poverty

May 29, 2019

Pope Francis on ‘fake charity’

At the recent Vatican meeting of Catholic Charities Pope Francis praised the participants for their concern for the poor and marginalized, but warned them of the danger of “fake charity.” Carol Glatz writes in Catholic Herald: Charity is not a sterile service or a simple donation to hand over to put our conscience at ease,” he said. Continue Reading...

April 26, 2019

For pro-life poverty fighters, political objectives and policies are different things

If you’re a pro-life conservative Christian you’ll eventually hear someone on the left assert that you can’t be consistently pro-life if you don’t support government policies to reduce poverty. If we truly cared about life in and out of the womb, they say, you’d support government intervention not only to ban abortion but to make abortion unnecessary. Continue Reading...

March 29, 2019

The biggest beneficiaries of the success sequence

Good choices benefit everyone but, as in all of life, not all groups gain equally. The success sequence is no different. The sequence says that the vast majority of people can avoid living in poverty if they make a few deliberate life choices: finish high school, work full time, wait until age 21 to get married, and do not have children outside wedlock. Continue Reading...

March 28, 2019

The reason statists always think things are getting worse

With unemployment and poverty levels at historic lows, why do so many people persist in believing people’s economic prospects are always getting worse? Why are discussions of current living conditions always marked by catastrophic thinking? Continue Reading...

February 18, 2019

Who are ‘our poor’ in the immigration debate?

At First Things last week, in his essay “Our Poor,” economist Andrew M. Yuengert reflected upon his 2004 Acton monograph Inhabiting the Land, questioning whether his economic analysis (that immigration is a net gain for both immigrants and natives) needs more nuance in the light of our current political climate: Continue Reading...

August 29, 2018

What difference does reaching the middle class make?

Too often, advocating for economically sound policies is dismissed as extraneous to the life of a Christian. Faith leaders may see improving the lot of those living in this world as worthwhile but, fundamentally, outside the Christian’s mission. Continue Reading...

July 13, 2018

How the UN Report on extreme poverty in America goes astray

During the 38th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), on June 18 – July 6, 2018, the UN Special Rapporteur, an Englishman by the name of Philip Alston, presented a report on poverty in the United States, the full text of which may be read here. Continue Reading...

January 29, 2018

A real ‘fair trade’ solution: Fix U.S. agricultural policy

In our attempts to support struggling farmers across the developing world, Westerners have tended toward supporting a particular set of preferred “solutions,” whether purchasing “fair trade” products or donating funds to specific causes. Continue Reading...

January 24, 2018

Study: How minimum wage increases hurt consumers and the poor

In surveying the damage caused by arbitrary increases to the minimum wage, our attention is typically drawn to stunted job growth among low-skilled workers or tragic tales of shuttered businesses. But are there other deleterious effects beyond those felt in business and the labor market? Continue Reading...

September 14, 2017

Development vs. thuggery: How foreign aid hinders local business

The foreign aid movement has largely failed the global poor, promoting top-down solutions at the expense of bottom-up enterprises and institutions, as Acton’s widely acclaimed documentary, Poverty, Inc., and PovertyCure film series detail at length. Continue Reading...

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