Lived Experiences of Poverty-Related Interventions



Poverty-related government policies and programs aim to maximize access to resources and minimize the rate of poverty. In the United States, some of these programs are Social Security, Medicaid, SNAP, school meals program, and Section 8 housing vouchers. Identified as safety-net programs these programs aim to enhance an individual’s ability to meet their basic day-to-day needs (food, shelter, clothing, etc.) while helping them to pursue opportunities for socioeconomic mobility. According to Sherman et al. (2013), these programs “lift millions of Americans out of poverty, help “make work pay” by supplementing low wages, and enable millions of Americans to receive health care who otherwise could not afford it.” However, past research also highlights the negative long-term implications of these programs, such as obesity (Baum 2011), lack of access (Pardee and Gotham 2005), and stigmatization (Kreider et al. 2012).

Research highlighting the positives and negatives of these programs not only share a story of increased/decreased access, but they also provide insights on segments of the population that have different backgrounds, needs, and expectations. According to a survey conducted by USDA (2016), food insecurity is more prevalent than the national average (4.9 percent) for some groups, such as Households with children headed by a single woman (10.5 percent), Black, nonHispanic households (9.7 percent), and Hispanic households (5.8 percent) (Coleman-Jensen, et. al 2017. While these individuals live in similar poverty-related material circumstances, they have fundamental differences in how they live their lives, their belief system, values, consumption style. These differences underpin their access to and experiences of the safety-net programs.

Consumer researchers have raised concerns over the unintended consequences of “one-size-fitsall” approach in addressing various social concerns. Corus et al. (2016) adopt an intersectional lens to shed light on how voices of specific groups are silenced because they are invisible in various policies. The overlapping complexities of race/ethnicity, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, housing insecurity, and poverty/income inequality, to name just a few, cannot be separated in the examination of an individual’s lived experiences of policies and programs. In this research project, we aim to investigate the lived experiences of diverse individuals enrolled in safety-net programs with the goal to provide critical theoretical insights on socioeconomic mobility and policy insights on possible ways to elevate the transformative potentials of these safety-net programs.


Track Leaders

Shikha Upadhyaya received her Ph.D. from the University of Wyoming and is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at California State University, Los Angeles College of Business & and Economics. Her research focuses on the identity- projects and multidimensional experiences of socio-economically disadvantaged consumers and provides insights on consumption-related discrimination and disadvantage faced by these consumers with implications in the areas of public policy and transformative consumer research. She has published articles in the Consumption Markets & Culture, Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, and has contributed a chapter to Product Development and Management Association Essentials 3 (forthcoming).

Track Participants

  • Rika H. Houston, California State University, Los Angeles
  • Christopher P. Blocker, Colorado State University
  • Nicholas J. Pendarvis, California State University, Los Angeles
  • David K. Crockett, University of South Carolina
  • Marjorie Sims, Managing Director, Ascend at the Aspen Institute