Clipmarks | dmegivern's 'poverty' clips

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.

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.

Tax Reform and Poverty

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:46:38 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Humorously, EITC was really a Nixon idea.

Clip Source: www.cbpp.org

TAX REFORM AND POVERTY

The tax system has a pervasive impact on poverty, both directly through its role in the distribution of society’s resources and indirectly through its effects on the incentives for economic decisions like working and saving. The two most important facets of the tax system for low-income families are payroll taxes and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the former of which levies a tax on earned income and the latter provides a tax credit for earned income.

Underlying the persistence of poverty has been wage stagnation at the bottom. From 1973-2003, real hourly wages for men at the 10^th percentile of the earnings distribution fell 3 percent. At the same time, median wages fell 1 percent and wages for workers at the 90^th percentile rose 22 percent. The economic blow for families at the bottom of the income spectrum was partially cushioned by several expansions in the EITC

The EITC has several limitations that could easily be addressed by strengthening the credit.

The Republican Debate Misled on Healthcare

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:58:34 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Over 40 million in U.S. can't afford health care: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 40 million people in the United States say they cannot afford adequate heath care and go without drugs, eyeglasses or dental treatment, according to a federal report released on Monday.

"But this report shows that access to health care is still an issue where we need improvement."

The report, available on the Internet at www.cdc.gov/nchs/, has a special section on access to health care.

"In 2005, more than 40 million adults did not receive 'needed services' because they could not afford them," the report said.

"Nearly 15 million adults did not obtain eyeglasses, 25 million did not get dental care, 19 million did not get needed prescribed medicine, and 15 million did not get needed medical care due to cost."

The report found about one third of all children living below the poverty level had not visited a dentist in 2005, compared with fewer than one-fifth of children from wealthier families.

Tags: insurance, health

Educational Data onn Parents in Poverty

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:33:58 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.ns.umich.edu

Families in higher poverty schools strongly value student achievement and appear indifferent to the principal's report of a teacher's ability to promote student satisfaction. The results are reversed for families in wealthier schools.

The findings appear in the new issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

"The value of this study is that it helps education practitioners and policymakers better understand how factors such as family poverty can influence what parents are looking for in a school," Jacob said. "While all parents presumably want what is best for their children, this can mean very different things depending on the school and neighborhood context."

The study is the first known review of its kind to examine parents' preferences using information on parent requests for specific teachers within a school.

Tags: social class

Upward Mobility Very Difficult in...the USA

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:18:10 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

The American Dream is Alive and Well ... in Finland!

It's harder to move up the economic ladder in the United States than in other wealthy countries. What happened to the American dream?

But new research suggests the United States' much-ballyhooed upward mobility is a myth, and one that's slipping further from reality with each new generation. On average, younger Americans are not doing better than their parents did, it's harder to move up the economic ladder in the United States than it is in a number of other wealthy countries, and a person in today's work force is as likely to experience downward mobility as he or she is to move up.

Moreover, the single greatest predictor of how much an American will earn is how much their parents make.

Tags: poverty, mobility, social.class

Clipmarks | dmegivern's 'poverty' clips

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

American Poverty

Poverty and Hardship

Tax Reform and Poverty

The Republican Debate Misled on Healthcare

Over 40 million in U.S. can't afford health care: report

Educational Data onn Parents in Poverty

Upward Mobility Very Difficult in...the USA

Bill Gates Issues Call
For Kinder Capitalism