199 Matching Annotations
  1. Last 7 days
    1. The dancehall deejays of the 1980s and ’90s who refined the practice of “toasting” (rapping over instrumental tracks) were heirs to reggae’s politicization of music. These deejays influenced the emergence of hip-hop music in the United States and extended the market for reggae into the African American community. At the beginning of the 21st century, reggae remained one of the weapons of choice for the urban poor, whose “lyrical gun,” in the words of performer Shabba Ranks, earned them a measure of respectability.
  2. Sep 2024
    1. if our core self or being is um not limited to contained within or defined by the content of our experience thoughts images feelings and so on if it is a a single infinite and indivisible whole or reality from which everyone and everything derives its apparently independent existence then our essential self must be must be whole complete lacking nothing

      for - quote - poverty mentality - Rupert Spira

    1. Now we understand why there has to be an inner reality which is made of qualia and an outer reality which is made a lot of symbols, shareable symbols, what we call matter.

      for - unpack - key insight - with the postulate of consciousness as the foundation, it makes sense that this is - an inner reality made of qualia - and an outer reality made of shareable symbols we call matter - Federico Faggin - question - about Federico Faggin's ideas - in what way is matter a symbol? - adjacency - poverty mentality - I am the universe who wants to know itself question - in what way is matter a symbol? - Matter is a symbol in the sense that it - we describe reality using language, both - ordinary words as well as - mathematics - It is those symbolic descriptions that DIRECT US to jump from one phenomena to another related phenomena. - After all, WHO is the knower of the symbolic descriptions? - WHAT is it that knows? Is it not, as FF points out, the universe itself - as expressed uniquely through all the MEs of the world, that knows? - Hence, the true nature of all authentic spiritual practices is that - the reality outside of us is intrinsically the same as - the reality within us - our lebenswelt of qualia

  3. Aug 2024
    1. this is the essence also of one and if we are part all well then we all can have this experience because it is who we are

      for - democracy of the sacred - illusion of Maya - poverty mentality

      democracy of - the sacred - illusion of Maya - Theoretically, we should all be able to awaken to the sacred, because THAT is what we all are! - And yet, most of us are so deluded that we cannot access that experience - Maya's illusion of separation is so strong - Poverty mentality is so strong

    1. the people who has the power need to act faster

      for - climate crisis - who has the power? - poverty mentality - leverage points - social tipping points - climate crisis - feelings of helplessness

      climate crisis - who has the power? - There is still this assumption that policy-makers are the ones who have the power - There isn't yet a recognition of whether there is power within individuals sufficient to make a real difference. - Trying and failing, we grow weary of believing that we do have power to collectively effect the scale of change required - Unless we demonstrate leverage points within individuals that can lead to effective scale of collective action, we cannot jumpstart an effective movement - poverty mentality can keep us stuck

  4. Jul 2024
    1. "An' a fly go a moon And can't find food for the starving tummies" criticism on how the wealth and resources used on space exploration - is something that humanity can't understand when those billions used for the scientific pursuit/understanding of the universe, can instead be used to feed and clothe the hungry, the impoverish - basically poverty and world hunger would cease. it's sort of like criticisng the fact that we have problems here on this planet that we all need to work together to solve as a species/planet, yet we're not prioritising those problems as our main repsonisbility, something we need to fix, instead the most intelligent bunch/resourceful are spending their energy/time/reousrces on solving the mysteries of the universe instead. it's commenting on the notion of the microcosm within the macrocosm. if we as a species, esp. the intelligent and resurceful of our lot focused on solving problems like poverty, world hunger, war, crime... solve problems that continue to stagnate our human evolution/progress/conciousness, we could put an end to hegelian dialectics of problem, reaction, solution... this repititive state of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. why do we keep looking outside/external when we have problems in the inside/internal, in our very hearts, minds and homes.. on our own planet Earth? if we solved the problems at home, problems that create the suffering and keep just a few individuals privelaged/intelligent/resourceful over the rest of humanity who is stagnated and moving backwards and keeping humanity in a continous cycle of karma, the wheel of samsara of the human condition... then doesn't that mean that everyone as a whole is enlightened intelligent, resourceful? no one gets left behind and everyone becomes empowered self-sufficient, self-independent, self-enlightened, self-responsible...imagine each and every person self empowered now imagine the entire race of humanity self-empowered... that's billions of buddhas/christs - intellectuals, academics and enlightened individuals working together as a strong force of unity for a common cause. if we can fix those small problems that continue to keep humanity going backwards towards self-destructi, those small problems which greatly impact upon the bigger picture and schemes of things, then we can truly progress towards real change and together explore the universe as a human species. no one gets left behind.

      This is a valid criticism (sorry Elon Musk)... By helping the other individual you in the end help society and therefore yourself.

      We should be focusing on present problems that are closer to us before moving on to more abstract problems that have less value at present.

      The same goes for ourselves. Try not to fix your family or neighborhood before you have fixed yourself (keep in mind diminishing returns). As Dan Koe said: "Your purpose is solving the most pressing problem you have right now." (not verbatim).

      Try not to learn how to learn before your sleep schedule is excellent, before you know how to be productive and have habits.

      Learning enablers first, THEN learning.

      Fix first yourself, then your household, then the city, then the country, then the continent, etc. This does not have to be taken literally, but use it as a wise guidance. It's a principle rather than a law.

    1. we've achieved a level of prosperity for a huge number of people that was not typical of the past i mean most countries have a big middle class as well as an extremely wealthy upper 00:50:00 class but the number of people in abject poverty in the world today living on less than two dollars a day is greater than the entire population of the world 00:50:13 only 100 years ago so that's not progress

      for - statistics - progress trap - comparative levels of poverty

      statistics - progress trap - comparative levels of poverty - modern civilization has - a huge middle class - a small elite class - a huge impoverished class - The absolute number of people living on less than 2 dollars a day is less than the entire population of humans only 100 years ago

  5. Jun 2024
    1. In​ 1880 Britain could with some justification be called the ‘workshop of the world’: it produced more than 20 per cent of global industrial output and about 40 per cent of the world’s manufactured exports. In the nearly half-century since Samuel published his essay of that name, historians have done much to undermine the narrative of an ‘industrial revolution’ bookended by the invention of the spinning jenny in 1764 and the New Poor Law of 1834.

      There's an interesting linkage going on here between the industrial revolution (and thus possibly Capitalism) with the creation and even litigation of "the poor" classes in Britain.

      Did "the poor" exist in the same way they do today prior to the Industrial Revolution? What are the subtle differences? (Compare with Thompson, E. P. “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.” Past & Present, no. 38 (1967): 56–97.)

  6. May 2024
    1. ¹¹ For you al-ways have the poor with you, but you will notalways have me.

      Said in the context of his pending crucifixion, with respect to a woman who had poured expensive ointment on Jesus.

      This is an interesting proposition in this passage with respect to lots of what he'd said about the poor in the past. See also the Beatitudes

      relationship to the idea of "Waging war on poverty, but not on the poor"?

  7. Apr 2024
    1. Eine Gruppe von NGOs hat ein Konzept für eine Klimaschaden-Steuer ausgearbeitet, zu der Öl- und Gasgesellschaften ausgehend vom von ihnen verursachten CO2-Ausstoß herangezogen würden. Würde die Steuer in den OECD-Ländern mit 5$ pro Kilotonne CO2 beginnen und sich jährlich um weitere 5$ erhöhen, stünden 2030 jährlich 900 Milliarden $ vor allem für den Loss and Damage Fund zur Verfügung, der bei der COP28 beschlossen wurde.

      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/29/taxing-big-fossil-fuel-firms-raise-billions-climate-finance

      Bericht: https://www.greenpeace.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/CDT_guide_2024_embargoed_version.pdf

    1. Cohen, Rachel M. “What the Supreme Court Case on Tent Encampments Could Mean for Homeless People.” Vox, April 21, 2024. https://www.vox.com/scotus/24123323/grants-pass-scotus-supreme-court-homeless-tent-encampments.

    2. The city council president said Grants Pass’s goal was to “make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road.”

      Why is it that so many of Americans' gut reactions is to "kick the can down the road" rather than to solve the underlying problems?

    3. In Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court will decide whether it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment to fine, ticket, or jail someone for sleeping outside on public property if they have nowhere else to go. A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would make it easier for communities to clear out homeless people’s tent encampments, even if no available housing or shelter exists.
    1. In 1622, the famous poetand clergyman John Donne wrote of Virginia in this fashion, describing thenew colony as the nation’s spleen and liver, draining the “ill humours of thebody . . . to breed good bloud.”

      By fascinating contrast, Donne was frequently underemployed, and perhaps a bit desperate just a decade and change prior and had applied for a job in Virginia

      The years between 1607 and 1610 are biographically murky. The letters are hard to date and hard to decipher, and the best historical records we have are of jobs that didn’t happen. He failed to get a position in the Queen’s household in 1607, and there are references in the letters to his application to jobs in Ireland or, even more remotely, Virginia, but neither came to anything, if they were ever serious prospects to begin with. It’s equally likely that they were an attempt on his part to look industrious, both to his friends and to himself; neither Ireland nor Virginia were at all desirable places at the time.

      quote via: Rundell, Katherine. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022. with excerpt linked at https://hypothes.is/a/M3Ma0PXdEe6Lk-doNS30CQ

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  8. Mar 2024
    1. Oglethorpe felt the disadvantaged could bereclaimed if they were given a fair chance.

      note the lack of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" sentiment here in 1730s Georgia.

    2. According to Francis Moore, who visited the settlement in its secondyear of operation, two “peculiar” customs stood out: both alcohol and dark-skinned people were prohibited. “No slavery is allowed, nor negroes,”Moore wrote. As a sanctuary for “free white people,” Georgia “would notpermit slaves, for slaves starve the poor laborer.” Free labor encouragedpoor white men in sober cultivation and steeled them in the event they hadto defend the land from outside aggression. It also promised to cure settlersof that most deadly of English diseases, idleness.41
    3. In milder weather they got as far as thinking aboutplunging a hoe into the ground.

      How then were they making any sort of living at all in such conditions? Hunting? Gathering? (1700s)

    4. History of the United States (1834)

      1834 was also interesting with respect to this thesis as Britain was working at the "principles of 1834" which Beatrice Webb focused on and debunked in English Poor Law Policy (1910).

      see: https://hypothes.is/a/NLJSJAe7Ee2xvIeHyTL7vQ

      Would this 1832 work in Britain have bleed over to a similar set of poverty principles in the United States in the same era? Could this have compounded issues in America leading to greater class divisions in the decades before the Civil War?

    5. Historical mythmaking is made possible only by forgetting.

      The Dan Allosso book club continues on its tour of looking at historical myths, particularly with respect to economics in the United States.

    6. Britishcolonists promoted a dual agenda: one involved reducing poverty back inEngland, and the other called for transporting the idle and unproductive tothe New World.

      This is some of the broad thesis which we'll be looking out for evidence within the text.

  9. Jan 2024
  10. Oct 2023
  11. Sep 2023
    1. . It should be noted that stress can be seen as the inverse of “satisfaction” [22], and is relative to a contextual and non-stationary target.
      • for: stress - satisfaction, lack project, poverty mentality, David Loy
      • comment
        • what is interesting is that there is strong emphasis on Buddhist and other contemplative teachings on acceptance of the present state and cessation of searching.
        • In Buddhist teachings, desire is an expression of a dissatisfaction of some aspect of the present and drives change
        • and last but perhaps most importantly, Buddhist teachings teach that the source of the desire is indicative of attachment to the constructed self narrative
        • hence, at first read, it would seem the goal-oriented nature of the definition is at odds with Buddhist teachings.
        • David Loy refers to desires as a way to fulfill something we feel is missing. He refers to this as a "Lack project"
        • If we penetrate the self construct and see it's constructed, provisional nature, then we also expose the greater already existent reality that we already are.
        • It seems paradoxical. While we are strongly reifying the self-construct, we will be goal-seeking and a priority goal may be to experience the self as a construct, which has the effect of ending root level goal seeking.
  12. Aug 2023
    1. what I'm advocating here isn't radical redistribution it's merely more 00:13:08 redistribution in a and structurally dependable manner that is fair that is inclusive and that allows for the poor and improvised Nations to be granted excess not just a vital strategic resources that are very much needed in 00:13:21 maintaining the quality of life at own citizens but also more importantly the ropes to climb the ladder
      • for: W2W, TPF, stats, inequality, wealth redistribution, wealth tax, quote, quote - wealth tax, quote - inequality, stats, stats - inequality, stats - wealth tax
      • quote
      • stats
        • An annual wealth tax of just 5% on multi-millionaires and billionaires
        • could raise US $1.7 trillion a year
        • enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty
      • author Institute for Policy (2023)
      • comment
        • that breaks down to approximately $US 1,000 per person for 2 billion people from the 1% elites
        • this is pretty reasonable
        • W2W can begin with this simple VOLUNTARY ASK
        • if the multi-millionaires and billionaires do just this consistently, then it is so little from their coffers and they could avoid a wealth tax by simply stepping up voluntarily
        • Could W2W motivate them to?
    1. Americans are increasingly experiencing economic insecurity. According to a recent survey by Bankrate, 6 out of every 10 of us don’t even have $500 in the bank.
      • for: precarity, inequality, United States - poverty, no savings, financial crisis
      • quote
      • stats
        • 6 out of every 10 American interviewed said they did not have $500 savings in the bank
      • source
        • Bankrate 6 survey
    1. I do want to point out one more really significant implication here which is how it affects our experience of time
      • for: the lack project, sense of lack, the reality project, sense of self, sense of self and lack, poverty mentality, sense of time, living in the future, living in the present, human DOing, human BEing
      • key insight
        • we construct different types of experiences of time, depending on the degree of sense of lack we experience
        • it means the difference between
          • living in the present
          • living in the future
      • paraphrase
        • it's the nature of lack projects insofar as we become preoccupied with them
        • that they tend to be future oriented naturally
        • I mean the whole idea of a lack project or a reality project is right here right now is not good enough
          • because I feel this sense of inadequacy this sense of lack
          • but in the future when I have what I think I need
            • when I'm rich enough or
            • when I'm famous enough or
            • my body is perfect enough or whatever
          • when I have all this then everything will be okay
          • and what of course that does is that future orientation traps Us in linear time in a way that tends to devalue the way we experience the world and ourselves in the world right here and now
          • it treats the now as a means to some better ends
          • Now isn't good enough
            • but when I have what I think I need everything is going to be just great
        • So many of the spiritual Traditions taught
        • especially the mystics and the Zen Masters
        • they end up talking about what is sometimes called
          • the Eternal now
          • or the Eternal present - a different way of experiencing the now
        • As long as the present is a means to some better end
          • this future when I'm gonna be okay
        • then the present is experienced as
          • a series of Nows that fall away
          • as we reach for that future
        • but if we're not actually needing to get somewhere that's better in the future
        • it's possible to experience the here and now
          • as lacking nothing and myself in the here and now
          • as lacking nothing
      • it's possible to experience the present as something that doesn't arise and doesn't fall away
    2. t the irony of course is that if this desire if this craving for money if this lack project and we could also call it reality project because another 00:13:08 way to talk about all this is to say that we don't feel real enough and we're looking for that which somehow will make us feel more real more complete more whole right 00:13:20 because whatever the lack project may be it is looking for out something outside that's going to secure this sense of self-insight the tragedy of the whole process of 00:13:32 course is that it doesn't matter how much money you earn it's never going to be enough because what we're dealing with is just a symptom and not the core problem
      • for: the lack project, the reality project, sense of lack, sense of self, poverty mentality, polylcrisis, polycrisis - root
      • paraphrase
        • the irony is that
          • if this desire
          • if this craving for money
          • if this lack project and
          • we could also call it reality project
            • because another way to talk about all this is to say that we don't feel real enough and we're looking for that which somehow will make us feel more real more complete more whole
        • because whatever the lack project may be it is looking for out something outside
          • that's going to secure this sense of self-inside
        • the tragedy of the whole process is that it doesn't matter how much money you earn
          • it's never going to be enough
          • because what we're dealing with is just a symptom and not the core problem
      • key insight
        • the lack project is at the root of our polycrisis
    3. if you ask about things like lack projects or reality projects on the individual level you know I was talking 00:32:01 about how the separation is a delusion it's uncomfortable we become preoccupied with trying to find something out here that'll fill up our sense of lack and you know we can Wonder is there 00:32:13 something comparable at the civilizational level and frankly I think that there is I think that it is our Collective preoccupation with progress
      • for: progress trap, sense of lack, the lack project, collective lack project, individual lack project
      • key insight
        • progress, and the shadow side, the progress trap
        • is the collective lack project, that corresponds to the individual's lack project
    4. there's 00:08:43 nothing there that could be secured and here's the important point I think we experienced that we experience it as a sense of lack 00:08:58 that is to say the sense that something is wrong with me something is missing something isn't quite right I'm not good enough and the reality is I think all of us to 00:09:14 some degree have some sense of that some sense of lack even though we might ignore it or cover it up there's there's some sense of that but because it's mostly sort of unconscious in the sense that we don't 00:09:29 really know where it comes from
      • for: sense of lack, sense of self, sense of self and sense of lack, human condition, poverty mentality, alienation, separation, emptiness, emptiness of emptiness, W2W, inequality
      • key insight
        • sense of self is equivalent to
          • sense of lack
          • duality
          • disconnection
          • alienation
          • separation
          • solidification - the opposite of emptiness
      • comment
        • this sense of lack that is intrinsically associated with the sense of self is perhaps the deepest root of our unhappiness
        • this is a key insight for sharing for both those who have too much (the 1%) as well as those who are so materially impoverished and deprived that they are forced to adopt survivalist strategies to stay alive, and if successful, take on a hard edge to survivalism, over-appreciating materialism
        • the same mistake is committed on both end of the disparity spectrum, both groups are still under the illusion that that sense of lack can be filled
  13. Jul 2023
    1. Ludwig firebach has this idea that religion is a place where human 00:12:22 beings sort of um alienate their intrinsic superpowers right they they turn them inside out and they push them into some kind of Heaven which is basically the future
      • for: transformation, inner/outer transformation, rapid whole system change, religious alienation, poverty mentality
      • key insight
        • Ludwig Feuerbach
          • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Feuerbach
          • quote
            • "In the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his object the infinity of his own nature."
            • "If man is to find contentment in God, he must find himself in God."
          • Thus God is nothing else than human: he is, so to speak, the outward projection of a human's inward nature.
          • This projection is dubbed as a chimera by Feuerbach, that God and the idea of a higher being is dependent upon the aspect of benevolence.
          • Feuerbach states that "a God who is not benevolent, not just, not wise, is no God",

      -quote - religion is a place where human beings alienate their intrinsic superpowers - author - Timotny Morton, quoting Ludwig Feuerbach

    1. Cap top 20% of energy users to reduce carbon emissions
      • Title
        • Cap top 20% of energy users to reduce carbon emissions
      • Publication

      • Summary -Consumers in the richer, developed nations will have to accept restrictions on their energy use

        • if international climate change targets are to be met, warn researchers.
        • The big challenge is to identify the fairest and most equitable way
        • that governments can curtail energy use,
          • a process known as energy demand reduction. -The research team analyzed several scenarios to identify a potential solution.
  14. Jun 2023
    1. how to helpmost effectively children from ‘poor circumstances’.

      Why do governments and some so-called education leaders ask about how to best help (academically) children from "poor circumstances" in such a way that improving their circumstances is never part of the equation despite it being the immediate root of their problem?

  15. May 2023
  16. Apr 2023
  17. Mar 2023
    1. Rank, Mark Robert, Lawrence M. Eppard, and Heather E. Bullock. Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong About Poverty. Oxford University Press, 2021.

      Reading as part of Dan Allosso's Book Club

      Mostly finished last week, though I managed to miss the last book club meeting for family reasons, but finished out the last few pages tonight.

      annotation target: url: urn:x-pdf:c3701d1c083b974a888f7eaa4009f11f

  18. Feb 2023
    1. As a result, the tax creditfor 2022 will be based on the 2021 federal poverty lines.2021 Poverty Lines for the 48 Contiguous States and the District of ColumbiaFor families/households with more than 8 persons, add $4,540 for each additional person (100% Poverty Line)Persons in family/household 100% Poverty Line 138% Poverty Line 400% Poverty Line1 $12,880 $17,774 $51,5202 $17,420 $24,040 $69,6803 $21,960 $30,305 $87,8404 $26,500 $36,570 $106,0005 $31,040 $42,835 $124,1606 $35,580 $49,100 $142,3207 $40,120 $55,366 $160,4808 $44,660 $61,631 $178,6402021 Poverty Lines for AlaskaFor families/households with more than 8 persons, add $5,680 for each additional person (100% Poverty Line)Persons in family/household 100% Poverty Line 138% Poverty Line 400% Poverty Line1 $16,090 $22,204 $64,3602 $21,770 $30,043 $87,0803 $27,450 $37,881 $109,8004 $33,130 $45,719 $132,5205 $38,810 $53,558 $155,2406 $44,490 $61,396 $177,9607 $50,170 $69,235 $200,6808 $55,850 $77,073 $223,4002021 Poverty Lines for HawaiiFor families/households with more than 8 persons, add $5,220 for each additional person (100% Poverty Line)Persons in family/household 100% Poverty Line 138% Poverty Line 400% Poverty Line1 $14,820 $20,452 $59,2802 $20,040 $27,655 $80,1603 $25,260 $34,859 $101,0404 $30,480 $42,062 $121,9205 $35,700 $49,266 $142,8006 $40,920 $56,470 $163,6807 $46,140 $63,673 $184,5608 $51,360 $70,877 $205,440

      FPL is based on year prior to tax year. Ex:- for 2022 tax year FPL table is 2021

    1. 2023 Poverty Guidelines for the 48 Contiguous States and the District of ColumbiaPersons in family/householdPoverty guideline1$14,580219,720324,860430,000535,140640,280745,420850,560 For families/households with more than 8 persons, add $5,140 for each additional person.

      federal poverty level (FPL)

    1. HHS Poverty Guidelines for 2023 The 2023 poverty guidelines are in effect as of January 19, 2023. Federal Register Notice, January 19, 2023 - Full text. The Poverty Guidelines API is now available with the 2023 data. Join our listserv to stay up-to-date on the latest news regarding the poverty guidelines. 2023 POVERTY GUIDELINES FOR THE 48 CONTIGUOUS STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Persons in family/household Poverty guideline 1 $14,580 2 $19,720 3 $24,860 4 $30,000 5 $35,140 6 $40,280 7 $45,420 8 $50,560 For families/households with more than 8 persons, add $5,140 for each additional person. 2023 POVERTY GUIDELINES FOR ALASKA Persons in family/household Poverty guideline 1 $18,210 2 $24,640 3 $31,070 4 $37,500 5 $43,930 6 $50,360 7 $56,790 8 $63,220 For families/households with more than 8 persons, add $6,430 for each additional person. 2023 POVERTY GUIDELINES FOR HAWAII Persons in family/household Poverty guideline 1 $16,770 2 $22,680 3 $28,590 4 $34,500 5 $40,410 6 $46,320 7 $52,230 8 $58,140 For families/households with more than 8 persons, add $5,910 for each additional person. Resources Prior Poverty Guidelines and Federal Register References A chart with percentages (e.g., 125 percent) of the guidelines (PDF) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the Poverty Guidelines and Poverty Poverty guidelines — gross or net income The poverty line for a state or city The number of poor people in a state or city How the poverty line was developed Further Resources on Poverty Measurement, Poverty Lines, and Their History ASPE research on poverty The Census Bureau's Poverty Home Page

      Federal Poverty Level (FPL) 2023

  19. Dec 2022
    1. By making an investmentup front to alleviate poverty, the evidence suggests that we will be repaid manytimes over in the lower costs associated with a host of social problems.

      From a "business perspective", the US Government would be better off by minimizing the cost of poverty.

      (Original highlight on 2022-10-18)

    2. As has been demonstrated, it is not a question of paying ornot paying. Rather, it is a question of how we want to pay, which then affectsthe amount we end up spending.
    3. There is, however, an argument often made with respect to not fully addressingpoverty and inequality. It is based on the assumption that there is a necessarytrade- off between having a strong economy and having a robust social welfarestate. The recent origins of this argument can be traced back to an influen-tial book entitled, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff by the economistArthur Okun.
    4. However, there is a second way of estimating the difference between the priceof ending poverty and what it is costing us. It is through a measure known asthe poverty gap or the poverty income deficit. This measures what it would costto lift all poor households with children younger than 18 years to the level ofthe poverty line. In other words, how much total income is needed to pull everyAmerican child out of poverty? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, thatfigure for 2015 was $86.9 billion.12 For $86.9 billion, every American householdwith younger than 18 years in poverty could be raised out of poverty.We can then compare this figure to our overall estimate of the costs of child-hood poverty, which is $1.03 trillion. Combining these two figures results in aratio of savings to cost of approximately 12:1.
    5. By summing together these costs, the overall estimate is that in 2015, child-hood poverty in the United States was costing the nation $1.03 trillion a year.This number represented 5.4 percent of the U.S. annual GDP.The bottom line is that child poverty represents a significant economicburden to the United States.
    6. to lowered economic productivity through reduced earnings. In addition,increased health costs amount to $192 billion, whereas costs associated withincreased crime and incarceration (increased victimization costs of street crime;increased corrections and crime deterrence; increased social costs of incarcer-ation) total $406 billion.

      Childhood poverty results in an annual loss of $294 billion due...

    7. For most Americans, poverty is seen as an individualized conditionthat exclusively affects those individuals, their families, and perhaps theirneighborhoods. Rarely do we conceptualize a stranger’s poverty as having adirect or indirect effect on our own well-being.

      The Golden Rule not only benefits your neighbor, but you as well.

    8. To a large extent, we have failed to recognize that poverty places enormouseconomic, social, and psychological costs on the nonpoor as well as the poor.These costs affect us both individually and as a nation, although we have beenslow to recognize them. Too often, the attitude has been, “I don’t see how I’maffected, so why worry about it?”
    9. The 1960s were a period of time when poverty in theUnited States was cut in half. This should be seen as a major economic ac-complishment. The War on Poverty played an important role in this decline.It demonstrated that the nation’s poverty is not immovable and that genuineprogress is possible with a concerted effort by the government and a growingeconomy.
    10. One dominant way that people think about poverty, both in scholarship and in publicdiscourse, is to focus on demographic characteristics. This explanation assumes thatthere is something wrong with poor people’s individual characteristics: that they aremore likely to be single parents, they are not working enough, they are too young, orthey are not well-educated. So, the way to attack poverty, from this perspective, wouldbe to reduce single-parenthood or reduce the number of people with low education. Thisexplanation concentrates on the individual characteristics of the poor people themselvesand how they are different from nonpoor people.The problem with this explanation is that it does not adequately explain thebig differences in poverty between countries. For example, think about the big fourindividual risks of poverty—single parenthood, becoming a head of household at anearly age, low- education, and unemployment. These are indisputably the four bigcharacteristics that predict your risk of poverty. If the demographic explanation iscorrect, then the United States should have very high levels of single-parenthood, youngheadship, low educational attainment, and unemployment. That would explain why wehave high poverty: We have a large number of people with those four characteristics.The reality, however, is that the United States is actually below average in these areascompared with other rich democracies.
    11. Accordingly, poverty acts to reduce overall available bandwidth. It does thisthrough creating greater stress and worries, reduced nutrition, exposure to toxicenvironments, and so on. For example, the constant worry of how to survive ona day-to- day basis acts to reduce bandwidth:Being poor means having less money to buy things, but it also means havingto spend more of one’s bandwidth managing that money. The poor mustmanage sporadic income, juggle expenses, and make difficult trade-offs.Even when the poor are not actually making financial decisions, thesepreoccupations can be distracting. Thinking and fretting about money caneffectively tax bandwidth.23This body of research has demonstrated that it is important to understanddecision- making not only within the socioeconomic context of individuals’lives, but within the psychological context as well.
    12. The magic bullet of education and skillseliminating poverty is an alluring one, but without a substantial increase in thenumber and quality of opportunities available, it is only a mirage.
    13. However, there is fatal flaw to this argument—as an overall macro strategyfor reducing poverty, it will be ineffective unless we also increase the overallquantity and quality of opportunities, particularly job opportunities, in society.In other words, by providing an individual with greater education, we havemade them more competitive in the job market, but only at the expense ofsomeone else. In this sense, the strategy is played as a zero-sum game.

      initally creaded: 2022-10-10

    14. The critical mistake that has been made in the past is that we have equatedthe question of who loses the game with the question of why the game produceslosers in the first place. They are, in fact, distinct and separate questions.

      Rather than focusing on education as the magic bullet for improving poverty, we should be focusing on the structural problems of the economy itself. It shouldn't be a zero sum game as that will always result in losers and thus poverty. The choices we make with that fallacy simply decide who will face poverty and will never fix the root issues.

    15. What greater education and skills allow an individual to do is to move fur-ther up in the overall queue of people looking to find a well-paying and re-warding job. However, because of the limited number of such jobs, only a setamount of people will be able to land such jobs. Consequently, one’s positionin the queue can change as a result of human capital, but the same amount ofpeople will still be stuck at the end of the line if the overall opportunities re-main the same.

      There is a direct analogy to statistical mechanics and thermodynamics to be drawn here.

    16. One of the most enduring poverty myths across the political and ideologicalspectrum is that if we were able to provide individuals with enough educationand skills, poverty could be eliminated.
    17. One of the clear signs that the bottleneck to low-income adults working moreresults from their lack of opportunities is provided by looking at their hours of workover the business cycle. When the economy is strong and jobs are plentiful, low-incomeworkers are more likely to find work, find work with higher pay, and be able to securemore hours of work than when the economy is weak. In 2000, when the economy wasclose to genuine full employment, the unemployment rate averaged 4.0 percent and thepoverty rate was 11.3 percent; but in 2010, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, theunemployment rate averaged 9.6 percent and the poverty rate was almost 15.1 percent.What changed in those years was not poor families’ attitudes toward work but simplythe availability of jobs. Among the bottom one-fifth of nonelderly households, hoursworked per household were about 40 percent higher in the tight labor market of 2000than in recession- plagued 2010.Given the opportunity for work or additional work hours, low-income Americanswork more. A full-employment agenda that increases opportunities in the labor market,alongside stronger labor standards such as a higher minimum wage, reduces poverty.

      How can we frame the science of poverty with respect to the model of statistical mechanics?

      Unemployment numbers have very little to do with levels of poverty. They definitely don't seem to be correlated with poverty levels, in fact perhaps inversely so. Many would say that people are lazy and don't want to work when the general reality is that they do want to work (for a variety of reasons including identity and self-esteem), but the amount of work they can find and the pay they receive for it are the bigger problems.

    18. research finds that minimum wage increases are associatedwith significant reductions in poverty.
    19. A final point regarding the myth of hard work and poverty is that this mythis particularly powerful because it implies a sense of justice and fairness. Thosewho do well in life through their hard work are seen as deserving, and thosewho do not do well in life through their lack of hard work are also seen as de-serving of their fate.14 There is something comforting about the idea that peopleget their just rewards. Unfortunately, neither the world nor poverty is fair. AsMichael Harrington wrote in his 1963 book, The Other America:The real explanation of why the poor are where they are is that they madethe mistake of being born to the wrong parents, in the wrong section of thecountry, in the wrong industry, or in the wrong racial or ethnic group. Oncethat mistake has been made, they could have been paragons of will and mo-rality, but most of them would never even have had a chance to get out ofthe other America.15
  20. Oct 2022
    1. The overrepresentation of AfricanAmericans as poor, in and of itself, has been found to undermine support forantipoverty initiatives by activating racist and classist stereotypes about lazi-ness and lack of motivation among African Americans and people experiencingpoverty (see also Chapter 6).15
    2. Asset limits (or savings penalties) are designed sothat only the most vulnerable can access public benefit programs. However, in practice,they discourage low-income households from having a checking or savings account andbuilding a savings cushion. Relaxed asset limits increase low-income household savingsand mainstream financial market participation.

      Is there evidence for this? Other confounding factors that prevent people from opening accounts?

    3. In contrast, poverty is something that most Americans will experience fora short period of time as a consequence of very “normal” occurrences—theloss of a job, the birth of a child, the transition to adulthood, the dissolutionof a marriage, and so on.

      Is it not coincidental that these life events are also some of the most stressful one will face in life? They're stressful enough on their own, but the added financial stressors add to the problems.

  21. Sep 2022
    1. To truly alleviate poverty on a large scale, we must fix a system in which normallife experiences such as childbirth can translate into economic insecurity. Mostof the poor are not unexplainable anomalies in an otherwise well-functioningsociety. Instead, they are the normal consequence of structural arrangementsguaranteed to produce economic insecurity.

      This sort of institutionalized economic insecurity seems bound up in institutionalized racism and may have a relationship with recent abortion bans. Can we tease out the ways these ideas are tied together or compounded?

      How can alleviating the perceptions of these effects help create societal changes and greater flexibility and more resiliency?

      These are potential national security issues were the country to come to war with other major powers.

    2. Unemployed workers are much more likelyto fall into poverty in countries like the United States, Canada, and Japan,compared with countries such as the Netherlands and Iceland.

      Is part of this effect compounded by America's history of the Protestant work ethic (see Max Weber)?

      Do the wealthy/powerful benefit by this structure of penalizing the unemployed this way? Is there a direct benefit to them? Or perhaps the penalty creates a general downward pressure on overall wages and thus provides an indirect benefit to those in power?

      What are the underlying reasons we tax the unemployed this way?

    3. Consider another example—education. It is true that in most countries, asin the United States, a higher level of educational attainment is typically as-sociated with a lower risk of economic insecurity. But the penalties associatedwith low levels of educational attainment, and the rewards associated with highlevels of attainment, vary significantly by country. Full-time workers without ahigh school degree in Finland, for instance, report the same earnings as thosewith a high school degree. In the United States, however, these workers ex-perience a 24 percent earnings penalty for not completing high school.23 InNorway, a college degree yields only a 20 percent earnings increase over a highschool degree for full-time workers, versus a much higher 68 percent increase inthe United States.24 The percentage of those with a high school degree earningat or below the poverty threshold is more than 4 times higher in the UnitedStates than in Belgium.25

      The US penalizes those who don't complete high school to a higher degree than other countries and this can tend to lower our economic resiliency.

      American exceptionalism at play?

      Another factor at play with respect to https://hypothes.is/a/2uAmuEENEe2KentYKORSww

    4. In the United States, we have col-lectively decided that we are not going to protect all families to the same degree,and this is reflected in our social policies and resulting poverty rates for thesefamilies.

      Presumably this is part of the reason for the problem mentioned above: https://hypothes.is/a/2uAmuEENEe2KentYKORSww

    5. David Brady and colleagues have shown this to be empirically the case across29 rich democracies. The authors focused on four major risks of poverty—loweducation, single motherhood, young adults heading a household, and unem-ployment. They found that although the prevalence of these risks in the UnitedStates is actually below the average in other countries, the rate of poverty inthe United States is the highest. The reason is that “the penalties for risks inthe United States are the highest of the 29 countries. An individual with allfour risks has an extremely heightened probability of being poor in the UnitedStates.”

      How did we get to this point and how do we move away from it?

      What does David Brady's research indicate about the other countries that makes them more resilient to poverty despite these problems?

      Is it a feature of institutional racism that causes this problem?

    6. What is abnormal about this situation is not that people experience theseevents, but that we have collectively chosen as a society to punish these normallife events so severely

      Why???

    7. Indicative of howclose many Americans are to poverty, a recent study by the Federal ReserveBank found that 37 percent of Americans do not have enough savings put asideto protect them from a $400 emergency.20
      1. Federal Reserve Bank, “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2019” (Washington DC: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2020).
    8. Driving this home, a recent FederalReserve survey found that 37 percent of Americans cannot cover a $400 unexpectedexpense with savings or its equivalence.

      I've read this statistic many times, but where is the original source?


      It's here: Federal Reserve Bank, “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2019” (Washington DC: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2020).

      This fact is repeated several times throughout the book. At least 3 by my count.

    9. Federal Reserve Bank, “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in2019” (Washington DC: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2020).
    10. For millions of Americans who are living pay-check to paycheck and precariously close to the poverty line, normal life eventslike the birth of a child or temporary loss of a job can send them below thepoverty line. But poverty spells tend to be short, and they are caused by the riskassociated with normal events that happen to most of us across the life course.They are just more catastrophic for some than for others.

      Can poverty be modeled after a statistical thermodynamic framework? How might we move the set point for poverty up significantly to prevent the ill effects of regular, repeated poverty?

      What does the complexity of poverty indicate? Within the web of potential indicators, what might be done to vastly mitigate the movement of people in and out of poverty? What sorts of additional resiliency can be built into the system?

    11. economic insecurity will strike a majorityof the population but will do so for a relatively short period of time.
    12. Employment, education, and marriage are helpful in both avoiding povertyand exiting faster if one does become poor.
    13. Poverty spells triggered by moving out of one’s parents’ house tend to bethe shortest, while spells triggered by the birth of a child tend to be the longest.
    14. Research has also shown that poverty entrances and exits are most oftencaused by changes in employment status and/or financial resources.
    15. within 1 or 2 years,the majority of people escaped from poverty. Within 1 year, 53 percent of newspells ended; 70 percent ended within 2 years, and more than three-fourthswithin 3 years. Less than 15 percent of spells last more than 5 years.3 If weconsider long-term poverty as lasting 5 or more consecutive years, then the vastmajority of American poverty spells do not meet such a standard.
    16. It turns out that a much more accurate picture is that povertyspells tend to be short but frequent.

      Is it possible that the general American need to always be keeping up appearances confounds the facts that most poverty spells are short?

      This is the second time I've noted a possible link to this effect. Is there a way to help unbundle it both perceptually and politically to better allow people to face their problems and fix the broader societal problem here?

    17. The culture of poverty argument asserts that poverty has become a way of lifefor many of the poor, and that this way of life is passed down from one genera-tion to the next.
    18. sociologist Elijah Anderson’s memorable phrase, the “iconicghetto.”
    19. One reason for this is that poverty is not something that people wish to ac-knowledge or draw attention to. Rather, it is something that individuals andfamilies would like to go away. As a result, many Americans attempt to concealtheir economic difficulties as much as possible.22 This often involves keeping upappearances and trying to maintain a “normal” lifestyle. Such poverty downthe block may at first appear invisible. Nevertheless, the reach of poverty iswidespread, touching nearly all communities across America.

      Middle Americans, and particularly those in suburbia and rural parts of America that account for the majority of poverty in the country, tend to make their poverty invisible because of the toxic effects of extreme capitalism and keeping up appearances.

      Has this effect risen with the rise of social media platforms like Instagram and the idea of "living one's best life"? How about the social effects of television with shows like "Keeping up with the Kardashians" which encourage conspicuous consumption?


      More interesting is the fact that most of these suburban and rural poverty stricken portions of the country are in predominantly Republican held strongholds.

      Is there a feedback mechanism that is not only hollowing these areas out, but keeping them in poverty?

    20. In 1990, 15.1 percent of the poor were residingin high- poverty neighborhoods. That figure dropped to 10.3 percent by 2000,rose to 13.6 percent for 2010, and then fell to 11.9 percent for 2015.

      Is there a long term correlation between these rates and political parties? Is there a potential lag time between the two if there is?

    21. It is a region marked by historicallylow wages paid to farm laborers and their families.

      It would seem that most of the large swaths of rural poverty in America are those with historical roots of slavery, colonization, and exploitation. These include: the Deep South and Mississippi Delta region where slavery, share cropping, and cotton plantations abounded; Appalachia (esp. West Virginia and Kentucky) where the coal mining industry disappeared; Texas-Mexico border where the Latinx populations have long been exploited; the Southwest and Northern Plains (including Alaska) with Native Americans who live on reservations after having been exploited, dealt with broken treaties and general decimation of their people and communities; central corridor of California with high numbers of exploited immigrant farm laborers.

    22. High-poverty neighborhoods arefrequently defined as census tracts in which 40 percent or more of the residentsare living below the poverty line.6
    23. onlyapproximately 10 to 15 percent of those in poverty do so

      Only 10 to 15 percent of people who live in poverty live in high-poverty, inner-city neighborhoods.

    24. The cost of child poverty is not just borne by the poor. When the expenses related tolost productivity, crime, and poor health are added up, it is estimated that child povertycosts the nation between $800 billion and $1.1 trillion per year. This is vastly higherthan the estimated $90 to $111 billion per year it would take to implement a programpackage that would lift half of children out of poverty.

      The savings indicated here is almost a factor of 10! How can we not be doing this?

      Compare with statistics and descriptions from Why Fewer American Children Are Living in Poverty (New York Times, The Daily, 2022-09-26)

    25. 10 percent of children spend atleast half of their childhood living in poverty.
    26. Or, take the case of unemployment as described by sociologist C. WrightMills:When, in a city of 100,000, only one man is unemployed, that is his per-sonal trouble, and for its relief we properly look to the character of theman, his skills, and his immediate opportunities. But when in a nation of50 million employees, 15 million men are unemployed, that is an issue, and

      we may not hope to find its solution within the range of opportunities open to any one individual. The very structure of opportunities has collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of possible solutions require us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personal situation and character of a scatter of individuals.16

      1. C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 9.

      I love this quote and it's interesting food for thought.

      Framing problems from the perspectives of a single individual versus a majority of people can be a powerful tool.

      The idea of the "welfare queen" was possibly too powerful because it singled out an imaginary individual rather than focusing on millions of people with a variety of backgrounds and diversity. Compare this with the fundraisers for impoverished children in Sally Stuther's Christian Children's Fund (aka ChildFund) which, while they show thousands of people in trouble, quite often focus on one individual child. This helps to personalize the plea and the charity actually assigned each donor a particular child they were helping out.

      How might this set up be used in reverse to change the perspective and opinions of those who think the "welfare queen" is a real thing instead of a problematic trope?

    27. Although the causes of poverty have not been examined in this chapter,the findings presented here suggest that given its widespread nature, povertyappears systematic to our economic structure. In short, we have met the enemy,and they are us.
    28. Approximately half (49.2 percent) of all U.S. children between theages 1 and 20 years will at some point reside in a household that receives foodstamps.14

      Holy shit!

    29. three-fourths of Americans will encounterpoverty or near- poverty (150 percent below the official poverty line).4

      Open question:<br /> Why is the word "below" used with numbers like "150 percent below the poverty line" when in fact this number indicates near, but above, poverty based on my reading?

    30. Results indicate that between the ages of 20 and75 years, nearly 60 percent of Americans will experience living for at least 1 yearbelow the official poverty line, while three-fourths of Americans will encounterpoverty or near- poverty (150 percent below the official poverty line).4

      Mark Rank and Thomas Hirschl's research based on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) using risk assessments using life tables show that nearly 60 percent of Americans between 20 and 75 will live for at least 1 year below the poverty line and 75% of Americans will encounter poverty or near-poverty (defined as 150 percent below the official poverty line).

      Cross reference:<br /> Mark R. Rank and Thomas A. Hirschl, “The Likelihood of Experiencing Relative Poverty Across the Life Course,” PLoS One 10 (2015): E01333513.

    31. The underlying theme tyingthese myths together is that poverty is often perceived to be an issue of“them” rather than an issue of “us”—that those who experience povertyare viewed as strangers to mainstream America, falling outside accept-able behavior, and as such, are to be scorned and stigmatized.

      One of the underlying commonalities about the various myths of poverty is that we tend to "other" those that it effects. The "them" we stigmatize with the ills of poverty really look more like "us", and in fact, they are.

      Rather than victim shame and blame those in poverty, we ought to spend more of our time fixing the underlying disease instead of spending the time, effort, energy, and money on attempting to remedy the symptoms (eg. excessive policing, et al.) Not only is it more beneficial, but cheaper in the long run.


      Related:<br /> Gladwell, Malcolm. “Million-Dollar Murray.” The New Yorker, February 5, 2006. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-murray (.pdf copy available at https://housingmatterssc.org/million-dollar-murray/)

    32. Income inequality refers to how wide or narrow the overall distribution of an-nual income is.5
    33. The mostcommon relative poverty measure is one that counts individuals as poor if theyfall below one-half of a country’s median income.4
    34. Could the maintenance of these mythsactually be useful for particularly powerful constituencies? Does the contin-uation of these myths serve a purpose or function for other segments of theAmerican population? If so, who and what might that be?
    35. Mark Robert Rank

      https://sociology.wustl.edu/people/mark-rank

      Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare Washington University in Saint Louis,

    36. Lawrence M. Eppard

      https://www.ship.edu/academics/colleges/cas/programs/sociology/sociology_faculty/

      Dr. Lawrence Eppard<br /> leeppard@ship.edu<br /> Grove Hall 437<br /> 717-477-1596<br /> Ph.D., University of Florida

      Areas of specialization are social stratification and inequalities, poverty and social welfare, racial inequality, culture, sociology of families and social theory.

    37. Heather E. Bullock

      https://psychology.ucsc.edu/about/people/faculty.php?uid=hbullock

      Heather E. Bullock is an American social psychologist. She is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Blum Center on Poverty, Social Enterprise, and Participatory Governance at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Bullock is known for her research on people's beliefs about economic disparities and the consequences of stereotypical beliefs about the poor on public policy. This includes work examining attributions about poverty made by news media, and how such attributions influence public support of welfare policies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_E._Bullock

    Tags

    Annotators

    1. https://www.aei.org/articles/what-malcolm-gladwell-gets-wrong-about-poverty/

      What creates "strong families"? It's definitely more than a two-parent household. Economic and social support are highly helpful as well as a myriad of other factors.

      Watch the potential for subtle right leaning bias here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute#Political_stance_and_impact

    2. But until all participants in the debate recognize the overwhelming importance of having two parents in the home, we’re not going to get very far in improving opportunity.

      If two-parent families are so important, where is the support for all two-parent families? Where is economic support for these going to magically appear? Is he pushing that agenda?

      The arrest and incarceration rates for African-American men is primarily a tax on Black families which tends to split them up and destabilize them appalling rates. Why not mention this as something that could be helped in his argument here?

      He seems to be doing a lot of cherry picking.

    3. Chetty’s paper reports that “the strongest and most robust predictor [of the level of upward mobility in an area] is the fraction of children with single parents.”

      Cross reference with: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/raj-chettys-american-dream/592804

      I should read more of Chetty's primary material here.

  22. Aug 2022
    1. Well they are of course individual experiences but they're ones that are widely shared.These are things that if you talk to a vast range of people living in poverty you'd hear very similar things.And that’s because what they're speaking about is a sort of systematic set of social reactions to poverty and to poor people.In the process, poor people are stigmatised.They are judged as being inadequate.That poverty, as it were, results from them being poor people.That there's something in their moral character, their make up that makes them become poor and that, in a very powerful way in the present day, we treat poverty as though it is their own fault.

      Perceptions of Poverty

  23. Jul 2022
    1. ; until, in 1907, eachclass had come to be dealt with according to principles which wereobviously very different from those of 1834. The report of this investi¬gation was presented to the Poor Law Commission, with the interest¬ing result that we heard no more of the “ principles of 1834 ”! It wassubsequently published as English Poor Law Policy (1910).

      Beatrice Webb studied the effects of the British "principles of 1834" and how they were carried out (differently) from area to area to see the overall effects through 1907. The result of her study apparently showed what a poor policy it had been to the point that no one mentioned the old "principles of 1834" again.

      How might this sort of sociological study be carried out on the effects of laws within the United States now in terms of economics and equality for various movements like redlining, abortion, etc.? Is anyone doing this sort of work?


      There is an example of the Eviction Lab at Princeton has some of this sort of data and analysis. https://evictionlab.org/map

    1. First, our numbers have risen by 1.4 billion, nearly a hundred million per year. In other words, we’ve added another China or 40 more Canadas to the world. The growth rate has fallen slightly, but consumption of resources — from fossil fuel to water, from rare earths to good earth — has risen twice as steeply, roughly doubling our impact on nature. This outrunning of population by economic growth has lifted perhaps a billion of the poorest into the outskirts of the working class, mainly in China and India. Yet those in extreme poverty and hunger still number at least a billion. Meanwhile, the wealthiest billion — to which most North Americans and Europeans and many Asians now belong — devour an ever-growing share of natural capital. The commanding heights of this group, the billionaires’ club, has more than 2,200 members with a combined known worth nearing $10 trillion; this super-elite not only consumes at a rate never seen before but also deploys its wealth to influence government policy, media content, and key elections. Such, in a few words, is the shape of the human pyramid today.
  24. Jun 2022
  25. Mar 2022
  26. Jan 2022
    1. If you visit the Web site of the Online Computer Library Center and look at its WorldMap, you can see the numbers of books in public and academic systems around the world. Sixty million Britons have a hundred and sixteen million public-library books at their disposal, while more than 1.1 billion Indians have only thirty-six million. Poverty, in other words, is embodied in lack of print as well as in lack of food. The Internet will do much to redress this imbalance, by providing Western books for non-Western readers. What it will do for non-Western books is less clear.
  27. Dec 2021
    1. Oscar Wilde declared he was an advocateof socialism because he didn’t like having to look at poor people orlisten to their stories

      Original reference for this? actual quote?

  28. Nov 2021
    1. You can learn about it here, but fundamentally, there is an assumption on the part of the Siksika that rather than attaining what we would call "self-actualization" over time one is, in fact, born with it and this would seem to inform many other aspects of the culture. Childrearing, for example, is very hands-off, which would make sense if you believed your child arrived basically okay and kind of awesome so why would you fuck with that?  Furthermore, their views on wealth suggest that the whole point of attaining wealth is that so you can give it away. The one considered the wealthiest is the one who has given the most away. Which ties into why one has difficulty finding poverty in this environment because the second someone is poor, the rest of the community chips and makes them whole (instead of questioning "well do they really *deserve* to be made whole?" because, again, arrived self-actualized).

      I'll make further notes on the actual article, which I want to read.

  29. Aug 2021
  30. Jul 2021
    1. “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” ― Dom Helder Camara, Dom Helder Camara: Essential Writings
  31. May 2021
  32. Apr 2021
  33. Mar 2021
    1. Decerf, B., Ferreira, F. H. G., Mahler, D. G., & Sterck, O. (2020). Lives and Livelihoods: Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic. IZA Discussion Paper, 13549.

    1. Preliminary results from the first year are tantalizing for anyone interested in solutions to address rising inequality in the United States, especially as they manifest along racial and gender lines. Within the first year, the study’s participants obtained jobs at twice the rate of the control group. At the beginning of the study, 28 percent of the participants had full-time employment, and after the first year, that number rose to 40 percent.

      This is what happened when 125 participants were given $500/month over two years to see what would happen.

    1. ♿🏳️‍🌈💙Jack Monroe (they/she). ‘I’m Getting Individual Permission from Everyone Sending Me Pics of Their Food Boxes in My DMs to Repost Them Here but without Identifying Information Because I Try to Be Responsible with This Large Platform and There Are ~children~ Involved Here. Disclaimer Done, Now Get Angry.’ Tweet. @BootstrapCook (blog), 12 January 2021. https://twitter.com/BootstrapCook/status/1348917929132367872.

    2. ♿🏳️‍🌈💙Jack Monroe (they/she). ‘I’m Getting Individual Permission from Everyone Sending Me Pics of Their Food Boxes in My DMs to Repost Them Here but without Identifying Information Because I Try to Be Responsible with This Large Platform and There Are ~children~ Involved Here. Disclaimer Done, Now Get Angry.’ Tweet. @BootstrapCook (blog), 12 January 2021. https://twitter.com/BootstrapCook/status/1348917929132367872.

  34. Feb 2021
  35. Jan 2021
    1. I remember reading Matt Bruenig when I was in college, and he was like, “Well, actually Social Security was the most effective pathway to bring people out of poverty.”  I wrote a story in 2017 called “Why Education Is Not the Key to a Good Income,” and it was looking at this growing body of research that showed it was not your level of education that determined your chances of rising economic mobility. It was these other factors—like what kind of industries were in your community, union density, some of it was marriage. 

      makes sense... the best way out of poverty isn't education... it's money.

  36. Dec 2020
  37. Oct 2020
    1. Debates about how to structure these programs have long been influenced by a related economic assumption: The more people really need a benefit, the more effort they’ll put into getting it. “For decades, economists had this view that burdens could quote-‘help’ separate out those that are what one calls truly disadvantaged versus those who might be more marginally needy,” said Hilary Hoynes, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of California, Berkeley. “Our current research suggests it could be exactly the opposite.” These burdens, she suggested, may instead be tripping up the worst off: hourly workers who can’t shuffle their schedules for a meeting; parents dealing with domestic violence, disabilities or low literacy; families without bank accounts to automate monthly payments; households already facing unpaid bills and late notices when another urgent letter arrives in the mail.
  38. Sep 2020
  39. Aug 2020
  40. Jul 2020
  41. Jun 2020
  42. May 2020
  43. Apr 2020
    1. All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine

      this makes it look like it's a poorer village.

  44. Dec 2019
    1. and they suffered that evil in a very distressing degree.They had appeared to me rich, because their possessions incomparably transcended mine, but I soon learnt, that many of these advantages were only p apparent, since their delicate frame made them subject to a thousand wants of the existence of which I was entirely ignorant.

      In the Thomas Copy, Shelley replaces the Creature's perception that the De Lacey family is extremely poor with a more subtle observation. He had not perceived their suffering earlier because they had seemed "rich" by contrast to his own poverty, suggesting that knowledge of others is always dependent on our own viewing position.

  45. Jul 2019
    1. So the solution for the U.S.’s relatively high poverty rate will probably rely little on personal responsibility and moral rectitude. Instead, the U.S. should look to European countries, or to Australia and Canada, for ideas on how to reduce poverty. There’s just no substitute for a strong social safety net.

      Poverty is not due to individuals, especially when class mobility in the USA does not exist anymore.

    2. Children are going hungry too. Almost 14% of kids, or some 3.5 million in all, are estimated to live in poverty -- and that’s already down from a peak of more than 16% in 2012. To combat the problem, local governments around the country are opening thousands of cafeterias where children can eat for free.
    3. Given all of this good behavior, conservatives might expect that Japan’s poverty rate would be very low. But the opposite is true; Japan has a relatively high number of poor people for an advanced country.
  46. Jun 2019
    1. This year, the Promise’s marketing has emphasized vocational college. Administrators hope marginal students will be less likely to drop out of such programs because they are shorter.

      Vocational programs are great for "Builders", who learn by doing stuff than merely reciting study material.

    2. “The challenges that people bring with them to education because of poverty don’t just go away because we say we’re going to pay for college education,”

      Reminds me of "The boy who couldn't read"

  47. Apr 2019
  48. washburnmail-my.sharepoint.com washburnmail-my.sharepoint.com
    1. The United States is a land of stark contrasts. It is one of the world’s wealthiest societies, a global leader in many areas, and a land of unsurpassed technological and other forms of innovation. Its corporations are global trendsetters, its civil society is vibrant and sophisticated and its higher education system leads the world. But its immense wealth and expertise stand in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of its citizens live. About 40 million live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and 5.3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty.4It has the highest youth poverty rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the highest infant mortality rates among comparable OECD States. Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are increasingly prevalent, and it has the world’s highest incarceration rate, one of
  49. Jun 2018
    1. It may even look like someone you knew in college.

      See anything by Goldrick-Raab

    2. People tend to look at obesity, drug problems, and poverty as choices that could be avoided if people just tried harder.

      The grit narrative hurts students from poverty more than others. Their challenges are often insurmountable because multiple conditions are stacked against their success. Trying harder is disproportionate.

    3. the family photo falls neatly into a hillbilly stereotype

      Reality TV and stylizing poverty as entertainment has hurt our ability to empathize.

    4. By objectifying poverty, Americans allow themselves to perceive the poor as mere stereotypes of laziness or stupidity, rather than people worthy of compassion and support

      The idea that "poverty is a choice" is hurting our ability to work with the poor more effectively. This includes our work with poor students.

    1. Imagine if 14 percent of the new housing over the next decade in wealthy Wilmette on Chicago's North Shore had to be accessible to the 14 percent of the region's population that lives under the poverty line.

      Policies and the "free market" run counter to this plan. It wouldn't cost developers or managers more to produce this housing, but they wouldn't make as much money from those rentals. There is no market incentive for those plans to be enacted.

    2. It captures how we've designed communities to pen poverty in, restricting many poor African Americans in particular to a limited number of neighborhoods.

      This has political implications as well. Herding people into neighborhoods along with gerrymandering suppress votes and lock parties in.

  50. Oct 2017
    1. It was the degree of centrality to the white population of the state which alone then constituted the important point of comparison between these places

      This was really unsettling for me read. Proximity to the most white people is the one criteria that made the difference in where the University's location was chosen. If Charlottesville hadn't been most central to the white population of Virginia, UVa would be located in Lexington or in Staunton. Its definitely not a good thing that our school was centered around pleasing only the white race before our grounds were even built. I can't imagine how different our grounds would be and our university if another place had been more convenient for white people. UVa certainly has a racist past and I think most of us, if not all, are aware of that but I still couldn't believe that such a racist criteria is the reason the school exists where it does today and is the way Uva is today.

      • Becca Meaney
  51. Sep 2017
    1. They will be more advanced than we are, in science and in useful arts, and will know best what will suit the circumstances of their day.

      This sentence kind of stuck out to me. I thought it was very Jeffersonian. When creating the US Constitution, Jefferson wanted the people to revise it every 19 years, so each generation could change aspects of the government according to their time. He brought the idea of changing institutions to better fit generations to his university, because he could not make it work in his country. The commissioners put their faith in the future generations, hoping that the university will keep the same basic principles through a changing world. -Tessa

    2. that to secure Ourselves where we are, we must tread with awfull reverence in the footsteps of Our fathers

      This University was founded by one of the "fathers", at a time when the revolution was not the country's history, but part of one's personal past. The ideals of the founding fathers were ingrained in the people at this time, so it makes perfect sense that the commissioners would want to align themselves with their ideas of liberty and equality. However the word choice is kind of strange. The way it's worded makes it seem as if the commissioners had not purposefully aligned themselves with the founders, their university would not survive. This university seems to have been founded with great consideration to the government- not how one may want it to be. If a university and government are tied together, how can things change and progress? -Tessa

  52. Aug 2017
    1. What it means to be poor, with many additions in the replies. It is a shame that people are made to feel shame for accepting help or asking for help. If your charity group is giving kids something for Christmas, that's great. But don't put them on the local news.

  53. Jul 2017
  54. Mar 2017
  55. Jan 2017
    1. Despite all evidence to the contrary, blaming black culture for racial inequality remains politically dominant. And not only on the Right.
  56. Nov 2016
    1. Juan-Pablo Brammer on why many poor whites feel they can identify with Donald Trump. The capitalist myth insists that anyone can work their way up with hard work and cleverness. They have accepted this idea completely.

    1. A knack for programming can pull someone out of poverty. But first they need a computer. And it helps much more if they are introduced to people in the profession to mentor them and help them find a job.

    1. removing barriers

      Who wouldn't support this goal, but when I think about it, I end up in a chicken and egg loop: do we work to eliminate poverty to provide more equitable access or do we provide more equal educational experience to reduce poverty? Of course the answer is yes, both. But where to begin?

  57. atlspaceplacerhetf16.robinwharton.net atlspaceplacerhetf16.robinwharton.net
    1. econcentration effortsare geared towards either dispersing poor people to less-poor communities or attractinghigher-income residents to low-income neighborhoods.

      This descriptions of efforts by cities to diminish poverty is the same as gentrification, which has both positive and negative impacts on lower-income individuals and families. As presented by Max in class, the introduction of Krog Street Market to a certain community increased the cost of living in that neighborhood, driving out this populace.

  58. Sep 2016
    1. “The tunnel’snot bad. The tunnel’s a good place if you want to find out who you are. But when you find out who you are, you have to move out or the tunnel will eat you up like it ate me up for several years. Like I say, I built everything up around the tunnel. Now I have to learn to build it around myself.”

      I would like to discuss this further in class. I think the idea that the tunnel took over his life could be his way of saying how he relied to much on the tunnel, instead of allowing the tunnel to help him.

  59. Apr 2016
    1. By historical standards, most Americans are quite wealthy. And that’s part of what bothers us. If we were all poor, we might think that’s just the way things are, but when millions of us are doing quite well while others languish in poverty, it seems that something is just not right.

      I don't understand why people are bothered if people are wealthy. People get rich for many reasons. They work hard in school and get a high paying job, they save money, they have inherited the money which also means someone worked hard to get it at some point and then there are the few times that people win money from lotteries or casinos. I don't think people need to be concerned why people are rich or poor. If you work hard and go to school you should be able to get a job and make money. If you end up poor you most likely didn't spend your life working or trying hard, you didn't go to school or you're just lazy. Sorry people worked hard in their life to get to where they want to be. I think saying something isn't right about people being poor and people being rich is complete b.s. because life isn't fair and nobody is ever going to be as good as someone else so I think people need to start dealing with that. I understand it sucks to be a kid and not be able to help yourself but that's not your fault. Parents need to step it up so they can take care of their kids. The top reasons for people in America to be poor are poor economy, drug and alcohol use, unaffordable housing, no education and medical expenses. I think the welfare system is a good idea but I think people take advantage of it if they don't want to work and thats not right. I think there should be more criteria to be able to receive welfare. I think it would be beneficial for the government to build a few cheap housing developments for the poor to help some families. It would be a good charity project. I just think it sucks that people don't work or do anything to help themselves then are complaining about being poor.

  60. Feb 2016
    1. This morning, the Urban Institute is announcing a grant from the Gates Foundation to establish a national Partnership on Mobility from Poverty. It is a non-partisan group of leaders, experts, and practitioners who will identify promising interventions to make real, lasting progress against persistent poverty in America.
  61. Oct 2015
    1. In 1930 its population was 112,000. Today it is 36,000. The halcyon talk of “interracial living” is dead. The neighborhood is 92 percent black. Its homicide rate is 45 per 100,000—triple the rate of the city as a whole. The infant-mortality rate is 14 per 1,000—more than twice the national average.

      These are some intense statistics.. It'd be interesting to compare them to other cities in the area..

    2. Instead, the concentration of poverty has been paired with a concentration of melanin.

      Poverty is concentrated among those with dark skin.

  62. Feb 2014
    1. Drugs and alcohol are not my problem, reality is my problem, drugs and alcohol are my solution.

      So much wisdom here.