G20 Countries Take On Economic Inequality

categories: Activism, Bailout, Federal, Government, Inequality, stimulus, The Economy

Published September 28, 2009 @ 04:43AM PT

G20 leaders are heralding their progress last weekend in Pittsburgh as a sign of a new world order, in which they will collaborate as "permanent stewards of the world economy for the first time," monitored and evaluated by the International Monetary Fund to ensure that "economic policies of G20 countries are consistent with 'sustainable and balanced trajectories for the global economy'." This plan lacks any enforceable power - it is a strategy of global goodwill, embarrassment and peer pressure to avoid on-going boom and bust economic cycles - but there is talk of imposing a tax on financial speculation (e.g., derivatives) to curb "excessive risk-taking."

This is a positive if amorphous development for the world and the US. It signals that we are eager to return to a more cooperative stance in the world, and it is a more overt, collective acknowledgment by nations of the uneven outcomes of globalization that I've seen before. But what next? Unsurprisingly, the U.S. is loathe to take on Wall Street, and the rift between the developing world's need for better access to markets and less onerous trading conditions and the developed world's desire to protect their unfair advantage in our "free" market economy persists.

Leaders at the summit congratulated themselves on preventing a global depression via stimulus measures, and outlined a voluntary commitment to fight global poverty through improved access to "food, fuel, and finance" for the poor. What's difficult for domestic anti-poverty activists in global poverty debates is that the U.S. is always in the role of the rich, developed country needing to do more for its poorer global counterparts. This is a reality, but one that obscures our own problematic economic inequality at home. Frameworks like economic human rights situate our poverty and inequality in international frameworks - it's unconscionable for us to tolerate such poverty because by doing so we are violating our international agreements. This is a language slow to catch on at home, given how generally insular we are as a nation. But in convenings like the G20, we'd do best to remember that our almost 40M poor Americans are part of the global poverty masses - and we should cajole our leaders to prioritize aid and development to Detroit and Appalachia alongside sub-Saharan Africa.

(Photo of activists in Pittsburgh by WoodysWorldTV)

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Comments (7)

I am a resident of Michigan, the state with the nation's highest unemployment rate. When the Motor City's car companies left, our jobs left, too. I am watching my friends and neighbors lose their homes and waiting to lose mine as well. We are good hard-working people, with no jobs to go to. There are no programs in place to help us keep our homes or to help us re-locate to other states.

My husband used to work 12-16 hour days 6 days a week just to get by. Now he is lucky to have a few jobs a week. We have a mortgage on our home that is now higher than the value of the house, due to the plumeting real estate market. We have bills to pay and children to support with barely any income. The state's assistance programs provide too little too late. What are we going to do?

Sincerely Petrified,

Darla Hargraves, BBA

Posted by Darla Hargraves on 09/28/2009 @ 12:33PM PT
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Darla's right. What ARE *WE* going to do - and specifically about our OWN poor? We have plenty of poor already and we're NOT dealing with our poor. We're not all rich here and if we're always spending all our money and resources taking care of our rich and everyone else's poor we'll run out of money and resources and just become another nation of poor due to lack of planning on our part. Geez, what is it going to take to get our society or at the very least our government to recognize the elephant of poverty in the living room?

I received a tweet today that mentioned that 1 in 10 of East Bay residents are living below the poverty line. The cost of living in the Bay Area is roughly similar between there and here in Seattle (though I think they're slightly more expensive due to housing). It's miserable enough living anywhere on the West Coast in poverty and definitely bad in Seattle - I can't imagine what it's like in the East Bay...and to have THAT MANY in poverty?!? But the link to the article I got via Twitter is http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_13439518?nclick_check=1

Definitely read that article, it does a good job of explaining a few things like why the current way of figuring poverty is so wrong and why we so desperately need to take into account regional cost of living differences when figuring poverty because of areas like the Bay Area (or in my case Seattle) where pretty much EVERYTHING costs more.

Posted by Danetta Amschler on 09/28/2009 @ 08:32PM PT
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125417989137347729.html

That's another one that I got from the same Twitterer about the increase in poverty in OUR OWN country. We might be ignoring the elephant of poverty, but he's sure getting bigger.

Posted by Danetta Amschler on 09/28/2009 @ 08:42PM PT
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This could be a means to bring attention to poverty. I am tired of seeing names of stars and movies on the ten must popular Internet searches, on yahoo why don't they carry words like Poverty?

On Dec 10th Human Rights day, the day the 30 human rights were adapted by the UN in 1948. I am asking all homeless all activist of homeless how understands we must cure 100% of all poverty or nothing. Band aide programs are no longer cutting the amount of need To look up poverty many times that day-Show America we do think of other things besides the Fires, Movie stars and robberies.

We will need every hand available to make this a top ten poular search item. - Sorry Cher,and others, today is about REAL PEOPLE.

Here is the blurb.

"Lets make poverty a nightmare of the past.

This can happen by making sure everyone is talking about poverty, on the internet; on Human Rights Day Dec 10. Let all of us look up poverty on different search engines, as well as many times on Yahoo.com. Get others to do the same. Make poverty one of the ten in yahoo, popular search engine. Then the activists and the poor ourselves, can call for better news coverage of poverty."

Posted by jan Lightfootlane on 09/29/2009 @ 12:13PM PT
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If you believe you will make it Darla, you will. But it will not be easy.You can get the news papers to cover this. Or get creative in other ways. Knowing you are not alone does not make it easier.

No body should have to work 16 hours to make ends meet. You can join those insisting upon a better world. Being here at Change Org is a big improvement.

Oh my personal take is; Never believe what any government or corporation person tells you without checking it out two other people. Not that they lie, but they get confused and state stuff contrary to law. The State of Maine attributes this happening to bad training. But the state does some training. Check out what ever you are told. look up the Laws governing aid in your state.

Posted by jan Lightfootlane on 09/29/2009 @ 12:23PM PT
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Thank you Jan!

Posted by Darla Hargraves on 09/29/2009 @ 07:36PM PT
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Having been through it enough times with enough agencies, either NO ONE trains and NO ONE supervises *or* the problem is much simpler - too many employees of too many agencies simply DO NOT CARE. They don't care enough to learn their jobs, they don't care enough to do their jobs, they don't even care enough to admit when they don't know what they're doing and to either look up the flipping right answer or to refer you to the person that WOULD know said right answer. Instead, they'd rather give you misinformation or get flat out snotty and even retaliatory for "making them look bad" for making it obviously that they "didn't know what they were doing" - like it was YOUR fault they didn't give a rat's rear about their job. That's an agency-wide cultural problem and yes, things ranging from management to pay tend to figure in...

Two of the worst agencies in my experience for misinformation are the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) that oversees (among LOTS of other things) all the "welfare" programs and (this ought to scare the bejeezus out of people) the 1-800# for Social Security. About half the time I've gotten at least partially wrong info from Social Security's 1-800#. I finally just gave up and started using their website for everything - it's more difficult, but more likely to turn up the right answer on the first try. But I've gotten information as wrong from government employees as it taking 4 or 5 phone calls to reach someone in the CA Unemployment Department that would mail my unemployment check to my New Mexico address. The first several employees kept trying to tell me that the checks couldn't be mailed "out of the country" - when New Mexico is the STATE between AZ and TX, it's not a foreign country or in another country. Between answers like these and attitudes like the Human Services worker in San Joaquin County who really did tell me that "adults don't need things like dish soap and toilet paper" I find myself wondering how some of these people keep their jobs. Stuff like this isn't often tolerated in private jobs - union or not.

Posted by Danetta Amschler on 09/29/2009 @ 08:13PM PT
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Leigh is a PhD candidate in urban planning at MIT, and a consultant on U.S. Gulf Coast recovery. She sits on the Board of the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation in Boston, and has worked with non-profits, foundations and local governments on policies and programs aimed at reducing urban poverty and inequality.