Poverty

Poverty American Style

June 17, 2018 By Kenneth Surin, Counterpunch Educate! New Economy, Poor people, Poverty

The US by saying that “in practice, the United States is alone among developed countries in insisting that while human rights are of fundamental importance, they do not include rights that guard against dying of hunger, dying from a lack of access to affordable healthcare, or growing up in a context of total deprivation. . . at the end of the day, particularly in a rich country like the USA, the persistence of extreme poverty is a political choice made by those in power. With political will, it could readily be eliminated”.

How Rich Are The Ultra Rich?

June 15, 2018 Josh Hoxie, Other Words. Educate! New Economy, Poor People's Campaign, Poverty, wealth inequality

Nearly seven years ago — I know, wow — the Occupy Wall Street movement began highlighting the divide between the top 1 percent and the bottom 99 percent. Since then, it’s become common knowledge that income inequality in the United States is high. But there’s more to the story than just numbers. Income inequality isn’t the defining social issue of our time because your neighbor bought a slightly bigger house or nicer car than you did. It’s because multi-millionaires and billionaires are competing for slightly bigger mega-yachts while our friends set up GoFundMe accounts to plead for help with basic medical expenses.

Welfare Beats Jobs When It Comes to Poverty Reduction

June 14, 2018 Nathaniel Lewis, People's Policy Project. Educate! Jobs and Wages, New Economy, Poverty

When it comes to poverty reduction, increasing employment and increasing social spending can both help. But which is the more effective of the two approaches? In this piece, I use data from the OECD to attempt to answer this question. What I find is that social spending is far more effective at reducing poverty than jobs are. Before we get into the numbers, let’s define our terms here. Poverty refers to the percent of people with incomes below 50 percent of a country’s median income. For this analysis, I use both market poverty, which refers to how many people are in poverty when only counting income from market sources such as wages and dividends, and final poverty...

Poor-Led People’s Campaign Marches To Resurrect Resurrection City

June 10, 2018 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG Radio. Podcast Homelessness, Poor People's Campaign, Poverty, Resurrection City

For the 50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign and Resurrection City, poor and houseless people marched from the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia to Washington, DC where they are setting up a Resurrection City in DuPont Circle. We speak with Tiny (aka Lisa Gray-Garcia), co-founder of POOR Magazine and a participant on the march, about the reality of poverty in the United States. Tiny describes the march and the intersections between poverty and many other areas such as mass incarceration, health and colonization. This is a poor-led people's campaign that is not only resisting the policies and systems that drive the current crises, but is also putting forth poor people-led solutions, such as the Bank of Community Reparations and Homefulness.

Poor People’s March To Arrive In DC, Set Up Resurrection City

June 9, 2018 Poor People's Economic and Human Rights Campaign, Popular Resistance. Organize! Poor People's Campaign, Poverty, Resurrection City

Washington, DC - This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Poor People’s March on Washington. This effort, organized by Martin Luther King, Jr., united poor people from around the United States to demand economic justice. Upon reaching D.C., this multiracial movement set up Resurrection City so that the issues of the poor could no longer be ignored. To observe this anniversary and to highlight what we call ‘The Ugly Road’ walked by the poor in the U.S. and abroad everyday, the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) has organized the 2018 Poor People’s March on Washington, D.C.

How Climate Change Impacts Poor People

May 18, 2018 Kate Harveston, Popular Resistance. Educate! Climate Change, Food Security, Poverty, Puerto Rico

“Climate change affects everybody." You'll hear this from time to time, particularly when someone is trying to advocate action on a global scale. It's a way of binding us to a collective issue — letting us know that we're all in this together, so we might as well work together to resolve it. After all, climate change is, by definition, a worldwide phenomenon and issue. The more global temperatures rise, and the ice caps melt, the stranger and less predictable the weather will get for all of us. It is not true, however, to assume that climate change affects us all equally. Those living in poverty find themselves particularly impacted by the changes associated with the rising tides and temperatures.

The Criminalization Of Poverty And What To Do About It

May 15, 2018 Staff, Job Opportunity Task Force Create! New Economy, Poor people, Poverty

In August 2016, the United States Department of Justice issued a report following its investigation into the policies and practices of the Baltimore Police Department. The report was in response to the 2015 police-involved death of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray and the subsequent unrest that gripped the city. During that historic week in April 2015, the world watched as Baltimore residents took to the streets to call for an end to police brutality and demand reforms in police accountability. In response to the death of Freddie Gray, what surfaced was communal anger and frustration at a dynamic that has plagued Baltimore communities for decades: an overreliance on incarceration and a divestment in economic opportunities. Given growing national attention and local concern around the impact of incarceration on working families, the Job Opportunities Task Force sought to define and determine the extent to which the criminalization of poverty is occurring in Maryland. Indeed, the August 2016 United States Department of Justice report on the Baltimore Police Department created a greater sense of urgency around issues of poverty, race and criminal records.

Poor People’s Campaign Begins With Rallies & Mass Arrests Across The Country

May 14, 2018 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance Resist! Poor People's Campaign, Poverty, Single payer health care

The Poor People's Campaign kicked off 40 days of civil resistance calling for a new economy where workers have a wage "commensurate for the 21st-century economy," everyone has healthcare through a single payer system, homelessness is ended and war and militarism no longer dominate the economy. Today's Poor People's Campaign comes 50 years after the campaign Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was doing when he was assassinated. Today's Campaign officially launched on Monday with advocates for economic justice rallying in Washington, D.C. and more than 30 state capitols nationwide. Hundreds were arrested in Washington, DC alone. Rev. William Barber called for a "moral confrontation" stressing that 140 million people live in poverty in the U.S.—one of the world's wealthiest countries—and the abandonment of American workers indicates a profound moral failing of the government. On poverty, he added, "250,000 people are dying every year from poverty and low wealth."

Patients Protest MedStar’s Policies At Union Memorial Hospital

May 11, 2018 Bill Hughes, Baltimore Post Examiner Resist! Corporate greed, Health Care, Medicaid, Poverty

A spirited protest action was held at MedStar’s Union Memorial Hospital on Thursday morning, May 10, 2018. The hospital is located at 3333 N. Calvert Street, at 33rd Street & University Parkway, in Baltimore. About 40 activists showed up for the rally/press conference, which was sourced by the Maryland branch of “Health Care is a Human Right” (HCHR)” campaign. MedStar was the target of the protest action. The protesters charged that the institution had recently arbitrarily dropped Dr. Shawn Dhillon, a primary care doctor at Union Memorial for 20 years.” This action was supposedly done without cause by cutting him from “MedStar’s insurance plans.” This also had the effect of terminating half of the patients in his practice.

As Republicans Attach Work Requirements To, Well, Everything, They’re Driving People Deeper Into Poverty

May 3, 2018 By Bryce Covert, Rewire.news Educate! Electoral Politics, New Economy, Poverty

Thirteen years ago, when Valeria Haley was eight months pregnant with her oldest son, she decided to enroll in Mississippi’s cash welfare program, known nationally as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. She was living with her mother and wanted to contribute to their household. But to qualify for assistance, her caseworker told her she had to go out and look for a job. No matter that Haley, who goes by Val and can’t be much taller than 5 feet, weighing just 110 pounds, had gained 88 pounds during pregnancy, much of it due to water retention. She would soon be diagnosed with preeclampsia, a pregnancy condition that can lead to sometimes fatal complications if left untreated. Despite her condition, she was determined to meet the requirements and seek work.

The Crime Of Being Poor And Black

May 1, 2018 By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com Educate! Inequality, Poverty, Racism

NEWARK, N.J.—This is the story of Emmanuel Mervilus, who got locked up for a crime he did not commit, whose life was derailed and nearly destroyed by the experience and who will graduate this spring from Rutgers University. It is a story of being a poor black man in America, with the exception being that most poor black men never get a second chance. The only reason Mervilus got a second chance was because of one man, history professor Don Roden, who founded the Mountainview Program at Rutgers for formerly incarcerated students. This program accepts, among others, the students I teach in prison, one of whom, Ron Pierce, also will graduate this spring. There are only a few saints in this world. Professor Roden is one. Mountainview staff, students, professors and families gathered Friday at Rutgers’ Newark campus to speak of the struggles and hardships endured by students such as Mervilus and Pierce.

America Once Fought A War Against Poverty – Now It Wages A War On The Poor

April 17, 2018 William Barber and Liz Theoharis, Theguardian.com Resist! History, New Economy, Poverty, United States

In 2013, Callie Greer’s daughter Venus died in her arms after a battle with breast cancer. If caught early, the five-year survival rate for women diagnosed with breast cancer is close to 100%. But Venus’s cancer went undiagnosed for months because she couldn’t afford health insurance. She lived in Alabama, a state that refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Venus’s death is not an isolated incident – more than 250,000 people like her die in the United States from poverty and related issues every year. Access to healthcare is just one of the issues facing the 140 million people who live in poverty in the US today. Over the past two years, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has carried out a listening tour in dozens of states across this nation.

50 Years Later, The Poor People’s Campaign Continues

April 9, 2018 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Human Rights, Martin Luther King, Poor People's Campaign, Poverty

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Poor People's Campaign, called for by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Although Dr. King was murdered a month prior to the Poor People's Campaign, it happened anyway. Resurrection City was built on the Mall in Washington, DC and people stayed there for six weeks. Fifty years later, widespread poverty exists and the "evils" of racism, capitalism and militarism are still in crisis. Two major campaigns are organizing poor people across the country.

Cook County Data Shows Reforms Haven’t Stopped The Jailing Of People For Being Poor

March 7, 2018 By Sharlyn Grace, Chicagoappleseed.org Educate! Poverty, Prison Industrial Complex, Repression

Last fall, the Coalition to End Money Bond organized more than 70 volunteers to monitor the implementation of General Order 18.8A in Cook County’s central bond court. The order aims to ensure that no one is incarcerated at Cook County Jail simply because they are unable to pay a monetary bond. Today, the Coalition to End Money Bond released its findings in the new report: Monitoring Cook County’s Central Bond Court: A Community Courtwatching Initiative. The information collected in the courtwatching report shows that some positive changes have occurred as a result of recent reforms but that the order has not met its goal.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources