Economic
Poverty
Articles/Essays/Op-eds
Thomas Piketty’s Case for ‘Participatory Socialism’, Ezra Klein interview.
“The economist argues for universal inheritance, worker ownership and other policies to close the wealth gap… wealth is, in a way, a better indicator of opportunity, of power than income. And more generally, what I care about is really the equality or inequality of capabilities as Amartya Sen would have said. So what you can do with your life, the kind of choice you can make, the bargaining power you have, vis-à-vis the rest of society and vis-à-vis your own life. And from this viewpoint, wealth is quite important.
Because when you have no wealth at all, or even worse, when you have negative wealth, when you have only debt, you need to accept everything, basically. You need to accept any working condition, any wage. Because you need to pay for your rent, you need to take care of your family or relatives. And you cannot really make choices.
Whereas, if you have just — even just $100,000, $200,000, or $300,000, or euros, this can seem very small to someone who has millions or billions, but in fact, this makes a big difference, as compared to having zero or negative wealth. Because then you can — so if you are being proposed a job and you don’t like it, you don’t need to accept it right away. You can wait a little bit. You can try to create your own business. You can build your own home so that you don’t need to bring in a wage and rent every month. And you can start different kinds of projects in your life.” READ MORE
What the Rich Don’t Want to Admit About the Poor, Ezra Klein.
"The American economy runs on poverty, or at least the constant threat of it. Americans like their goods cheap and their services plentiful and the two of them, together, require a sprawling labor force willing to work tough jobs at crummy wages."
The Heavy Toll of the Black Belt’s Wastewater Crisis, Alexis Okeowo.
“Many rural households in America don’t have access to safe sewage systems. In Alabama, entrenched poverty and unusual geology have created a public-health disaster…. ‘“Well, they moved there,”’ she said. Bradley leads the department’s Bureau of Environmental Services, which regulates home-wastewater management throughout the state. She told the reporter, ‘“If you’ve got sewage on the ground, it’s your fault that you’re dumping sewage on the ground.”’
How to Fix Child Poverty, Jason DeParle.
A review of Invisible Americans: The Tragic Cost of Child Poverty by Jeff Madrick Knopf and A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty, a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
The Civil Rights Act of 2020, Charles M. Blow.
“Feel-good gestures from politicians and the police shift no power. Real change lies within a system overhaul….This society doesn’t sufficiently care for and insure people, guaranteeing that every person, regardless of station or wealth, has equal access to health care, and then it punishes those who suffer from stress, depression and violent fits of rage because of it.”
Books
The Alternative: Most of what you believe about poverty is wrong, by Mauricio Miller.
“Clara Miller, President of the F. B. Heron Foundation: The Alternative, is not only important reading, it's imperative. Miller, a trained engineer, the one-time manager of a top social service organization and most importantly, the son of a remarkable single mother, has both lived and observed the failings embodied in our attitudes toward the poor and, as a result, the flaws in our systems meant to help people in poverty. He merges heart and soul with system thinking to yield a prescription featuring the real math, trust relationships and courage that can change the "us and them," to "upward together" and put American families in the driver's seat to build their futures.”
Websites
Community Independence Initiative
CII is launching a new site, the Center for Peer-driven Change soon that will be the center of our global collaborative dedicated to resident-led initiatives. It will provide a safe community where mutuality - sharing and working together - is the standard of behavior.