ECON 453 - Poverty in America

Credits: (3)
Prerequisite(s): ECON 303 and ECON 308
College Curriculum: COLL 400
America is one of the wealthiest countries in the world yet continues to struggle with high rates of poverty. Even our cherished Williamsburg has a homelessness problem. This course will consider poverty in America with particular attention to public policies that mitigate or exacerbate the problem. Students will learn about details of public policies such as cash assistance, housing assistance, food stamps, minimum wages, healthcare provision, and discrimination law. Students will quantify the scale and distribution of poverty by using government data to measure family incomes, work hours, health outcomes, and housing characteristics. We probably won’t end poverty, but we’ll move in the right direction by understanding it better.