Research
The Economic Impact of Childhood Hunger
Published July 02, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
For the last several years, many education experts have been calling for longer school days, weeks and years as a way to halt the competitive disadvantage being felt by American students in a global workplace where countries such as China and India keep their children in school for significantly more time.
The case has been made that the U.S. economy is suffering, in part, because our students simply cannot complete professionally with more highly educated foreigners.
A new Feeding America report supports this claim and states that--in addition to scaled back schooling--childhood hunger in the U.S. is a "contributing factor to the nation’s economic woes and puts America at a competitive disadvantage."
Seeing The Other America
Published June 28, 2009 @ 01:08PM PT
I confess, I've never read Michael Harrington's seminal work, The Other America. Rather, I've read of its influence among conservative and liberal policy circles - how it shaped our varying recognition of and approach to poverty in this country.
There's a shortish, interesting reflection on the book in a recent NYT, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Harrington's initial publication "Our Fifty Million Poor"
"in which he sought to overturn the conventional wisdom that the United States had become an overwhelmingly middle-class society...he demonstrated that nearly a third of the population lived “below those standards which we have been taught to regard as the decent minimums for food, housing, clothing and health.”
I don't have much to add to this thorough review, so I'm just going to leave you with this:
...what remains fresh and vital in “The Other America” is its moral clarity. Harrington argued that Americans should be angry and ashamed to live in a rich society in which so many remained poor. “The fate of the poor,” he concluded, “hangs upon the decision of the better-off. If this anger and shame are not forthcoming, someone can write a book about the other America a generation from now and it will be the same or worse.”
What can I say? It's Sunday - once again I'm preaching to the choir this afternoon!
If you've read Harrington's work, leave your thoughts in comments.
Policies that Actually Promote Self-Sufficiency
Published June 26, 2009 @ 11:00AM PT
The Boston Globe ran an editorial yesterday chiding the state for policies that deny the working poor real opportunities to move off public assistance. Published to coincide with the release of a new report by the Massachusetts Asset Development Commission, the editorial highlighted the reality that almost 50% of state residents are considered asset-poor - i.e., they have less than 3 months worth of financial security should they lose a job or income stream. Despite this, many poverty programs in Mass - and nationwide - penalize recipients if they earn beyond an arbitrary baseline amount, spend money on things like education, or own a car worth more than a certain value. The Commission's report identifies this as the "cliff effect"
"whereby working people reach a wage threshold and are precipitously cut off from benefits. These people are working hard at difficult jobs; they shouldn’t have to choose between reaching for a better life and losing support programs that make working possible."
Seriously - isn't this common sense?
The "Hidden Scandal" of American Hunger
Published June 18, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
What happens when gas prices reach such heights that poor families in rural areas can't afford to drive into town to visit the food pantry? What happens when quitting your job is actually more economically sound than spending $200 a week on gas to reach employment 50 miles away? What happens when you have to choose between feeding your children or buying needed prescriptions? What happens when the social safety net fails to catch those who are falling into chronic hunger?
These are some of the questions that Sasha Abramsky seeks to address in his recently-released book Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger And How To FIx It. Admittedly, I have only just started reading it and am about 40 pages in right now. However, I wanted to let all you hunger advocates know about this book in case you haven't heard of it already.
200 Green Carts Arrive in Low-Income NYC Neighborhoods
Published June 12, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
With 800 more on the way. Part of NYC government's food policy initiatives, supported with foundation funding and micro-loans from Accion NY, the mobile produce carts sell raw fruits and vegetables in high poverty neighborhoods around NYC often described as "food deserts." Soon, 15 of them will carry all-weather wireless technology so that they can accept food stamps. The NY Times describe the scene, tactlessly perhaps, at the Fordham Road cart in the Bronx as a "frenzy."
This is one of those great articles that shows the early promise of new policy initiatives that come together with the support and cooperation of multiple partners. Let's see how it goes as time passes and it grows. There's certainly no shortage of need, given the widespread racial and class health disparities in this country.
(Produce stand in San Francisco's Ferry Building by Inuyaki)
High-Poverty, High-Achieving Schools
Published June 12, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Education. I rarely write about it, because it's not my area, and I feel like I'm pontificating. (More than usual!) Disclaimer aside, a couple interesting articles in my inbox today:
"Kids Reap Benefits of Longer School Year" and "US high school graduation rate climbs to 69.2 percent." Both headlines rely pretty heavily on spin, but the point they make is that some low-income, urban schools and their students are seeing improved school performance, evidenced by graduation rates, grades, test scores, etc. Credit is given to a longer academic year, early childhood intervention, and alternative paths to graduation. Let's take a look.
Race and the Recession
Published May 29, 2009 @ 11:30AM PT
Photo of murals under I-10 at Claiborne Ave in New Orleans. On Claiborne was a thriving black business district in Treme in New Orleans that was destroyed by the development of highway I-10. Urban renewal and federal highway projects repeatedly destroyed thriving black neighborhoods throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Race & the Recession is the title of a new report out by the Applied Research Center, subtitled "How Inequity Rigged the Economy and How to Change the Rules." I find it especially timely to cover here given the conversation on race, racism, right-wing politics and Reagan unfolding below. I'd also recommend hightailing it over to Ta-Nehisi today, who is just repeatedly nailing this topic with eloquence and erudition, not an easy thing to accomplish.
Race and the Recession mixes stories and data to demonstrate the disproportionate impacts on people of color in this recession. This does not mean that whites/Anglo-Americans are not also suffering - what it means is that given our respective demographic populations in the US, we are likely to see outsized numbers of stories of layoffs, foreclosures, low-wages, lack of health coverage, etc. among non-white Americans. The report details the way disparities in lending, in wealth accumulation, in hiring and employment practices, in wages, etc. create cumulative, downward effects on people of color that makes recessionary periods especially difficult to weather and overcome.
After the jump are highlights from the report, and the policies we need to reduce this inequality - recommendations include universal healthcare, raising the minimum wage, updating decades old community investment policies, assessing the racial impacts of proposed policies, and expanding our emergency relief for the time being.
