Poverty

Income Of World’s Top .001% Skyrockets By 636%: Report

December 19, 2017 Staff Educate! Inequality, New Economy, Poverty, Uneven Development

The report, which highlights the growing gulf between haves and have-nots, was compiled by five economists, including scholars Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. Global Economic Inequality is surging, further widening the pay gap between the haves and have-nots, according to a new World Inequality report. The report highlights the growing gulf between the haves and the have-nots, and was compiled by five economists, including scholars Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. The top .001 percent of earners in the United States, consisting of almost 1,300 households, have seen their earnings skyrocket by 636 percent in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, the average annual income for the bottom 50 percent of earners has stayed constant at US$16,000 over the last four decades, adjusting for inflation.

Inequality In The Twenty-First Century

December 18, 2017 Kaushik Basu Create! Class Struggle, Inequality, New Economy, Poverty

As inequality continues to deepen worldwide, we do not have the luxury of sticking to the status quo. Unless we confront the inequality challenge head on – as we have just begun to do with another existential threat, climate change – social cohesion, and especially democracy, will come under growing threat. MUMBAI – At the end of a low and dishonest year, reminiscent of the “low, dishonest decade” about which W.H. Auden wrote in his poem “September 1, 1939,” the world’s “clever hopes” are giving way to recognition that many severe problems must be tackled. And, among the severest, with the gravest long-term and even existential implications, is economic inequality.

Relative Poverty Rate Increased By 1.3 Points In 2016

November 21, 2017 Matt Bruenig, peoplespolicyproject.org Educate! New Economy, Poverty, wealth inequality

By Matt Bruenig for People's Policy Project - Every year the Census Bureau publishes the official poverty rate and the supplemental poverty rate. The official rate groups all related people in a household into one unit, adds up all the cash income that flows into that unit (except tax credits), and then compares that income amount to a poverty line that varies based on the number of people in the unit. The supplemental rate works similarly except that it takes the cash income concept from the official rate, adds cash-like benefit incomes and tax credits to it, and then subtracts taxes paid, child support paid, child care expenses, work expenses, and medical out-of-pocket expenses. The supplemental rate uses a poverty line that varies geographically and by the number of people in the family unit. In addition to the official and supplemental rates, it can be useful to look at something called a relative poverty rate, which is more commonly used across the world. The relative poverty rate figures provided below are derived in the following manner: Each family’s income is determined by adding cash income, cash-like benefit income, and tax credits, and then subtracting taxes paid and child support paid.

Newsletter – People Act Where US Fails On Climate

November 12, 2017 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Climate Change, climate crisis, COP23, Energy, Food and Agriculture, health, Oil and Gas, Pipelines, Poverty, Refugees, Renewable Energy

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. The climate crisis is upon us. It seems that every report on climate conditions has one thing in common: things are worse than predicted. The World Meteorological Report from the end of October shows that Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) are rising at a rapid rate and have passed 400 parts per million. According to Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, "the changes we’re making today are occurring in 100 years, whereas in nature they occur in 10,000 years." The United States is experiencing a wide range of climate impacts from major hurricanes in the South to unprecedented numbers of wildfires in the West to crop-destroying drought in the Mid-West.

World Poverty Increasing With Urbanization

November 10, 2017 Manipadma Jena, towardfreedom.com Educate! Poverty, Urbanization

By Manipadma Jena for Toward Freedom - (IPS) – Rapid urbanization is increasingly shifting the impacts of malnutrition from rural to urban areas. One in three stunted under-five children out of 155 million across the world now lives in cities and towns. Degrading land productivity, deepening impacts of changes in climate, conflict, and food insecurity, poverty and lack of livelihood opportunities are driving mostly the rural poor into towns and cities, with projections that just 13 years from now, 5 billion people will be living in the world’s urban areas. While the urban population is forecast to double within these 30 years (starting in 2000), the area taken over will triple, increasing by 1.2 million square kilometers, says the Global Land Report 2017. Close to 90 percent of urban population and area growth is forecast in Asia and Africa, with the most dramatic changes foreseen in Asia, according to this report from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). By 2050, 56 percent of Asia’s population will be urban. China crossed the halfway mark in 2012, India will in 2050. This major shifting of the character of a population, the character of its economic activity, from being predominantly rural to becoming urban is seen to catapult – particularly China and India – to global economic leadership. But its urban growth engines could be riding on a huge malnourished rural migrant population.

How It Became A Crime To Be Poor In America

November 9, 2017 Peter Edelman, theguardian.com Educate! Criminalization, Poverty, United States

By Peter Edelman for The Guardian - In the United States, a system of modern peonage – essentially, a government-run loan shark operation – has been going on for years. Beginning in the 1990s, the country adopted a set of criminal justice strategies that punish poor people for their poverty. Right now in America, 10 million people, representing two-thirds of all current and former offenders in the country, owe governments a total of $50bn in accumulated fines, fees and other impositions. The problem of “high fines and misdemeanors” exists across many parts of the country: throughout much of the south; in states ranging from Washington to Oklahoma to Colorado; and of course in Ferguson, Missouri, where, in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown, revelations about the systematic criminalization of the city’s poor black residents brought these issues to national attention. As a result, poor people lose their liberty and often lose their jobs, are frequently barred from a host of public benefits, may lose custody of their children, and may even lose their right to vote. Immigrants, even some with green cards, can be subject to deportation. Once incarcerated, impoverished inmates with no access to paid work are often charged for their room and board. Many debtors will carry debts to their deaths, hounded by bill collectors and new prosecutions.

Yes, Half Of Americans Are In Or Near Poverty

October 18, 2017 Paul Buchheit, www.commondreams.org Educate! Class Struggle, Economic inequality, New Economy, Poverty

By Paul Buchheit for Common Dreams - The poverty threshold is still based on a formula from the 1960s, when food expenses were a much greater part of the family budget. It hasn't kept up with other major expenses. Since 1980, food costs have gone up by 100%, housing 250%, health care 500%, and college tuition 1,000%. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) says, "If the same basic methodology developed in the early 1960s was applied today, the poverty thresholds would be over three times higher than the current thresholds." Three times higher! The median household income in the U.S. in 2016 was $59,039. The Economic Policy Institute's 2015 Family Budget Calculator determined that the median budget for a two-parent, two-child family is $63,741. As CRS concluded, that's about three times higher than the current poverty threshold. In 2014, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, median household expenses were $36,800, against income of about $54,000. But that includes very little for wealth-building investments, such as short- and long-term savings, college education, and life insurance. After accounting for annual outlays for these essential and/or typical family expenses, the median household in the lower third was $2,300 in debt.

Newsletter – Dismantling White Supremacy

October 8, 2017 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Environmental Justice, Free Speech, Income inequality, Indigenous Rights, Poverty, Racism, White Supremacy

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. Last weekend, tens of thousands of people marched in Washington, DC in the combined March for Racial Justice and March for Black Women. Native Americans joined black and brown people to lead the march. At the march, Rev. Graylan Hagler said, “White Supremacy has been given aid and comfort by a so-called president and so-called administration, and so-called leaders of that ideology are comforted and feel that they are back as a centerpiece of American political life.” From coast to coast, it is true that white supremacists are active and are being more visible than they have in decades.

While Outrage Mounts Over Puerto Rico…

October 7, 2017 Whitney Webb, www.mintpressnes.com Educate! Colonialism, Marshall Islands, Poverty, Puerto Rico, US military

By Whitney Webb for Mintpress News. San Juan, Puerto Rico – Since Hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory – which rarely garners much attention from the national media – has received widespread coverage which has focused on the Trump administration’s slow response to the disaster. The situation in Puerto Rico is undoubtedly dire, as many struggle without power and access to basic necessities more than a week after the storm struck. In addition, the Trump administration’s response has been notably lackluster in several regards, which has brought renewed scrutiny to its attitudes and performance.

Small Class Size – Reform We’re Too Cheap To Try

October 1, 2017 Steven Singer, www.gadflyonthewallblog.com Create! Education, Poverty, Teachers, Youth

By Steven Singer for Gadfly on the Wall. We’re one of the richest countries in the world, yet we treat our own children – especially if they’re poor and brown – as if they were refugees from the third world. Well, perhaps marginally better. To my knowledge no one is suggesting we send the unwashed masses back to Africa, Europe or wherever else they originally came from – at least those who can prove they were born here. But we certainly aren’t bothering ourselves too much about taking care of them. What would that look like? Nothing all that radical. Imagine a classroom where students have the space to be individuals and not nameless cogs in the system.

The Myths Of Recovery: Why American Households Aren’t Better Off

September 20, 2017 Constantin Gurdgiev, www.marketwatch.com Educate! Inequality, New Economy, Poverty

By Constantin Gurdgiev for Market Watch - The Census Bureau data shows that bulk of the gains in real income in 2016 has been down to one factor: higher employment. In other words, hours worked rose, but wages did not. American median householders are working harder at more jobs to earn an increase in wages. Which would be OK, were it not down to the fact that working harder means higher expenditure on income-related necessities, such as commuting costs, child-care costs, costs for caring for the dependents, etc. In other words, to earn that extra income, households today have to spend more money than they did back in the 1990s. Now, I don’t know about you, but for my household, if we have to spend more money to earn more money, I would be looking at net increases from that spending, not gross. Census Bureau does not adjust for this. There is an added caveat to this: caring for children and dependents has become excruciatingly more expensive over the years, since 1999. Inflation figures reflect that, but the real income deflator takes the average/median basket of consumers in calculating inflation adjustment. However, households gaining new additional jobs are not average/median households to begin with — and most certainly not in 2016, when labor markets were tight.

Sometimes The Poor Make It Big. Usually They Stay Poor

September 14, 2017 Jill Richardson, www.otherwords.org Create! Inequality, New Economy, Poverty

By Jill Richardson for Other Words - We all want to live in a country where all it takes is hard work and some talent for anyone to succeed. We tell ourselves that we do. We even see examples of people who “came from nothing” and ended up rich and famous. And it’s true that it sometimes happens. Sometimes a child born into poverty grows up to become the president of the United States, a multi-billionaire, or an Olympic gold medalist. Most of the time, however, they don’t. And it’s not because they’re bad, lazy, stupid, or immoral. Often it’s because of our system itself. Take our school system for a start. By funding schools with property taxes, we guarantee that the children from the richest neighborhoods go to the wealthiest schools. If we lived in neighborhoods that were economically mixed with families of all incomes, this wouldn’t be a big deal. But we don’t. Instead we have areas of very wealthy people whose children attend wonderful schools, and areas of concentrated poverty where children attend failing schools.

Fewer Poor In 2016: Biggest 2-Year Decline Since 1969

September 13, 2017 David Elliot, www.chn.org Educate! New Economy, Poverty

By David Elliot for CHN - The poverty rate declined to 12.7 percent in 2016, down from 13.5 percent in 2015 and from 14.8 percent in 2014. That 2.1 percentage point drop is the largest two-year decline since 1969. Since 2014, the number of people in poverty has dropped by more than 6 million. Children remain disproportionately poor, with 18 percent (13.3 million) living in poverty, but the proportion of children in poverty also declined steeply over the past two years (down from 21.1 percent in 2014, nearly a 2.3 million decline). In part, the improvement in poverty was related to the increase in people with earnings (up 1.2 million since 2015), and the increase in the number of people working full-time/year-round (up 2.2 million since 2015). The lowest 20 percent of households saw their incomes increase by about 9 percent over two years. Also very important in reducing poverty were government programs. As shown by the Census Bureau’s Supplementary Poverty Measure, without Social Security, the total number poor would have been more than 26 million higher (with nearly 1.5 million more children poor). Low-income tax credits such as the EITC and Child Tax Credit prevented nearly 8.2 million from being poor (nearly 4.4 million children). SNAP/food stamps lifted nearly 3.6 million out of poverty (1.5 million children). Housing subsidies and Supplemental Security Income each lifted more than 3 million people out of poverty.

Newsletter – No #NAFTA2, Yes To Trade For People & Planet

September 10, 2017 Daniel Cooper Bermudez, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Environment, Indigenous Rights, Internet Freedom, NAFTA, Neoliberalism, Poverty, Racism, TPP, Trade, Trump, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Daniel Cooper Bermudez. The Trump administration is renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico in secret, just as President Obama did with the TPP. Over the past two decades, NAFTA has resulted in workers losing their jobs and being replaced by machinery, ruined family farms throughout the continent, displaced communities and privatized social services, environmental disasters like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a widespread attack on labor rights and unions. This week, we explain our opposition to NAFTA2 and put forward a strategy to remake trade so it is no longer corporate-driven trade for the profits of a few, but people-driven trade to benefit all and protect the planet.

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