This article examines poverty policies and programs in four areas: cash transfer programs, public provision of childcare, publically provided medical care, and public/social housing. Public provision for families in poverty includes programs that provide childcare, income supports, medical assistance, public housing, and employment assistance to family units. There are also policies that operate at a more general level to provide workforce and economic development and child welfare and early childhood education and support. Across nations, these policies vary along a number of dimensions. This article first considers each of the four poverty programs in detail before discussing the ramifications of differing national approaches to poverty in the context of the turn toward neoliberalism and the worldwide recession that began in 2007.
