Steven Pressman (economist) - Poverty, The Middle Class, and Income Distribution

Poverty, The Middle Class, and Income Distribution

Pressman has published articles (with his colleague at Monmouth University, Robert Scott) arguing that poverty and inequality are greater than measured by government statistics because these measures exclude interest payments on consumer debt and these interest payments cannot be used to support current living standards. This work has estimated that there are more than 4 million debt poor in the United States. They have also estimated that the problem of unequality is worse than estimated by standard measures such as the Gini coefficient. They are currently seeking to identify the debt poor and to devise policies to aid the debt poor, who do not qualify for many government assistance programs that mainly go to households officially considered as poor.

Pressman has published several papers using the Luxembourg Income Study to examine poverty, the middle class and government redistribution throughout the world. These papers argue that one main reason poverty rates are so high in the United States is that government tax and government spending policies do little to help those with low earned incomes. In addition, the United States middle class is very small compared to other developed countries mainly because government tax and government spending policies fail to help middle class families.

Additionally, Pressman has published articles on income guarantees and edited a book on the notion of Basic Income Guarantees as a solution to poverty. This work argues that a guaranteed income would not have any major negative economic effects, such as creating great work disincentives, as long as the guarantees are kept to a minimal level. Moreover, this minimal level is greater than the current redistributive efforts in the United States, and something close to what other developed countries provide to their citizens.

Pressman has published articles on refundable tax credits for children as a solution to child poverty in the United States an as a way to support the middle class in the United States. This work argues that these tax credits could be financed by eliminating tax exemptions for children.

He has also published articles on women and poverty. This work argues that the feminization of poverty is due to more female-headed households in the United States and the lack of appropriate tax and spending programs to help female-headed households. Compared to other developed nations throughout the world who do much to help female-headed families, the poverty rate for U.S. female-headed families is much greater.