Columbia University School of Social Work, 1255 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Department of Social Welfare at Pusan National University, 2, Busandaehak-ro 63beon-gil, Geumjeong-gu, Busan, 46241, South Korea.
Soc Sci Res. 2020 Feb;86:102390. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2019.102390. Epub 2019 Nov 16.
Recent research using an improved measure of poverty finds that poverty has fallen by nearly forty percent since the 1960s in the United States. But past research has not examined whether this finding holds across detailed demographic groups who might be more or less vulnerable to poverty. This paper helps fill that gap, focusing on one such vulnerable subgroup: young adults. Using the Current Population Survey, this paper examines long-term trends in young adult poverty in comparison to other groups. In contrast to almost all other groups, young adults have seen no decrease in poverty since the 1960s. We explore potential reasons for this fact, finding that young adults lack access to benefits from government programs, and are increasingly unmarried, living alone, and disconnected from the labor market, factors that leave young adults more vulnerable than other groups to poverty. The findings have implications for how antipoverty policies might assist this vulnerable group.
最近的一项研究使用了改进后的贫困衡量标准，发现自 20 世纪 60 年代以来，美国的贫困率下降了近 40%。但过去的研究并没有考察这一发现是否适用于那些可能更容易或更不容易陷入贫困的详细人口群体。本文有助于填补这一空白，重点关注一个脆弱的群体：年轻人。本文利用当前人口调查，研究了与其他群体相比，年轻人贫困的长期趋势。与几乎所有其他群体不同，自 20 世纪 60 年代以来，年轻人的贫困率没有下降。我们探讨了造成这一事实的潜在原因，发现年轻人无法从政府计划中获得福利，而且越来越多的人未婚、独居、与劳动力市场脱节，这些因素使年轻人比其他群体更容易陷入贫困。这些发现对扶贫政策如何帮助这一弱势群体具有重要意义。
