Dances with Dependency offers effective strategies to eliminate welfare dependency and help eradicate poverty among indigenous populations. Beginning with an impassioned and insightful portrait of today’s native communities, it connects the prevailing impoverishment and despair directly to a “dependency mindset” forged by welfare economics. To reframe this debilitating mindset, it advocates policy reform in conjunction with a return to native peoples’ ten-thousand-year tradition of self-reliance based on personal responsibility and cultural awareness. Author Calvin Helin, un-tethered to agendas of political correctness or partisan politics, describes the mounting crisis as an impending demographic tsunami threatening both the United States and Canada. In the United States, where government entitlement programs for diverse ethnic minorities coexist with an already huge national debt, he shows how prosperity is obviously at stake. This looming demographic tidal wave viewed constructively, however, can become an opportunity for reform—among not only indigenous peoples of North America but any impoverished population struggling with dependency in inner cities, developing nations, and post-totalitarian countries.

2012 gold medal winner in the self-help category of the prestigious Ippy Awards This book offers effective strategies to help erase poverty. It advocates self-reliance, policy reform, and cultural awareness. Accountability is required from all: the middle class, the trust fund babies, and the underprivileged who see themselves as perpetual victims and have fallen into the entitlement trap. True blue prints are offered to rescue people from an economical slump and help them improve their lives, and re-obtain a sense of self-worth.

New York Times bestseller What is Jesus worth to you? It's easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily... But who do you know who lives like that? Do you? In Radical, David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple--then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard. And he tells the dramatic story of what is happening as a "successful" suburban church decides to get serious about the gospel according to Jesus. Finally, he urges you to join in The Radical Experiment -- a one-year journey in authentic discipleship that will transform how you live in a world that desperately needs the Good News Jesus came to bring.

Whether you live in the city, suburbs, or country, you can practice self-reliant methods of living. This book is an in depth look at practical ways you can reduce your dependency on others, and work towards a life of self-reliance. It includes sections on obtaining, preserving, storing, and preparing food, recycling and repurposing, skills and tools of the trade for self-reliance, getting out of debt, the importance of water, lighting and alternative power, sanitation and hygiene, staying warm and cool, transportation options, and more. For anyone who wants to work towards being self-reliant, this book, with over 250 photos and diagrams, offers many helpful suggestions and ideas.

This open access book sets out to explain the reasons for the gap between "knowing" and "doing" in view of self-reliance, which is more and more often expected of citizens. In todays society, people are expected to take responsibility for their own lives and be self-reliant. This is no easy feat. They must be on constant high alert in areas of life such as health, work and personal finances and, if things threaten to go awry, take appropriate action without further ado. What does this mean for public policy? Policymakers tend to assume that the government only needs to provide people with clear information and that, once properly informed, they will automatically do the right thing. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that things do not work like that. Even though people know perfectly well what they ought to do, they often behave differently. Why is this? This book sets out to explain the reasons for the gap between 'knowing and 'doing. It focuses on the role of non-cognitive capacities, such as setting goals, taking action, persevering and coping with setbacks, and shows how these capacities are undermined by adverse circumstances. By taking the latest psychological insights fully into account, this book presents a more realist perspective on self-reliance, and shows government officials how to design rules and institutions that allow for the natural limitations in peoples 'capacity to act.

Efforts to promote work have been the centerpiece of welfare reform over the past ten years. In signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, President Bill Clinton pledged that the sweeping overhaul would "end welfare as we know it" by promoting work, responsibility, and family. To accomplish these goals, policymakers relied on two sets of tools: strict limits on eligibility for traditional benefits and a set of programs designed to make work pay. When Work Is Not Enough presents the first comprehensive analysis of the work support system. Drawing on both state and national data, Robert Stoker and Laura Wilson evaluate a broad range of policies that provide cash or in-kind benefits to low-wage workers, low-income working families, and families moving from welfare to work. These programs include minimum wage rates, Earned Income Tax Credit programs, medical assistance programs, food programs, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families earned income disregards, childcare grants, and rental assistance. Stoker and Wilson break new ground by examining the adequacy and coverage of the work support system in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. They address the prospects for reforming the system, as well as its impact on the politics of redistribution in the United States. Rich in analysis, Wh en Work Is Not Enough will be essential reading for anyone interested in the impact and future of welfare reform.

Presents an original and provocative argument about poverty policy in the United States.