Inequality
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Helping the Poor Quit Smoking
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Judge Rules Katrina Flooding Government's Fault
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Time for a Little Thanks
Long-term Unemployment Worst Since the Great Depression
Published November 17, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Record-setting joblessness: it's not just for the elderly. 5.6M Americans have been out of work for at least 6 months; this is the highest proportion of workers out of work for that long since the Great Depression. Joblessness is highest among younger workers.
I've written about unemployment and joblessness a lot lately. Here's some other poverty news items I'd love to spend more time on as well:
- A new documentary, "The End of Poverty" (in limited release), makes a case for capitalism's systematic inequality and hints at a need to resurrect Marxist critiques of our cherished economic system.
- Speaking of leftist advocacy, ACORN has sued the federal government over the House's decisions to defund the anti-poverty group, saying it is unconstitutional and effectively deeming ACORN guilty without trial.
- In DC, job training programs for public assistant recipients fail to tell 97% of enrollees about skills training programs that might actually help them find and keep jobs. That's one way to encourage self-sufficiency: designing failure right into aid programs!
- Hawaii considers getting out of the public housing business entirely.
- Is the Catholic Church's assault on women's healthcare in the reform debate an attempt to level the playing field for Catholic hospitals that currently provide a more limited range of health services than secular hospitals?
- More school districts are basing busing decisions on income rather than race in an attempt to get mostly children of color out of low-performing schools.
- NIMBYism comes to rural Maine to block housing for Latin@ farmworkers. 6 whole units worth. Now that's a ghastly, infectious island of concentrated poverty if I've ever heard of one.
- Happy Birthday Sesame Street! (5 days late, my bad!) Over 40 years, the program has moved from racial and economic integration and diversity training goals to foodie fads and wellness. Discuss.
- And this is a feel good story: West Philly inner-city high school kids beat MIT teams in a $10M green car contest not once, but twice. Sweet! Well done!
(Sesame Street sure looks scrubbed clean in that photo, don't you think? Taken at Sesame Place by steve.ie)
44% of Congress are millionaires
Published November 16, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
And we wonder why Congress can't pass bills to support low-income households and working people...ok, we don't really wonder, do we?
1% of Americans are millionaires, compared to 44% of Congress (237 elected officials, to be exact). The median income in the Senate is just under $2M, in the House it's just over $600k. Median household income in the US is $50,303.
Just because an individual is rich does not preclude them from pursuing pro-poor or equitable policies, nor does it suggest that they cannot relate to poverty or economic inequality. But when the group norm is staggering wealth compared to the typical American, including in countless districts these officials represent, then it is understandably difficult to consider or develop policies that truly address economic hardship. Add to this wealth disparity the reality that 9 in 10 House incumbents and 8 in 10 Senate incumbents are re-elected each election year, and my despair over Congressional legislation benefiting the average American certainly deepens.
I hear from political insiders that nothing is more important in running for election than a person's ability to raise money. Forget your political views, your commitment to social equity, your desire to make a difference. If you're not rich or you don't know rich people who can bankroll your campaign, it's over before you've begun. Yes, we need to keep putting progressive candidates up for election, and we need to diversify the ranks of political leadership along racial, gender and certainly class lines. But how can we do that, when we're up against the nation's economic elite? Maybe our Average Joe VP, who's net worth is $27,000, has some advice.
(Original graph of House incumbency trends here at the Center for Responsive Politics)
Poverty--'Prison Without Bars'
Published November 13, 2009 @ 05:03AM PT
While I think I know something about poverty, I could never succinctly describe it as Dorothy Thomas did, "Poverty is prison without bars." Her homelessness probably galvanized her way of looking at her income-deficit disorder.
It just takes a glance at headlines to realize that our country suffers from economic schizophrenia. We've got a bazillionaire plunking down a cool $43.8 million for Warhol's painting of 200 $1 bills, and 237 of the 535 members of Congress counting up their millions, although hard times have hit a few...
The Center for Responsive Politics reports that a number of lawmakers are estimated to have suffered double-digit percentage losses in their net worth from 2007 to 2008. The biggest losers include Kerry, who lost a whopping $127.4 million; Warner lost about $28.1 million; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lost about $11.8 million; and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) lost about $10.1 million.
Putting Veterans To Work
Published November 11, 2009 @ 10:46AM PT
This blog title is likely to ruffle a few feathers, as it implies an epidemic of layabout retired servicemen and women, when the reality for millions of Vets, as we know it, is much harsher. Every Veterans Day, amidst the tributes and thank yous, are the tireless activists pointing out* how difficult life can be for veterans after military service - due especially to the psychological and disruptive impacts of combat and deployments and the relatively low remuneration for service. Now, under President Obama, the Administration and civil society organizations are working to reduce veteran unemployment and poverty.
On Monday, the White House introduced a new initiative to recruit and hire more veterans into the federal government, citing their distinct preparation for careers in public service. Through the Council on Veterans Employment, the Homeland Security, Labor, and Veterans Affairs will work with WH personnel management to increase the number of veterans employed through the federal government.
Stimulus funds are supporting the American Legion Auxiliary's national Call to Service Corps VISTA project that puts volunteers to work fighting poverty among veterans and military families. The project will provide economic and social support to over 100 military families and enlist almost 2,000 veteran families in anti-poverty community service projects.
House Healthcare Bill Effectively Prohibits Abortion
Published November 10, 2009 @ 08:41AM PT
I took a lot of flak yesterday from commenters for celebrating the passage of the House healthcare reform bill. Like many feminists (and unlike many others), I celebrated some of the specific advances towards equalizing healthcare coverage for women and men. And like most feminists, I am floored, sickened, and outraged that House Democrats have passed the most restrictive policy on abortion since it was legalized in 1973.
I'm trying to get how the Stupak-Pitts Amendment works correct here, so bear with me. This bill creates insurance exchanges for "individuals and small employers to comparison shop among private and public insurers, including new health insurance co-ops." Included here are federal subsidies "to help low- and middle-income individuals and families purchase insurance." The Stupak Amendment prohibits any insurance companies that enroll these subsidized individuals and families from covering elective abortions. It is anticipated that eventually the majority of all companies and individuals in the US will be covered through these exchanges. FDL leads us to the Amendment's inexorable conclusion:
House Bill Expands Medicaid to 15M more Americans
Published November 08, 2009 @ 11:34AM PT
Update, 11/10/09: I made an error in the # of Americans newly eligible for Medicaid via this bill. It is 15M Americans; through Medicaid expansion, subsidies, and insurance exchange options, 36M Americans overall will be newly covered through this legislation.
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Congrats to House Speaker Pelosi, President Obama, the American people, and other elected leaders for their efforts to pass this historic healthcare bill. I'm always up for celebrating any social policy that is the next big victory since LBJ's achievements forty years ago.
Gay Rights blogger Mike Jones has some terrific info on one key Medicaid expansion in the bill that permits states "to cover early HIV treatment...a departure from a current policy that only allows states to use Medicaid funds once a patient develops full-blown AIDS." Let's take a look at the other wins for low-income Americans in the bill:
90% of Black Children on Food Stamps
Published November 05, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
In one of the most dramatic examples I've seen of the true reach of hunger in the United States, a new report released this week by Washington University in St. Louis researchers found that 90 percent of black children will be clients of the national Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/Food Stamps) at least once by the time they turn 20.
Although the percentage is less for white children (the only other ethnic group studied), the startling statistic here is that, at some point before their 20th birthday, 50 percent of all children in the United States will have received SNAP benefits.
More than being about access to food, the report's lead researcher says his findings represent a more important trend in the upbringing of the country's children. "Rather than being a time of security and safety, the childhood years for many American children are a time of economic turmoil, risk, and hardship," says Mark Rank, Ph.D.
