Health, Poverty, Incarceration and Social justice in the United States: A critical review of evidence of close links with neoliberalism

Problems of poverty, poor health and incarceration have unique characteristics in that these occur predominantly among the minority or marginalized population groups in the United States. Neoliberalism has become an enduring doctrine in political and economic discourse and widely used to assess the extent to which government programs incorporates pro-poor interventions to reduce inequalities. Whereas inequalities in health outcomes, poverty and incarceration are associated with individual risks, contextual links with neoliberal doctrine is given less attention in public health and social development discourse. Importantly, the interrelationships among these are not clear in the extant literature. The authors describe adverse social and health outcomes linked to neoliberal regimes in the United States and argues that such regimes have indirectly contributed to worsening health, poverty and incarceration among minority populations in the United States. Three key indicators-poverty, health disparities and incarceration are thoroughly discussed to provide new perspectives of their linkages for future research. The authors further argue that only governments with social democratic agenda can efficiently provide public goods that benefits large majority of the population. Such actions, it is argued are the most efficient ways of reducing poverty, its consequences and likely improving the general wellbeing of the population. The authors conclude that neoliberal programs have unintended consequences of exacerbating existing disparities in health, incarceration, poverty and social cohesion in the United States.