On November 17 the Foundation officially launched a new open-access, peer-reviewed journal, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. The inaugural double issue, edited by sociologist Matthew Desmond (Harvard University), focuses on families experiencing "severe deprivation," or acute, compounded, and persistent economic hardship. In the two issues, poverty scholars from multiple disciplines examine how the Great Recession, plus factors such as rising housing costs, welfare reform, mass incarceration, suppressed wages, and pervasive joblessness have contributed to deepening poverty in America.

Journalist Eduardo Porter cited research from RSF in an article for the New York Times on Americans living in deep poverty—or those whose incomes are more than 50% below the poverty line. Porter notes, “What’s perhaps most surprising is how the apparatus of government assistance has turned its back on these people, not just failing to offer new strategies to help overcome the deepest deprivation but even removing critical programs that used to keep many of them afloat.” As Liana Fox and colleagues find in their RSF article, governmental transfers reduce the risk of deep poverty, but the shift over the last few decades from cash assistance to in-kind nutrition assistance and tax refunds for the poor has tended to benefit those who are employed, rather than the deep poor who are likely to experience long stretches of unemployment.

In an article for ThinkProgress, journalist Bryce Covert also covered the new research published in RSF. She discussed Kristin S. Seefeldt’s and Heather Sandstrom’s study of how mothers at the very bottom of the income distribution care for themselves and their children. Seefeldt and Sandstrom note in their article that the effects of deep poverty on mothers and children are dire, and include food shortages, health issues and substance abuse, isolation, and developmental delays for young children. While safety-net benefits such as food stamps can offer much-needed relief to struggling families, enrollment in other programs, such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), has declined over the last several years. As Seefeldt put it to Covert, “We have a safety net now that’s fairly work-based. But what do you do when there is no work?”

Click here to view all articles from the RSF double issue, “Severe Deprivation in America.”