Giving Credit Where Due

According to the World Bank, approximately one billion people live on less than $1 a day. Giving Credit Where Due: A Path to Global Poverty Reduction critically examines the level and quality of the international community's response to such extreme poverty. This timely work traces the ethical and religious underpinnings of social welfare policy; describes income support systems in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere; and proposes a new strategy for reducing global poverty. Under this approach, developing countries would establish a refundable tax credit to put a floor under the incomes of their people who live on less than $1 a day. A global tax credit fund would be created by the United Nations and financed with contributions from rich nations and private donors. The fund would enable the UN to share in the costs with countries that adopt the tax credit approach. In an even-handed manner, Giving Credit Where Due addresses the inevitable objections to the approach, such as badly administered, even corrupt, revenue systems in many developing countries. It offers constructive ideas for making the refundable tax credit a reality in a changing global environment. This work will be of interest to aid agencies, such as the United Nations and the World Bank; social welfare policy analysts, economists, legislators, and journalists; and as a supplementary text for undergraduate and graduate courses.