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WCPC Publications

The West Coast Poverty Center produces several publications intended to increase awareness and understanding of poverty issues. These aim to inform the research community of new poverty research and to bring poverty-relevant knowledge to policymakers and practitioners, serving as a bridge between the academic and policy communities. We hope these publications will help to create an informed and energized community that unites poverty researchers and practitioners.

Poverty Research Flash

The West Coast Poverty Center’s Poverty Research Flash alerts the research community to new research by Center faculty affiliates on causes, consequences, and effective policy responses to poverty. The one-page Poverty Flash highlights data sources and methods as well as results.

Poverty Research Flash September 2009

Building Economies from the Bottom Up: (Mis)representations of Poverty in the Rural American Northwest

This issue highlights new findings by West Coast Poverty Center Faculty Affiliate Victoria Lawson, Professor of Geography at the University of Washington, and colleagues Lucy Jarosz and Anne Bonds, published in a journal article by the same name in Social and Cultural Geography.

Key Findings:

    West Coast Poverty Center Faculty Affiliate Victoria Lawson and colleagues Lucy Jarosz and Anne Bonds interviewed 32 community leaders in three persistently poor rural counties in Idaho and Montana to investigate how these leaders understand the causes of poverty in their areas and how to best pursue economic development. The interviewees were broadly supportive of market-based development strategies and tended to focus on personal responsibility over structural explanations for individuals’ financial situations. The authors suggest that, by using narratives that rely on personal responsibility and frame the poor as transient and deviant outsiders, these leaders attitudes’ may create support for economic development opportunities that tend to reinforce poor workers’ low income status and limit community cohesion and political support for assisting the poor.

Previous Poverty Research Flashes

2009

    Issue 07-08 Old Assumptions, New Realities: Economic Security for Working Families in the 21st Century
    by Jacob Hacker, Paul Osterman, Jodi Sandfort, Michael Sherraden, and Michael Stoll

    Issue 06 Waiting Tables in Two Chains and States: Investigating Front-Line Job Quality across Organizations and Policy Contexts
    by Anna Haley-Lock and Stephanie Ewert

    Issue 05 The Effects of University Affirmative Action Policies on the Human Capital Development of Minority Children: Do Expectations Matter?
    by Ronald Caldwell

    Issue 04 Food Insufficiency, Food Stamp Participation, and Mental Health

    Issue 03 Influences of Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Social Capital on the Subjective Health of Adolescents
    by Gunnar Almgren

    Issue 02 Poverty, Legal Status, and Pay Basis in U.S. Agriculture
    by Anita Alves Pena

    Issue 01 Subsidized Housing and Household Hardship Among Low-Income Single-Mother Households
    by Lawrence M. Berger, Theresa Heintze, Wendy B. Naidich, and Marcia K. Meyers

2008

2007

Poverty Brief

Our Poverty Briefs offer policy makers and practitioners an accessible discussion of the latest poverty research, focusing on findings with particular relevance for policy and practice. Generally about six pages in length, including useful charts and graphs, Poverty Briefs draw from the recent work of West Coast Poverty Center faculty affiliates and others.