Guides: Poverty Law Research Guide: General Poverty Law Resources

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Books

The Rights of the Poor by Helen Hershkoff; Stephen Loffredo
ISBN: 1997
Using a simple question-and-answer format, Helen Hershkoff and Stephen Loffredo provide a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the rights of the poor. They examine federal and state programs providing income support and medical services as well as federal programs providing food assistance and federally subsidized housing programs.
The Poverty Law Canon by Marie Failinger; Ezra Rosser
Publication Date: 2016
The Poverty Law Canon takes readers into the lives of the clients and lawyers who brought critical poverty law cases in the United States. These cases involved attempts to establish the right to basic necessities, as well as efforts to ensure dignified treatment of welfare recipients and to halt administrative attacks on federal program benefit levels.
Getting By by Helen Hershkoff; Stephen Loffredo
Publication Date: 2019
Getting By offers an integrated, critical account of the federal laws and programs that most directly affect poor and low-income people in the United States-the unemployed, the underemployed, and the low-wage employed, whether working in or outside the home.
Justice for All? by Russell Galloway
Publication Date: 1991
Discusses the U.S. Supreme Court's treatment of the rich and poor in cases involving business regulation, welfare benefits, indigent criminal defendants, racial discrimination, and economic issues.
Cheating Welfare by Kaaryn S. Gustafson
Publication Date: 2011
In Cheating Welfare, Kaaryn S. Gustafson provides insights into the history, social construction, and lived experience of welfare. She shows why cheating is all but inevitable--not because poor people are immoral, but because ordinary individuals navigating complex systems of rules are likely to become entangled despite their best efforts.

Journals

Journals listed in this guide include those that often publish articles on poverty and poverty law topics. You can locate many articles using the library catalog with an article search . Also, journal indices allow you to locate publications and articles by topic:

Using Articles for Legal and Non-Legal Research provides detailed information on research using legal and non-legal periodicals. Some specific journals on poverty include:

Clearinghouse Review
Published by the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. Contains reports of important cases litigated by legal aid advocates, plus articles on a wide range of civil rights, family law, disability, domestic violence, housing, elder law, employment, health, and welfare reform issues.
Poverty and Race
Newsletter of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. Contains recent reports published in different subject areas, including Poverty/Welfare, Education, and Families/Women/Children.
Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy
Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal
Loyola Journal of Public Interest Law
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy
Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law
Washington University Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law

Organizations

The following organizations focus their missions on legal issues concerning the financially underprivileged. Contact information can be found on the organizations' websites, linked below.

Unlike those listed above, the following organizations do not deal specifically with legal issues facing the poor, but rather with poverty more generally.

Brookings Institution
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Coalition on Human Needs (CHN)
The Heritage Foundation
Institute for Research on Poverty
University of Wisconsin, in conjunction with HHS
Poverty, Inequality and Opportunity
Institute on Race and Poverty
Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC)
RAND Corporation
Urban Institute

Statistics

Online Research Resources

HHS - Poverty and Economic Mobility Guidelines
Population Studies
Georgetown University (Lauinger Library)

Subject Headings

To find additional books, journals, and electronic resources at the Georgetown Law Library, use the following terms (Library of Congress subject headings) associated with poverty law to conduct Subject searches in the catalog.

Poverty Law Research Guide

Contents