRN. The paper's focus is property law, but I think says a lot to those with a poverty/property focus.  The abstract is below:

This article has two goals. First, I explore some of the descriptive and normative shortcomings of traditional law and economics discussions of the ownership and use of land. These market-centered approaches struggle in different ways with features of land that distinguish it from other "commodities." The complexity of land - its intrinsic complexity, but even more importantly the complex ways in which human beings interact with it - undermines the notion that owners will focus on a single value, such as wealth, in making decisions about their land. Adding to the equation land's "memory," by which I mean the combined impact of the durability of land uses and the finite quantity of land, calls into question the normative assessment that owners whose behavior is guided by a unitary measure like market value are using their land wisely, or at least more wisely than other modes of decision-making might hope to accomplish. The shortcomings of traditional law and economics theories of land use point toward the benefits of a pluralist theory of property based on the Aristotelian tradition of virtue ethics. Setting forth the broad outlines of such a theory as it applies to the law of land use is the second goal of this article. Virtue theory, I will argue, is capable of incorporating the valuable insights that have made economic analysis so appealing to land use theorists without distorting our moral vision or treating economic consequences as the only considerations that ought to matter.

Personally, I think the article is great.  My own critique is a tiny one -- I think of New Institutional Economics as accomplishing more than what is acknowledged in the paper and worthy of more exploration, but that is only because I have a particular NIE interest.  If you download it you will see that Peñalver has a great section on how failure to correct for inability to pay in traditional law and economics work ends up wrongly prioritizing the desires of the wealthy versus the poor.   

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Interesting Article on Post-Katrina New Orleans and the Poor

Judith Browne-Dianis & Anita Sinha, Exiling the Poor: The Clash of Redevelopment and Fair-Housing in Post-Katrina New Orleans, 51 How. L.J. 481 (2008).  Unfortunately, only available on Lexis & Westlaw. 

Related articles that are available online:

• Judith Browne-Dianis, "Who Exiled New Orleans' Poor?" Washington Post, May 17, 2007. 
• Anita Sinha & Jill Tauber, "The Post-Katrina War on Low-Income Housing: Dreams Turned into Rubble in New Orleans," Counterpunch, Mar. 26, 2008. 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Article of Interest: The Vast Injustice Perpetuated by State and Local Tax Policy

Article of interest: Susan Pace Hamill, "The Vast Injustice Perpetuated by State and Local Tax Policy," 37 Hofstra L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2008), on SSRN.  The abstract is below:

State and local tax policy is one of the most important areas of public policy affecting the lives of the most powerless and vulnerable segments of the population - children from low income families. Focusing on the funding of primary and secondary education, especially in high poverty school districts, and the scheme for allocating the tax burden, this article empirically proves that all fifty states have unjust state and local tax policy, with thirty-one states inflicting an extreme level of injustice on poor children and their families. This article argues that the people in most states, as well as their political leaders, are compelled to reform state and local tax policy because they claim to practice Christianity or Judaism, and, in addition to being unjust under secular-based ethical models, their state and local tax policy also violates the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics. This article also argues that the moral context of a faith-based appeal offers the best chance to inspire people to support tax policy, requiring greater levels of sacrifice from wealthier Americans, a group that must be part of the reform effort in order to change the state and local tax picture from a vast sea of injustice to a tool of justice protecting our most vulnerable and powerless citizens.

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Critical Race Theory Conference at Iowa

The University of Iowa College of Law is hosting: CRT 20: Honoring Our Past, Charting Our Future.  The conference schedule available here includes talks/speeches by many of the major players in Critical Race Theory, April 2-4, 2009.  An email forward that I got indicates that drafts for abstracts for workshop papers are due by Dec. 15, 2008 and that draft papers are due by Jan. 30, 2009, but I have been unable to find this same info on the the conference website. 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu