Poverty

Student Loan Payments Resume Soon, But Working Borrowers Aren’t Ready

November 18, 2021 Ayelet Sheffey, Business Insider. Educate! Higher Education, Pandemic, Poverty, Student Loans

On February 1, 2022, the relief student-loan borrowers have had since the start of the pandemic will be stripped away and they will be thrown back into repayment — whether they're ready or not. And most of them are not. The Student Debt Crisis Center, in partnership with Savi — a social impact technology startup — released the results of the fourth installment of the Student Debt x COVID-19 series on Wednesday examining the impact of the pandemic on student-loan borrowers. It found that although student-loan company communication to borrowers has improved since June, 89% of fully-employed borrowers say they do not feel financially secure enough to resume payments in a few months. One in five of the respondents said they will never feel financially-secure enough to restart their student-loan payments.

Soaring Food Prices Drive Hunger Around The World

October 15, 2021 John Malvar, WSWS. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Food Access, Hunger, Poverty

The 2021 Global Hunger Index (GHI), published on Thursday, revealed soaring levels of hunger among the poor and working populations around the globe. The foreword, written by the heads of Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide, the organizations responsible for the GHI, stated that the report “points to a dire hunger situation, a result of the toxic cocktail of the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly severe and protracted conflicts.” Rising food prices are a critical contributing factor in the growth of world hunger over the past year. Rapidly mounting inflation and the disruption of the supply chain networks of global capitalism are driving up the prices of all basic consumer goods. The U.S. Energy Information Authority reported that nearly half of all US households who use natural gas to heat their homes will pay an average of 30 to 50 percent more this winter for heating than last year.

Movements In The US Call To Expand Healthcare Access

September 25, 2021 Zoe Alexandra, People's Dispatch. Resist! Health Care, Human Rights, Medicare for all, Poverty

Organizations across the United States organized protests, cultural activities, community kitchens, teach-ins, and other actions about the issue of healthcare access in the US from September 13-20 as part of the Nonviolent Medicaid Army Week of Action. The diverse actions had the goal of uniting people directly impacted by healthcare denial and linking the different issues related to healthcare such as housing, police violence, access to clean water, and economic inequality. Actions were organized in the states of Alabama, California, Florida, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Vermont. The week of action organized by the Nonviolent Medicaid Army (NVMA) was cosponsored by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, the National Union Of The Homeless, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation – PSL.

Solely Because Of The Increasing Disorder

September 10, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! COVID-19, Finance and the Economy, Poverty, World Bank

A few days ago, I spoke to a senior official at the World Health Organisation (WHO). I asked her if she knew how many people lived their lives on our planet without shoes. The reason I asked her this question is because I was wondering about Tungiasis, an ailment caused by the infection that results from the entry of a female sand flea (Tunga penetrans) into the skin. This problem has a variety of names in many different languages – from jigger or chigoe to niguá (Spanish) or bicho do pé (Portuguese) to funza (Kiswahili) or tukutuku (Zande). It is a terrible problem that disfigures the feet and makes mobility difficult. Shoes prevent these fleas from burrowing into the skin. She was not sure about the number but presumed that at least a billion people must live without shoes.

The Political Economy Of Racial Inequality

September 7, 2021 Touré F. Reed, Dissent Magazine. Educate! Black America, Finance and the Economy, Poverty, Racism

In 1965, in response to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s anemic War on Poverty legislation, the labor and civil rights leaders A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin joined with Leon Keyserling, the former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, to draft “A Freedom Budget for All Americans.” Their $180 billion proposal ($1.4 trillion adjusted for inflation) would have established a living wage and guaranteed employment through public works projects and urban revitalization initiatives. Randolph and Rustin were socialists who viewed racial inequality through the lens of capitalist labor and housing markets. They correctly anticipated that neither the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s antidiscrimination measures nor the War on Poverty would be capable of eliminating black poverty.

Nicaragua Launches Plan To Fight Poverty And Promote Human Development

September 2, 2021 Teri Mattson and John Perry, Popular Resistance. Create! Human Rights, Nicaragua, Poverty, Sandinista Revolution

Ivan Acosta is Nicaragua’s minister of housing and public credit, with responsibility for key aspects of government planning. In July, he presented the country’s new “National Plan for the Fight against Poverty and for Human Development.” This builds on the achievements of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government since it returned to power in 2007 and sets out how they will continue if Daniel Ortega’s government is returned at November’s elections. Ivan Acosta is currently subject to personal US sanctions, along with many other Nicaraguan government officials and their family members. Codepinks’s Teri Mattson spoke to the minister in a Zoom call and asked him to explain the plan and its background.

Show Children The Green Fields And Let The Sunshine Into Their Minds

August 13, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Brazil, Children, Education, Poverty

Exactly two years ago, I walked with my colleagues from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research through the Camp Marielle Vive (‘Marielle Lives’) outside of Valinhos in the state of São Paulo, Brazil with a great sense of déjà vu. The camp resembles so many other communities of the desperately poor on our planet. The United Nations calculates that one in eight people on our planet – one billion human beings – live in such precariousness. The homes are made of a jumble of materials: blue tarpaulin sheets and bits of wood, corrugated iron sheets and old bricks. A thousand families live in Camp Marielle Vive, named after the Brazilian socialist Marielle Franco, who was assassinated in March 2018.

The Eradication Of Extreme Poverty In China

August 2, 2021 Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Create! China, Communism, Poverty, Socialism

On 25 February 2021, the Chinese government announced that extreme poverty had been abolished in China, a country of 1.4 billion people. This historic victory is a culmination of a seven-decade-long process that began with the Chinese Revolution of 1949. The early decades of socialist construction laid the foundation that was deepened during the reform and opening-up period. During this time, 850 million Chinese people were lifted and lifted themselves out of poverty; that is to say, 70 percent of the world’s total poverty reduction took place in China. In the most recent ‘targeted’ phase that began in 2013, the Chinese government spent 1.6 trillion yuan (US$246 billion) to build 1.1 million kilometres of rural roads, bring internet access to 98 percent of the country’s poor villages, renovate homes for 25.68 million people, and build new homes for 9.6 million others.

Families Wait Years For Housing Vouchers Due To Inadequate Funding

July 26, 2021 Sonya Acosta And Erik Gartland, CBPP. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Housing, HUD, Poverty

Due to limited program funding, families struggling to afford housing that manage to get off the waiting list for a Housing Choice Voucher must typically wait for years before receiving a voucher, CBPP analysis of Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) data shows. Among the 50 largest housing agencies, only two have average wait times of under a year for families that have made it off of the waiting list; the longest have average wait times of up to eight years.

China Pulls Itself Out Of Poverty 100 Years Into Its Revolution

July 4, 2021 Vijay Prashad and John Ross, Counterpunch. Educate! China, Finance and the Economy, Poverty, Socialism

On February 25, 2021, China’s President Xi Jinping announced that his country of 1.4 billion people had pulled its people out of poverty as it is defined internationally. Since 1981, 853 million Chinese people have lifted themselves out of poverty thanks to large-scale interventions from both the Chinese state and the Communist Party of China (CPC); according to the data of the World Bank, three out of four people worldwide who were lifted out of poverty live in China. “No country has been able to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in such a short time,” Xi said. When UN Secretary-General António Guterres visited China in September 2019, he gushed over this accomplishment, calling it the “greatest anti-poverty achievement in history.”

Sandinista Nicaragua, More Dignified And Victorious Than Ever

June 30, 2021 Carlos Fonseca Terán, Tortilla Con Sal. Educate! Media, Nicaragua, Poverty, US Imperialism

Nor is Nicaragua news for being the country with the highest level of direct ownership of the means of production by the working class in the Western Hemisphere (more than 50% of GDP and nearly 80% of economic units); nor for being one of the countries in the world that has most reduced illiteracy in the same period of time (from 35% to 3%); or for being one of the countries with the largest increase in per capita investment in health (from U$32 to U$70) and with the largest reduction in infant mortality (from 29 to 11.4 per 1,000 live births). Nicaragua is not news for being the country in the world that has most reduced the gender gap (from 90th to 12th), the country with the highest presence of women in its cabinet (58.82%), as well as having the fourth highest presence of women in the legislative branch (48.4%) and being the country that most radically applies the criterion of gender equity across its social policies.

A Deadly Contradiction: The Root Of The US- China Conflict

June 28, 2021 John V. Walsh, Popular Resistance. Educate! China, Finance and the Economy, Poverty, US Hegemony

China’ overwhelming objective is clearly economic development, a policy to which it has hewed closely and which it declares for its future. That is no surprise; it is the dream of every developing nation. It is “The Chinese Dream.” If such goals were no more than words on paper, there would be no problem. But China is succeeding as is widely acknowledged now. Its economy surpassed the U.S. in terms of GDP (PPP) in November of 2014 according to the IMF and is growing faster. Over 700 million have been brought out of poverty, with extreme poverty eliminated in 2020. The middle class now comprises over 400 million people. The retail market is enormous and the ecommerce market by far the world’s largest. China is the world’s largest manufacturer and trader.

State Of The World: Poverty Is Widespread

May 31, 2021 Rod Driver, Global Research. Educate! Global Economy, Hunger, Poverty, wealth inequality

The world’s population was about 7.8 billion people in 2020. About 2.2 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water, and over 4 billion do not have safe sanitation.(1) About 800 million suffer from chronic undernourishment. A fifth of all children under 5 suffer from stunted growth.(2) Each year approximately 6 million children and many millions of adults die of easily preventable diseases(3) and 9 million people die of hunger.(4) Some progress has been made on some of these issues, particularly in China. However, things have been getting worse in other regions, such as Africa.(5) Since 1960, the income gap between rich countries and poor countries has roughly tripled in size.

China Offers To Tutor Planet Following Extreme Poverty Elimination

April 7, 2021 Morgan Artyukhina, Sputnik News. Create! China, International Solidarity, Poverty, Socialism

Home to nearly one-fifth of the world’s population, China’s social policies have a dramatic effect on humanity as a whole. Despite a shift toward allowing capitalist markets in the late 1970s, the socialist state has still accounted for nearly three-quarters of global poverty elimination since then. China’s State Council Information Office has published a white paper outlining how the socialist country can teach the rest of the world about how to alleviate poverty. In the last 40 years, China has lifted 770 million people out of poverty, declaring an end to its most extreme forms in November. Titled "Poverty Alleviation: China's Experience and Contribution,” the Tuesday document lays out some of the ways China’s decades-long struggle can help other parts of the globe.

Neoliberalism Was Born In Chile; Neoliberalism Will Die In Chile

March 12, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Resist! Chile, Class war, Neoliberalism, Poverty

Daniel Jadue is the mayor of Recoleta, a commune that is part of the expanding city of Santiago, Chile. His office is on the sixth floor of a municipal building in whose lower reaches one can find a pharmacy, an optical shop, and a bookstore run by the municipality that are dedicated to providing fairly priced goods. On the walls of his office are emblems of his commitment to the Palestinian people, including flags and an iconic cartoon of Handala created by Naji al-Ali, a Palestinian cartoonist who was assassinated in 1987. ‘I am Palestinian’, Jadue tells me with pride. ‘I was born on 28 June 1967, just days after the Israelis took Jerusalem’. The struggle of the Palestinians, which has haunted much of his political life, he says, is ‘not so different from the struggle of the Chilean people.

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