Clipmarks | dmegivern's Poverty collection

What is Asset Poverty?

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:08:21 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Asset poverty is a measure of whether a household can support itself using savings or other available assets for 12 weeks at a poverty-level income.

Clip Source: www.bread.org

What is Asset Poverty?

Most people think of poverty as a lack of income, but by limiting our understanding of poverty to income alone, we miss a critical piece of what families need to get by. An asset-poor household is one in which a sudden halt in income would have serious consequences immediately. Asset poverty is a measure of whether a household can support itself using savings or other available assets for 12 weeks at a poverty-level income. Far more households are asset-poor compared to income-poor: 22.4 percent compared to 10.2 percent respectively. ¹

Asset Poverty Rates by Race in the United States

African American

43.2%

Hispanic

39.0%

Native American

34.5%

Asian

23.1%

White

16.6%

Source: Corporation for Enterprise Development (www.cfed.org), 2007 – 2008 Assets and Opportunity Scorecard, analysis based on U.S. Census Data (2004).

In their book Black Wealth/White Wealth, Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro expose the shocking inequalities of wealth along racial lines in the United States.

Hunger in the U.S.A.

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:36:45 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.thehungersite.com

Hunger in the U.S.

Families in Crisis

It is a tragic reality that the United States, one of the richest nations in the world, is also plagued with a poverty-driven hunger crisis. The statistics tell the troubling story. In 2005:

Every day, millions of children in America go to bed hungry.

12.9 million (17.8%) children under the age of 18 were in poverty

20.5 million (11.3%) of people aged 18-64 were in poverty

Poverty is forcing millions of Americans into a hunger crisis. Their hunger emergency is defined by food insecurity, which is the lack of access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs for an active and healthy life.² Families find themselves buying cheaper and less nutritious food, or cutting entire meals out of their diet, just to make ends meet. Increasing over time, this pattern leads to chronic malnutrition, affecting children and families in profoundly destructive ways.

The Hidden Poor

Working Poor

Children

Rural Poor

Solving Hunger

Has Class Trumped Race?

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:38:53 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.racialicious.com

Has Class Trumped Race? Part 1 - Understanding Privilege

There is also an interesting post called “Being Poor” by John Scalzi (apparently written in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.) At the end of a long list of scenarios, he writes:

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

1. Has anyone close to you ever overdosed on drugs?

3. Has anyone in your family’s social circle ever been in prison?

4. Has your family ever been foreclosed on?

5. Have your parents ever been bankrupt?

7. Have you seen a dentist in the past year?

9. Did your parents use pay-day loans?

12. Has anyone in your immediate family ever delayed an important medical procedure because they didn’t have the money?

13. Did you ever move in with relatives because of financial problems?

15. Was one or both parents often unemployed and looking for work?

16. Was your family ever evicted?

Contract WITH the Poor

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:46:19 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Interesting idea. If you could actually see a partnership develop where, for example,
Supported Employment was offered to people with serious mental illness, it would help everyone. For more on SE, google and check out Massachusett's SEE programs.

Clip Source: icwales.icnetwork.co.uk

Brown seeking ‘contract’ with the worst-off families

GORDON BROWN will travel to Wales this afternoon to set out the “moral imperative” behind his bid to lift thousands of families out of poverty.

The Prime Minister wants new contracts between the State and the worst-off families, where both sides “play by the rules” to ensure more move from benefit to work.

The State will also fulfil its duty to provide the best services for children in the poorest families, he said.

Bolstering child care so more mothers can go back to work is also part of the Government’s plans, with ministers travelling to Scandinavia to see if their model of heavy State investment in children’s services can be replicated here.

Figures released this week suggest a modest rise in the numbers from poorer backgrounds applying for degree courses, but the National Union of Students and opposition politicians say the data is misleading.

Gates Calls for Kinder Capitalism

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:36:22 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Some of the rich know that the system works in their favor.

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Bill Gates Issues Call
For Kinder Capitalism

Free enterprise has been good to Bill Gates. But today, the Microsoft Corp. chairman will call for a revision of capitalism.

Mr. Gates isn't abandoning his belief in capitalism as the best economic system. But in an interview with the Journal last week at his Microsoft office in Redmond, Wash., Mr. Gates said that he has grown impatient with the shortcomings of capitalism. He said he has seen those failings first-hand on trips for Microsoft to places like the South African slum of Soweto, and discussed them with dozens of experts on disease and poverty. He has voraciously read about those failings in books that propose new approaches to narrowing the gap between rich and poor.

In particular, he said, he's troubled that advances in technology, health care and education tend to help the rich and bypass the poor. "

A History of American Poverty

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:04:09 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: http://thewisdomgoldenmean.blogspot.com/2007/06/poverty-from-up-close-and-personal.html

Clip Source: www.dmegivern-dfoster.net

A Real Voice from Poverty

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:00:30 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: thewisdomgoldenmean.blogspot.com

My hometown neighborhood was identified in U.S. News and World Report as the 7th largest white ghetto (Whitman & Friedman, 1994). Relative to others in the lowest income quartile, our family, with an annual income totaling approximately 30-50% of the poverty line, was considerably poorer than most. It is difficult to understand the poverty line without a reference and even more difficult to summarize the economics of a family over the span of many years. So the best way to explain our family income is to say that throughout most of my childhood, my two parents and their six children on average lived on approximately $5000-8000 per year or $400-$650 per month (in 2004 dollars). Paying rent usually took 75% of the cash our family had, leaving about $12.50 per person per month for all other expenses aside from housing. We had no assets whatsoever, but rather carried a constant rolling debt with creditors who gauged poor people with usurious interest rates.

American Poverty

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:58:36 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: http://www.dmegivern-dfoster.net/Consequences.html
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003704.html
http://thewisdomgoldenmean.blogspot.com/2007/06/poverty-from-up-close-and-personal.html

Clip Source: www.cbpp.org

POVERTY REMAINS HIGHER, AND MEDIAN INCOME FOR NON-ELDERLY IS LOWER, THAN WHEN RECESSION HIT BOTTOM:
Poor Performance Unprecedented for Four-Year Recovery Period

Trend Toward Deep Poverty

Census data also show a trend of deepening poverty among those who are poor. The amount by which the average poor person fell below the poverty line in 2005 — $3,236 — was the highest on record. So was the share of the poor (43 percent) who fell below half of the poverty line.[2]

Results Disappointing for this Stage of an Economic Recovery

While overall median income rose in 2005, the typical non-elderly household saw its income fall in 2005 and now has income $2,000 below its level during the recession itself.

The share of the poor living in deep poverty remained at a record level in 2005.

In the poverty data the Census Bureau released today, Americans are considered poor if their annual incomes in 2005 were below $15,577 for a three-person family, equivalent to $1,298 a month.

Income inequality

Poverty and Hardship

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:49:44 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.cbpp.org

POVERTY AND HARDSHIP AFFECT TENS OF MILLIONS OF AMERICANS

15.4 million Americans live in extreme poverty. In other words, their family’s cash income is less than half of the poverty line, or less than about $10,000 a year for a family of four.

Food: Some 12.6 million households, containing 35.5 million people, lacked access to adequate food at some point during the year because they didn’t have enough money for groceries.

Shelter: 16 million low-income households either paid more for rent and utilities than the federal government says is affordable or lived in overcrowded or substandard housing.

Nearly 9 million children are uninsured, and the number of uninsured children has risen for two straight years.

Assistance Programs Reduce Poverty and Hardship, But Serious Gaps Remain

Many households do not qualify.

Some people are eligible for programs but do not participate.

Some programs provide inadequate benefits.

Programs that can improve employment and earnings receive inadequate funding.

Clipmarks | dmegivern's Poverty collection

What is Asset Poverty?

Hunger in the U.S.A.

Has Class Trumped Race?

Has Class Trumped Race? Part 1 - Understanding Privilege

Contract WITH the Poor

Brown seeking ‘contract’ with the worst-off families

Gates Calls for Kinder Capitalism

Bill Gates Issues Call For Kinder Capitalism

A History of American Poverty

A Real Voice from Poverty

American Poverty

Poverty and Hardship

Bill Gates Issues Call
For Kinder Capitalism