Clipmarks | dmegivern's 'poverty' clips

Number of Americans in Poverty Up Slightly

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:17:04 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Number Of Americans In Poverty Up Slightly

(CBS/AP) The Census Bureau reports that 12.5 percent of Americans, or 37.3 million people, were living in poverty in 2007, up from 36.5 million in 2006.

The rate also increased for children under 18 years old (18.0 percent in 2007, up from 17.4 percent in 2006). The rates remained statistically unchanged for those 18-to-64 years old (10.9 percent) and those 65 and over (9.7 percent).

Both the percentage and number of children under 18 years old without health insurance were lower than in 2006 (11.0 percent and 8.1 million, respectively). Although the uninsured rate for children in poverty decreased last year, from 19.3 percent to 17.6 percent, children in poverty were more likely to be uninsured than all children.

Number in Poverty and Poverty Rate: 1959 to 2007

Tags: poverty, usa

The Whole History of Dmegivern's Clipmarks Comments

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 08:02:50 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: thewisdomgoldenmean.blogspot.com

All my Clipmarks Comments

what I am trying to stress is that even if I eventually made it to the indebted middle class, I am not okay from the journey. I am traumatized. Poverty harmed me deeply. It broke up my family. It put me into foster care, and led to dozens of stressful moves. It provided me with a first-hand seat to the ridicule of the poor; I carry in diaries... in memories... a lifelong record of anti-poor and anti-welfare comments hurled at me.

"I disagree. I grew up in the household of mentally ill people who went untreated. It led to us going to foster care, long-term poverty, neglect, and sometimes mistreatment. I take my meds religiously because I never want to endanger my family in the same way. They may not work for everyone, but they have been wonderful for me. My brother who committed suicide in 1996 at the age of 23 never wanted to take meds either. I think people are too cavalier about dismissing their importance for real mental illness."

Tags: comments, poverty, mental illness

Class Desegregation

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:31:40 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The Next Kind of Integration

The chief justice didn’t address the idea of class-based integration in his opinion. But Justice Anthony Kennedy did, in a separate concurrence. And because Kennedy cast the fifth vote for the majority, his view controls the law. Though he agreed with Roberts that public school districts should not make school assignments based on the race of individual students, he added that the court’s ruling “should not prevent school districts from continuing the important work of bringing together students of different racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The Harvard sociologist Christopher Jencks reanalyzed Coleman’s data in the 1970s and concluded that poor black sixth-graders in majority middle-class schools were 20 months ahead of poor black sixth-graders in majority low-income schools. The statistics for poor white students were similar.

poor kids have to be evenly distributed among classrooms

Tags: social_class, class, poverty, education

Proms-Dress Drive Aids Foster Girls

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:47:18 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.socialworkers.org

Student's Prom-Dress Drive Aids Foster Girls

It's a teenage rite of spring: picking out the perfect prom dress for a magical night of dancing and romance. But for some girls, it's not as easy as just wandering the aisles and finding what strikes one's fancy. NASW member and social work student Tyleen Caffrey decided to do something about that.

Caffrey, 32, was a foster child herself. Her foster parents were unable to afford a prom dress for her, but her foster mother was able to make one. She realized, however, that not all children in foster care would have that option. She developed the plan in October with the Southern Miss Student Association of Social Workers and began collecting dresses.

Her original projections estimated the project would serve about 50 girls, with hair styling and makeup for 10 of those girls. "We collected between 450 and 500 dress altogether," she said. "And every girl who came through [the Department of Human Services] got a full makeover.

Tags: foster care, children, poverty

State's Ratings on Child Well-Being Revealed

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:41:29 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.socialworkers.org

States' Ratings on Child Well-Being Revealed

The report rates the 50 states on 10 major child well-being standards. The 10 bottom states identified are Arizona, South Dakota, Nevada, Arkansas, South Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Mississippi, and at number 50, Louisiana.

The report's top 10 states for children are Maine, Washington, Minnesota, Iowa, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts, with Vermont ranked as the best state.

According to the report, children in the lowest-ranking states are:

Twice as likely to die in their first year as children in the highest-ranking state.

Three times more likely to die between the ages of 1 and 14.

Eight times more likely to be incarcerated.

A child living in the bottom 10 states is twice as likely to live in poverty as a child in the top 10. In Mississippi, the child poverty rate is 3 times greater than in Maryland or New Hampshire.

Tags: children, poverty, states

Social Workers Needed in Schools

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:20:52 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.socialworkers.org

Social Workers Trained to Spot Obstacles for Students

Poverty, behavioral problems and lack of safety contribute to dropping out of school.

Efforts to curb the high rate of high school dropouts in the U.S. have been discussed for decades. However, new rallying cries from national leaders and organizations to address the problem have been broadcast nationwide in recent months.

"It's increasingly apparent that the basic building blocks of a good life — a quality education, stable income and good health — are beyond the reach of too many individuals and families," Gallagher said. "As a nation, we can't accept these conditions. We need to challenge the system to ignite a new social movement and begin to develop new partnerships and strategies which will create opportunities for a better life for all people."

Social workers and school social workers point out that their roles are critical in any efforts to keep children from becoming dropout statistics.

Tags: high school, dropout, social_work

A Hero from the Poverty Class

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:42:58 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Our family has admired Ben Carson for years. He didn't escape poverty and turn around to blame other poor people for not being able to do the same. Instead, he works to build the scaffolding necessary to lift others to where he is.

Clip Source: www.baltimoresun.com

From poverty to top U.S. honors

"I was just very grateful that people are starting to recognize some of the work I am trying to do," Carson, 56, said in an interview after the ceremony, referring to his promotion of reading programs and college education for at-risk high school students. He called high school dropout rates an "epidemic" and said, "Sometimes I feel people aren't paying attention."

Born in Detroit to a barely literate mother who married at age 13 and soon left her husband to raise two sons alone, Carson overcame what he has described as a temper problem as a teen and went on to attend Yale University and the University of Michigan medical school. He gained fame as a pediatric neurosurgeon for, among other things, leading the separations of five sets of twins conjoined at the head between 1987 and 2004. He is also skilled in hemispherectomies, a procedure to remove half the brain to prevent seizures.

Tags: poverty, upward mobility, achievement

Trust Leads to Better Health

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:40:49 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

Trust Leads to Better Health

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

“Social trust, sense of belonging and community participation were each significantly associated with health outcomes,” the researchers found.

Physical health — as reported by the study participants —“remained significantly associated with social trust” even among twins.

“The relationship between social capital and health is complex,” said Mark LaGory, chairman of the sociology department at University of Alabama at Birmingham.

“There are a lot of intervening variables.” In lower-income neighborhoods, he said, “social capital, instead of indicating a body of resources people can draw on, represents a body of obligations that others can draw from.”

One way of thinking about it: “People that are deeply connected with the local neighborhood are bearing not only their own poverty, but everyone else’s [poverty],” LaGory said.

Tags: trust, health

Costs of Mental Illness More than Personal

Mon, 12 May 2008 23:44:46 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Costs to society from serious mental illness. Mental illness was the cause of poverty for our family so it was a high price personally, but there are societal costs as well.

Clip Source: www.time.com

Tallying Mental Illness' Costs

Serious mental illnesses (SMIs), which afflict about 6% of American adults, cost society $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year, according to findings published in this month's American Journal of Psychiatry. Surveying data from nearly 5,000 participants, researchers determined that people suffering from a SMI — defined as a range of mood and anxiety disorders, including suicidal tendencies, that significantly impaired a person's ability to function for at least 30 days over the past year — earned at least 40% less than people in good mental health.

Kessler and his colleagues determined that a person suffering from SMI had earned $23,000 on average in the previous year. Those respondents without SMI averaged nearly $40,000. The researchers attributed 75% of that difference to the person's mental illness. The other 25% was attributed to a greater likelihood that a mentally ill person would not have worked at all, thus earning nothing

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

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.

Clipmarks | dmegivern's 'poverty' clips

Number of Americans in Poverty Up Slightly

Number Of Americans In Poverty Up Slightly

The Whole History of Dmegivern's Clipmarks Comments

All my Clipmarks Comments

Class Desegregation

Proms-Dress Drive Aids Foster Girls

Student's Prom-Dress Drive Aids Foster Girls

State's Ratings on Child Well-Being Revealed

States' Ratings on Child Well-Being Revealed

Social Workers Needed in Schools

Poverty, behavioral problems and lack of safety contribute to dropping out of school.

A Hero from the Poverty Class

From poverty to top U.S. honors

Trust Leads to Better Health

Trust Leads to Better Health

Costs of Mental Illness More than Personal

Tallying Mental Illness' Costs

What is Asset Poverty?

Hunger in the U.S.A.

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

Bill Gates Issues Call
For Kinder Capitalism