Taxing the Poor: Doing Damage to the Truly Disadvantaged

Katherine S. Newman; Rourke O'Brien

Published by University of California Press 2011

Taxing the Poor

Doing Damage to the Truly Disadvantaged

Katherine S. Newman and Rourke O'Brien

Volume 7 in the series Wildavsky Forum Series

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520948938

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book looks at the way we tax the poor in the United States, particularly in the American South, where poor families are often subject to income taxes, and where regressive sales taxes apply even to food for home consumption. Katherine S. Newman and Rourke L. O’Brien argue that these policies contribute in unrecognized ways to poverty-related problems like obesity, early mortality, the high school dropout rates, teen pregnancy, and crime. They show how, decades before California’s passage of Proposition 13, many southern states implemented legislation that makes it almost impossible to raise property or corporate taxes, a pattern now growing in the western states. Taxing the Poor demonstrates how sales taxes intended to replace the missing revenue—taxes that at first glance appear fair—actually punish the poor and exacerbate the very conditions that drove them into poverty in the first place.

Author / Editor information

Newman Katherine S. :

Katherine S. Newman is James B. Knapp Dean of the Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Among her many books are Falling From Grace, No Shame in My Game, Rampage and The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America. Rourke L. O’Brien is a graduate student in sociology and social policy at Princeton University and a non-resident fellow of the New America Foundation.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Tables Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xvii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xliii
Chapter One. The Evolution of Southern Tax Structures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter Two. Barriers to Change: Inertia, Supermajorities, and Constitutional Amendments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
Chapter Three. The Geography of Poverty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
Chapter Four. Tax Traps and Regional Poverty Regimes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
Chapter Five. The Bottom Line Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
Conclusion: Are We Our Brothers’ Keepers? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Appendix I. How Many Lags of x? Scott M. Lynch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
Appendix II. Tables Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 264

eBook

Published: February 27, 2011
ISBN: 9780520948938