Clipmarks | dmegivern's Inequality collection

Princeton University survey finds 'pain gap'

Fri, 02 May 2008 05:40:52 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Those with lower incomes and less education are in pain more often, researchers say

A novel study that attempts to paint the most accurate and detailed description yet of how Americans experience pain has found that a significant portion of the population -- 28 percent -- are in pain at any given moment and those with less education and lower income spend more of their time in pain. Those in pain are less likely to work or socialize with others and are more inclined to watch television than the pain-free.

The study, which appears in the May 3 issue of The Lancet, was prepared by Alan Krueger, a professor of economics at Princeton University, and Arthur Stone, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stony Brook University. The work is the first of its type, according to the authors, to quantify a "pain gap" in American society, with the "have-nots" suffering a disproportionate amount in relation to the "haves."

Tags: pain, education, rich, poor

Feds Help Predatory Lenders

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:42:52 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers

By Eliot Spitzer

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents

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

The Rich Man's Michael Moore

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:10:00 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Why an Heir Continues to Document -- and Anger -- the Wealthy

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Jamie Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, used to be an accepted member of the New York elite, with a trust fund, a top education and loads of old-money friends. Now, thanks to his film career, he's not as welcome.

I'll walk into a social event where there are a number of people who I grew up with and they'll treat me apprehensively," says Mr. Johnson, 28.

His relationship with his family, especially his father, has also cooled. "There was a sense that 'If you go too far with these [films], you won't be welcome in your own home,'" he says.

Mr. Johnson is getting used to being an outcast among the upper class. After the 2003 release of his first film, "Born Rich," which looked at the lives of the silver-spoon set, and now his second, "The One Percent," which focuses on the American wealth gap, Mr. Johnson has become the rich man's Michael Moore

Tags: wealth, documentary

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

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. "

Upward Bound Helps Again

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:59:23 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: It's so nice to know that at least one government program is working.

Clip Source: www.desmoinesregister.com

Alternative school principal gets a chance to give back

It started at the end of his seventh-grade year. At home, Joel locked himself in his room, listened to the radio and read sports biographies. He dreamed of becoming a professional football player and leaving this life behind. At McCombs Middle School, his grades, once all A's, plummeted. In eighth grade, he was twice suspended for fighting. Even in the gifted program, even with top test scores, Joel failed French, English, algebra, science and typing.

Then, in 10th grade, a Lincoln High School guidance counselor told Joel about Upward Bound. The program, which focuses on low-income students whose parents didn't attend college, sounded like a nice escape: six weeks on a college campus, away from home.

And, just like that, things changed. Joel met other teens with difficult childhoods, teens from single-parent homes and whose families struggled financially. He met teens in tougher situations, teens with alcoholic parents

The Rich Stand Accused

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:31:05 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.adbusters.org

The Rich Stand Accused

If you want to be an ecologist, you have to stop being half-witted.” writes Hervé Kempf, author of the acclaimed Comment les riches détruisent la planète (How the Rich Destroy the Planet, Seuil, 2007). “We cannot understand the simultaneity of the ecological and social crises if we do not analyze them as two facets of the same disaster.”

This oligarchy he targets is not satisfied with blindly consuming and wasting the planet’s material resources with its big cars, its airplane trips, its unbridled consumption of living products, its uselessly vast houses, its unrestrained energy wastage. It has also, adds Kempf, spawned a model of hyper-consumption that the lower and especially the middle classes now attempt to imitate, just as developing countries try to imitate western countries – even though, whether instinctively or rationally, everyone clearly knows that “this ideology of waste” and its drain on planetary resources will inevitably come to an abrupt end.

The era of easy money is over

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:04:54 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.ft.com

middle-class families have exhausted the coping mechanisms they have used for more than three decades to get by on median wages that are barely higher than they were in 1970, adjusted for inflation. Male wages today are in fact lower than they were then; the income of a young man in his 30s is now 12 per cent below that of a man his age three decades ago. Yet for years America’s middle class has lived beyond its pay cheque. Middle-class lifestyles have flourished even though median wages have barely budged.

second coping mechanism. The typical American now works two weeks more each year than he or she did 30 years ago.

the third coping mechanism. We began to borrow, big time.

But this can no longer keep us going, either. The era of easy money is over

The anxiety gripping the American middle class is not simply a product of the current economic slowdown. The underlying problem began around 1970.

Tags: economy, consumers, i-income, i-decrease, i-debt, i-increase, i-forecast

UK inequality at 40 year high

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 08:51:34 GMT

clipped by: sunbeam

Clip Source: www.jrf.org.uk

New poverty and wealth maps of Britain reveal inequality to be at 40-year high

A new way of comparing poverty and wealth trends across Britain shows inequality has reached levels not seen for over 40 years. This is according to research released today (17 July) by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. A second report, published simultaneously, has found that the public believes the gap between rich and poor people is too large.

households in already-wealthy areas have tended to become disproportionately wealthier and that many rich people live in areas segregated from the rest of society. At the same time, more households have become poor over the last 15 years, but fewer are very poor.

the report contains comprehensive maps which are based on census and survey data illustrating the changes in poverty and wealth across Britain from 1968 to 2005.

It found that over the last 20 years, a large and enduring majority of people have considered the gap between high and low incomes too large.

Tags: poverty, wealth, inequality, uk, census, attitude survey

Clipmarks | dmegivern's Inequality collection

Princeton University survey finds 'pain gap'

Feds Help Predatory Lenders

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers

Hunger in the U.S.A.

The Rich Man's Michael Moore

American Poverty

Gates Calls for Kinder Capitalism

Bill Gates Issues Call For Kinder Capitalism

Upward Bound Helps Again

Alternative school principal gets a chance to give back

The Rich Stand Accused

The Rich Stand Accused

The era of easy money is over

UK inequality at 40 year high

New poverty and wealth maps of Britain reveal inequality to be at 40-year high

Bill Gates Issues Call
For Kinder Capitalism