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Category: poverty

  • Police in UK schools will only serve to criminalise vulnerable pupils

    Kids of Colour and the Northern Police Monitoring Project (NPMP) have launched a petition calling on the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to halt plans to place more police officers in local schools. The No Police in Schools campaign is also calling for the local authority to remove existing school-based police officers (SBPOs).

    Police in Manchester schools

    Kids of Colour and NPMP are calling on GMCA to halt plans to introduce more SBPOs into Manchester schools, and to remove existing officers. This is based on concerns that police in schools will disproportionately impact working class children of colour, “create a climate of hostility and suspicion”, and bring more children into contact with the criminal justice system.

    Speaking to The Canary in February, co-author of Decriminalise the Classroom and NPMP member Dr Laura Connelly said:

    As our No Police In Schools Campaign makes clear, teachers, parents, young people and community members have grave concerns about school-based police officers. Our own community consultation of over 500 people in Greater Manchester shows that SBPOs have a range of negative consequences that are felt most acutely by those from working-class and Black and ethnic minority communities.

    She added:

    We are deeply concerned that police will bring into the school setting the institutional racism and police violence already experienced in over-policed communities. They will foster a culture of low expectations.

    Calling on the local authority to invest in supportive rather than punitive measures, Kids of Colour and NPMP said:

    If GMCA is truly interested in keeping young people safe, instead of investing in police in schools, it should invest in school counsellors, youth workers, teachers, and community infrastructure.

    The UK’s school-to-prison pipeline

    As set out by NEU vice-president Vik Chechi-Ribeiro, the “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to the systematic direction of pupils towards incarceration through educational exclusion and criminalisation. This is a product of harsh disciplinary policies that confront routine school-based behavioural issues with ‘zero tolerance’, and the presence of police, security, and surveillance in schools. This contributes to greater suspensions, expulsions, referrals to law enforcement, and arrests for violations of school rules. The presence of police in schools disproportionately impacts working-class pupils from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds, groups which already experience over-policing.

    Police in schools is a growing issue nationwide. More than 650 police officers are working in British schools, with many assigned to sites in areas of high deprivation. We have seen the devastating and disproportionate impact of police in US schools on Children of Colour, particularly those with disabilities. In spite of fears that police in schools will criminalise vulnerable pupils, authorities increased the number of police working in London schools by 19% between 2016/17 and 2019/20. In February, London mayor Sadiq Khan suggested further funding for SBPOs.

    Responding to this, Connelly said:

    The additional funding would be better invested in mental health support in schools, counsellors, teaching and support staff, and community infrastructure. It is this investment, rather than more policing, that will help to keep our young people safe.

    Towards an education system that supports pupils

    Police in schools will not solve the complex issues that impact young people’s lives. In most cases, they will exacerbate them. Schools and communities need solutions that actively challenge the root causes and consequences of social problems. As Kids of Colour and NPMP have highlighted, “young people need support, not suspicion”. This begins with investment in communities, and in education, youth, social, and mental health services. The coalition is calling on supporters to sign and share their petition, and for people to join the No Police in Schools campaign to help build an education system that supports pupils rather than traumatises them.

    Featured image via NeONBRAND/Unsplash

    By Sophia Purdy-Moore

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Low-Income Countries To Be Hardest Hit As Global Food Prices Make Biggest Spike In Decade, U.N. Warns

    3 Mins Read Global food prices have risen to decade-high levels, with low-income countries to be most vulnerable, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned. Predominantly in Asia-Pacific and Africa, many of these economies have already been ravaged by the impacts of the pandemic, and will now be under additional food insecurity threats from rising costs.  […]

    The post Low-Income Countries To Be Hardest Hit As Global Food Prices Make Biggest Spike In Decade, U.N. Warns appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • To Address Increasing Inequality and Global Poverty, We Must Cancel Debt

    Shattered piggy bank, debt

    Massive debt levels are a feature of contemporary capitalism that cannot be eradicated without radical change, says political scientist Éric Toussaint.

    “The indebtedness of the working classes is directly connected to the widening poverty gap and increasing inequality, and to the demolition of the welfare state that most governments have been working at since the 1980s,” says Toussaint in this exclusive interview for Truthout.

    Toussaint — a historian and international spokesperson for the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM), and author of several books on debt, development and globalization — shares his thoughts on debt, inequality and contemporary socialist movements in the conversation that follows.

    C.J. Polychroniou: Over the past few decades, inequality is rising in many countries around the world, both across the Global North and the Global South, creating what UN Chief António Guterres called in his foreword to the World Social Report 2020 “a deeply unequal global landscape.” Moreover, the top 1 percent of the population are the big winners in the globalized capitalist economy of the 21st century. Is inequality an inevitable development in the face of globalization, or the outcome of politics and policies at the level of individual countries?

    Éric Toussaint: Rising inequality is not inevitable. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the explosion of inequality is consubstantial with the phase that the world capitalist system entered into in the 1970s. The evolution of inequality in the capitalist system is directly related to the balance of power between the fundamental social classes, between capital and labor. When I use the term “labor,” that means urban wage-earners as well as rural workers and small-scale farming producers.

    The evolution of capitalism can be divided into broad periods according to the evolution of inequality and the social balance of power. Inequality increased between the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the first half of the 19th century and the policies implemented by the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States in the 1930s, and then decreased up to the early 1980s. In Europe, the turn towards lower inequality lagged 10 years behind the United States. It was not until the end of World War II and the final defeat of Nazism that inequality-reducing policies were put in place, whether in Western Europe or Moscow-led Eastern Europe. In the major economies of Latin America, there was a reduction in inequality from the 1930s to the 1970s, notably during the presidencies of Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico and Juan D. Perón in Argentina. In the period from the 1930s to the 1970s, there were massive social struggles. In many capitalist countries, capital had to make concessions to labor in order to stabilize the system. In some cases, the radical nature of social struggles led to revolutions, as in China in 1949 and Cuba in 1959.

    The return to policies that strongly aggravated inequality began in the 1970s in Latin America and part of Asia. From 1973 onward, the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet (advised by the “Chicago Boys,” the Chilean economists who had studied laissez-faire economics at the University of Chicago with Milton Friedman), the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and the dictatorships in Argentina and Uruguay are just a few examples of countries where neoliberal policies were first put into practice.

    These neoliberal policies, which produced a sharp increase in inequality, became widespread from 1979 in Great Britain under Margaret Thatcher, from 1980 in the United States under the Reagan administration, from 1982 in Germany under the Kohl government, and in 1982-1983 in France after François Mitterrand’s turn to the right.

    Inequality increased sharply with the capitalist restoration in the countries of the former Soviet bloc in Central and Eastern Europe. In China from the second half of the 1980s onward, the policies dictated by Deng Xiaoping also led to a gradual restoration of capitalism and a rise in inequality.

    It is also quite clear that for the ideologues of the capitalist system and for many international organizations, a rise in inequality is a necessary condition for economic growth.

    It should be noted that the World Bank does not consider a rising level of inequality as negative. Indeed, it adopts the theory developed in the 1950s by the economist Simon Kuznets, according to which a country whose economy takes off and progresses must necessarily go through a phase of increasing inequality. According to this dogma, inequality will start to fall as soon as the country has reached a higher threshold of development. It is a version of pie in the sky used by the ruling classes to placate the oppressed on whom they impose a life of suffering.

    The need for rising inequalities is well rooted into World Bank philosophy. Eugene Black, World Bank president in April 1961, said: “Income inequalities are the natural result of the economic growth which is the people’s escape route from an existence of poverty.” However, empirical studies by the World Bank in the 1970s at the time when Hollis Chenery was chief economist contradict the Kuznets theory.

    In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty presents a very interesting analysis of the Kuznets curve. Piketty mentions that at first, Kuznets himself doubted the real interest of the curve. That did not stop him from developing an economic theory that keeps bouncing back and, like all economists who serve orthodoxy well, receiving the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1971). Since then, inequalities have reached levels never before seen in the history of humanity. This is the result of the dynamism of global capitalism and the support it receives from international institutions that are charged with “development” and governments that favor the interests of the 1 percent over those of the enormous mass of the population, as much in the developed countries as in the rest of the world.

    In 2021, the World Bank reviewed the Arab Spring of 2011 by claiming, against all evidence, that the level of inequality was low in the entire Arab region, and this worried them greatly as it was symptomatic of faults in the region’s supposed economic success. As faithful followers of Kuznets’ theory, Vladimir Hlasny and Paolo Verme argue in a paper published by the World Bank that “low inequality is not an indicator of a healthy economy.”

    Gilbert Achcar summarizes the position taken by Paolo Verme of the World Bank as follows: “in the view of the 2014 World Bank study, it is inequality aversion, not inequality per se, that should be deplored, since inequality must inevitably rise with development from a Kuznetsian perspective.”

    Finally, the coronavirus pandemic has further increased the inequality in the distribution of income and wealth. Inequality in the face of disease and death has also increased dramatically.

    Neoliberal policies have created massive debt levels for so-called emerging markets and developing countries, with debt threatening to create a global development emergency. What’s the most realistic solution to the debt crisis in developing countries?

    The solution is obvious. Debt payments must be suspended without any penalty payments being paid for the delay. Beyond suspension of payment, each country must carry out debt audits with the active participation of citizens, in order to determine the illegitimate, odious, illegal and/or unsustainable parts, which must be canceled. After a crisis of the size of the present one, the slates must be wiped clean, as has happened many times before throughout human history. David Graeber reminded us of this in his important book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years.

    From the point of view of the CADTM, a global network mainly active in the Global South but also in the North, the need to suspend payments and cancel debt does not only concern developing countries, whether they are emerging or not. It also concerns peripheral countries in the North like Greece and semi-colonies like Puerto Rico.

    It is time to dare to speak out about canceling the abusive debts demanded of the working classes. Private banks and other private bodies have put great energy into developing policy of lending to ordinary people who turn to borrowing because their incomes are insufficient to pay for higher education or health care. In the U.S., student debt has reached over $1.7 trillion, with $165 billion worth of student loans in default, while a large part of mortgages are subjected to abusive conditions (as the subprime crisis clearly showed from 2007). The terms of certain consumer debts are also abusive, as are most debts linked to micro-credit in the South.

    Indebtedness of the working classes is directly connected to the widening poverty gap and increasing inequality, and to the demolition of the welfare state that most governments have been working at since the 1980s. This is true all over the world: whether in Chile, Colombia, the Arabic-speaking region, Japan, Europe or the United States. As neoliberal policies dismantle their systems of protection, people are obliged, in turn, to incur debt as individuals to compensate for the fact that the states no longer fulfil the obligation incumbent upon them to protect, promote and enact human rights. Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya and Nancy Fraser emphasized this in their book, Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto.

    What are the alternatives for a sustainable model of development?

    As stated in the manifesto, “End the system of private patents!”:

    The health crisis is far from being resolved. The capitalist system and neoliberal policies have been at the helm at all stages. At the root of this virus is the unbridled transformation of the relationship between the human species and nature. The ecological and health crises are intimately intertwined.

    Governments and big capital will not be deterred from their offensive against the populations unless a vast and determined movement forces them to make concessions.

    Among new attacks that must be resisted are the acceleration of automation/robotization of work; the generalization of working from home, where employees are isolated, have even less control of their time and must themselves assume many more of the costs related to their work tools than if they worked physically in their offices; a development of distance learning that deepens cultural and social inequality; the reinforcement of control over private life and over private data; the reinforcement of repression, etc.

    The question of public debt remains a central element of social and political struggles. Public debt continues to explode in volume because governments are borrowing massively in order to avoid taxing the rich to pay for the measures taken to resist the COVID-19 pandemic, and it will not be long before they resume their austerity offensive. Illegitimate private debt will become an ever-greater daily burden for working people. Consequently, the struggle for the abolition of illegitimate debt must gain renewed vigor.

    The struggles that [arose] on several continents during June 2020, notably massive anti-racist struggles around the Black Lives Matter movement, show that youth and the working classes do not accept the status quo. In 2021, huge popular mobilizations in Colombia and more recently in Brazil have provided new evidence of massive resistance among Latin American peoples.

    We must contribute as much as possible to the rise of a new and powerful social and political movement capable of mustering the social struggles and elaborating a program that breaks away from capitalism and promotes anti-capitalist, anti-racist, ecological, feminist and socialist visions. It is fundamental to work toward a socialization of banks with expropriation of major shareholders; a moratorium of public debt repayment while an audit with citizens’ participation is carried out to repudiate its illegitimate part; the imposition of a high rate of taxation on the highest assets and incomes; the cancelation of unjust personal debts (student debt, abusive mortgage loans); the closure of stock markets, which are places of speculation; a radical reduction of working hours (without loss of pay) in order to create a large number of socially useful jobs; a radical increase in public expenditure, particularly in health care and education; the socialization of pharmaceutical companies and of the energy sector; the re-localization of as much manufacturing as possible and the development of short supply chains, as well as many other essential demands.

    A few years ago, you argued that the socialist project has been betrayed and needs to be reinvented in the 21st century. What should socialism look like in today’s world, and how can it be achieved?

    In the present day, the socialist project must be feminist, ecologist, anti-capitalist, anti-racist, internationalist and self-governing. In 2021, we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune when people set up a form of democratic self-government. It was a combination of self-organization and forms of power delegation that could be questioned at any moment, since all mandates could be revoked at the behest of the people. It has to be clearly stated that the emancipation of the oppressed will be brought about by the oppressed themselves, or will not happen at all. Socialism will only be attained if the peoples of the world consciously set themselves the goal of constructing it, and if they give themselves the means to prevent authoritarian or dictatorial degradation and the bureaucratization of the new society.

    What Rosa Luxemburg said in 1918 is as valid today as it was then: “without a free and untrammeled press, without the unlimited right of association and assemblage, the rule of the broad masses of the people is entirely unthinkable.”

    She added:

    Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party — however numerous they may be — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege.”

    Faced with the multidimensional crisis of capitalism hurtling towards the abyss due to the environmental crisis, modifying capitalism is no longer a proper option. It would merely be a lesser evil which would not bring the radical solutions that the situation requires.

    This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • What the Rich Don’t Want to Admit About the Poor

    The U.S. economy needs a sprawling labor force willing to work tough jobs at crummy wages to keep goods cheap and services plentiful.

    By: Ezra Klein

    I’m not going to pretend that I know how to interpret the jobs and inflation data of the past few months. My view is that this is still an economy warped by the pandemic, and that the dynamics are so strange and so unstable that it will be some time before we know its true state. But the reaction to the early numbers and anecdotes has revealed something deeper and more constant in our politics.

    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.

    On the right, the barest glimmer of worker power is treated as a policy emergency, and the whip of poverty, not the lure of higher wages, is the appropriate response.

    [Hear more from Ezra Klein by following his New York Times Opinion podcast, “The Ezra Klein Show.”]

    Reports that low-wage employers were having trouble filling open jobs sent Republican policymakers into a tizzy and led at least 25 Republican governors — and one Democratic governor — to announce plans to cut off expanded unemployment benefits early. Chipotle said that it would increase prices by about 4 percent to cover the cost of higher wages, prompting the National Republican Congressional Committee to issue a blistering response: “Democrats’ socialist stimulus bill caused a labor shortage, and now burrito lovers everywhere are footing the bill.” The Trumpist outlet The Federalist complained, “Restaurants have had to bribe current and prospective workers with fatter paychecks to lure them off their backsides and back to work.”

    But it’s not just the right. The financial press, the cable news squawkers and even many on the center-left greet news of labor shortages and price increases with an alarm they rarely bring to the ongoing agonies of poverty or low-wage toil.

    As it happened, just as I was watching Republican governors try to immiserate low-wage workers who weren’t yet jumping at the chance to return to poorly ventilated kitchens for $9 an hour, I was sent “A Guaranteed Income for the 21st Century,” a plan that seeks to make poverty a thing of the past.

    The proposal, developed by Naomi Zewde, Kyle Strickland, Kelly Capatosto, Ari Glogower and Darrick Hamilton for the New School’s Institute on Race and Political Economy, would guarantee a $12,500 annual income for every adult and a $4,500 allowance for every child. It’s what wonks call a “negative income tax” plan — unlike a universal basic income, it phases out as households rise into the middle class.

    “With poverty, to address it, you just eliminate it,” Hamilton told me. “You give people enough resources so they’re not poor.” Simple, but not cheap.

    The team estimates that its proposal would cost $876 billion annually. To give a sense of scale, total federal spending in 2019 was about $4.4 trillion, with $1 trillion of that financing Social Security payments and $1.1 trillion supporting Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

    Beyond writing that the plan “would require new sources of revenue, additional borrowing or trade-offs with other government funding priorities,” Hamilton and his co-authors don’t say how they’d pay for it, and in our conversation, Hamilton was cagey. “There are many ways in which it can be paid for and deficit spending itself is not bad unless there are certain conditions,” he said. I’m less blasé about financing a program that would increase federal spending by almost 20 percent, but at the same time, it’s clearly possible. Even if the entire thing was funded by taxes, it would only bring America’s tax burden to roughly the average of our peer nations.

    I suspect the real political problem for a guaranteed income isn’t the costs, but the benefits. A policy like this would give workers the power to make real choices. They could say no to a job they didn’t want, or quit one that exploited them. They could, and would, demand better wages, or take time off to attend school or simply to rest. When we spoke, Hamilton tried to sell it to me as a truer form of capitalism. “People can’t reap the returns of their effort without some baseline level of resources,” he said. “If you lack basic necessities with regards to economic well-being, you have no agency. You’re dictated to by others or live in a miserable state.”

    But those in the economy with the power to do the dictating profit from the desperation of low-wage workers. One man’s misery is another man’s quick and affordable at-home lunch delivery. “It is a fact that when we pay workers less and don’t have social insurance programs that, say, cover Uber and Lyft drivers, we are able to consume goods and services at lower prices,” Hilary Hoynes, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, where she also co-directs the Opportunity Lab, told me.

    This is the conversation about poverty that we don’t like to have: We discuss the poor as a pity or a blight, but we rarely admit that America’s high rate of poverty is a policy choice, and there are reasons we choose it over and over again.

    We typically frame those reasons as questions of fairness (“Why should I have to pay for someone else’s laziness?”) or tough-minded paternalism (“Work is good for people, and if they can live on the dole, they would”). But there’s more to it than that.

    It is true, of course, that some might use a guaranteed income to play video games or melt into Netflix. But why are they the center of this conversation? We know full well that America is full of hardworking people who are kept poor by very low wages and harsh circumstance. We know many who want a job can’t find one, and many of the jobs people can find are cruel in ways that would appall anyone sitting comfortably behind a desk. We know the absence of child care and affordable housing and decent public transit makes work, to say nothing of advancement, impossible for many. We know people lose jobs they value because of mental illness or physical disability or other factors beyond their control. We are not so naïve as to believe near-poverty and joblessness to be a comfortable condition or an attractive choice.

    Most Americans don’t think of themselves as benefiting from the poverty of others, and I don’t think objections to a guaranteed income would manifest as arguments in favor of impoverishment.

    Instead, we would see much of what we’re seeing now, only magnified: Fears of inflation, lectures about how the government is subsidizing indolence, paeans to the character-building qualities of low-wage labor, worries that the economy will be strangled by taxes or deficits, anger that Uber and Lyft rides have gotten more expensive, sympathy for the struggling employers who can’t fill open roles rather than for the workers who had good reason not to take those jobs. These would reflect not America’s love of poverty but opposition to the inconveniences that would accompany its elimination.

    Nor would these costs be merely imagined. Inflation would be a real risk, as prices often rise when wages rise, and some small businesses would shutter if they had to pay their workers more. There are services many of us enjoy now that would become rarer or costlier if workers had more bargaining power. We’d see more investments in automation and possibly in outsourcing.

    The truth of our politics lies in the risks we refuse to accept, and it is rising worker power, not continued poverty, that we treat as intolerable. You can see it happening right now, driven by policies far smaller and with effects far more modest than a guaranteed income.

    Hamilton, to his credit, was honest about these trade-offs. “Progressives don’t like to talk about this,” he told me. “They want this kumbaya moment. They want to say equity is great for everyone when it’s not. We need to shift our values. The capitalist class stands to lose from this policy, that’s unambiguous. They will have better resourced workers they can’t exploit through wages. Their consumer products and services would be more expensive.”

    For the most part, America finds the money to pay for the things it values. In recent decades, and despite deep gridlock in Washington, we have spent trillions of dollars on wars in the Middle East and tax cuts for the wealthy. We have also spent trillions of dollars on health insurance subsidies and coronavirus relief. It is in our power to wipe out poverty. It simply isn’t among our priorities.

    “Ultimately, it’s about us as a society saying these privileges and luxuries and comforts that folks in the middle class — or however we describe these economic classes — have, how much are they worth to us?” Jamila Michener, co-director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity, told me. “And are they worth certain levels of deprivation or suffering or even just inequality among people who are living often very different lives from us? That’s a question we often don’t even ask ourselves.”

    But we should.

    _______________________________________________________

    Originally appeared in New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/opinion/stimulus-unemployment-republicans-poverty.html

    The post What the Rich Don’t Want to Admit About the Poor appeared first on Basic Income Today.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Auckland is the world’s ‘most liveable city’? Many Māori might disagree

    ANALYSIS: By Ella Henry, Auckland University of Technology

    While I am always happy to celebrate any accolades my country and city might garner on the international stage, seeing Auckland/Tāmaki Makaurau awarded the top ranking in a recent “most liveable cities” survey left me somewhat flummoxed.

    In particular, I would argue that many Māori whānau in Auckland do not enjoy the benefits of this supposed “liveability”.

    This is important, given Māori comprised 11.5 percent of the Auckland population in the 2018 Census. Roughly one in four Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand are living in the greater Auckland region.

    The survey was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sister company of The Economist, and looked at 140 world cities. Auckland was ranked 12th in 2019, but took top spot this year for one obvious reason:

    Auckland, in New Zealand, is at the top of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Liveability rankings, owing to the city’s ability to contain the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic faster and thus lift restrictions earlier, unlike others around the world.

    Alternative liveability criteria
    Each city in the survey was rated on “relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure”.

    Overall rankings depended on how those factors were rated on a sliding scale: acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable, intolerable. Quantitative measurements relied on “external data points”, but the qualitative ratings were “based on the judgment of our team of expert analysts and in-city contributors”.

    The methodology, particularly around culture and environment, seems somewhat subjective. It’s predicated on the judgement of unnamed experts and contributors, and based on similarly undefined “cultural indicators”.

    To better understand the living conditions of Māori in Auckland, therefore, we might use more robust “liveability” criteria. The New Zealand Treasury’s Living Standards Framework offers a useful model.

    This sets out 12 domains of well-being: civic engagement and governance, cultural identity, environment, health, housing, income and consumption, jobs and earnings, knowledge and skills, time use, safety and security, social connections and subjective well-being.

    inner city houses in Auckland with Sky Tower in distance
    Inner-city housing in Auckland: an average price increase of NZ$140,000 in one year. Image: www.shutterstock.com

    The Māori experience
    Applying a small handful of these measures to Māori, we find the following.

    Housing: According to recent reports, Auckland house prices increased by about NZ$140,00 on average in the past year. That contributed to Auckland being the fourth-least-affordable housing market, across New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, the US, UK, Ireland, Canada and Hong Kong.

    Next to that sobering fact, we can point to estimates that Māori made up more than 40 percent of the homeless in Auckland in 2019. We can only assume this rapid increase in house prices has made homelessness worse.

    Poverty: Alongside housing affordability is the growing concern about poverty in New Zealand, and particularly child poverty. While there has been an overall decline in child poverty, Māori and Pacific poverty rates remain “profoundly disturbing”.

    Employment: As of March 2021, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment recorded a Māori unemployment rate of 10.8 percent, well above the national rate (4.9 percent). This is particularly high for Māori youth (20.4 percent) and women (12.0 percent).

    Health: Māori life expectancy is considerably lower than for non-Māori, and mortality rates are higher for Māori than non-Māori across nearly all age groups. Māori are also over-represented across a wide range of chronic and infectious diseases, injuries and suicide.

    The digital divide: The Digital Government initiative has found Māori and Pasifika are among those less likely to have internet access, thus creating a level of digital poverty that may affect jobs and earnings, knowledge and skills, safety and security, and social connections.

    Making Auckland liveable for all
    Taken together, these factors show a different and darker picture for far too many Māori than “liveable city” headlines might suggest.

    I say this as someone who has lived in Auckland for the majority of the past 60 years. It is a city I love, and I acknowledge the grace and generosity of the mana whenua of Tāmaki Makaurau, with whom I share this beautiful whenua and moana.

    I am also part of a privileged group of Māori who enjoy job security, a decent income, a secure whānau and strong social networks.

    But, until we address and ameliorate the inequities and disadvantages some of our whānau face, we cannot truly celebrate being the “most liveable city in the world”.The Conversation

    Dr Ella Henry is an associate professor at Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Activists Demand G7 Take Urgent Action on Climate, Vaccine Apartheid and Poverty

    Activists Demand G7 Take Urgent Action on Climate, Vaccine Apartheid and Poverty

    As world leaders gather for the first in-person G7 summit in two years, talks are set to focus heavily on ending the pandemic and the climate crisis, and climate activists are calling on them for more immediate action. “It’s not just one crisis,” says Asad Rehman, executive director of War on Want and spokesperson for the COP26 Climate Coalition. “What we’ve seen is simply rich countries doing too little too late and not taking up their responsibility, and unfortunately this G7 has not changed that at all.”

    TRANSCRIPT

    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: World leaders are gathered in Cornwall in the U.K. for the first in-person G7 summit in two years. Talks are set to focus heavily on ending the pandemic and the climate crisis. President Biden announced the U.S. would donate an additional half-billion COVID vaccine doses, quote, “with no strings attached.”

    PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: America will be the arsenal of vaccines in our fight against COVID-19, just as America was the arsenal of democracy during World War II. … This U.S. contribution is the foundation for additional coordinated efforts to help vaccine the world — vaccinate the world.

    AMY GOODMAN: While Biden announced there will be no strings attached, the vaccine doses will not go to Venezuela, which is under U.S. sanction. Leaders of the G7 nations are collectively pledging to donate a billion vaccine doses to poorer countries. Advocacy groups are continuing to apply pressure on governments to do more to end the global vaccine apartheid, including waiving intellectual property protections on vaccines.

    Protests are planned throughout the summit amidst a heavy police presence. Climate activists and groups including Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion are staging actions to urge more forceful and immediate action from G7 nations. Ahead of the summit, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told NBC News the climate crisis is urgent.

    SECRETARY–GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: When you are at the verge of the abyss, you must be very careful about your next step, because if the next step is in the wrong direction, you will fall.

    ANNE THOMPSON: How much time is left to act?

    SECRETARY–GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: I think this year is the make-it-or-break-it year. If we fail in Glasgow, we’ll be in a very difficult situation. As I said, on the verge of the abyss, you must make sure that the next step is in the right direction.

    AMY GOODMAN: G7 members are expected today to endorse a minimum global tax rate of 15%.

    For more, we’re joined in London by Asad Rehman, executive director of War on Want, spokesperson for the COP26 Climate Coalition.

    So, it’s all happening in Cornwall, the first in-person meeting of the G7, Asad. What are climate activists around the world demanding? And what are the plans for this weekend?

    ASAD REHMAN: Well, as your intro said, the G7, the richest and the most powerful economies in the world, are meeting. But the people who are not around the table are, of course, those who are going to pay the price for their decisions: the poorer majority of the world. And the G7 meet at a critical moment, because it’s not just one crisis, but we face multiple and companion crises, so extreme that we’re not just at the crossroads in human history, we’re, of course, heading towards a point of no return. And unfortunately, from the pronouncements that we’ve already seen and from what we understand will come out of the G7 in terms of the summit, they can see that our house is on fire, yet, frankly, they’re still discussing what color to paint the door.

    So, let’s just take the climate crisis for example. Despite all the promises to act on the climate emergency and recognizing whilst no threshold is safe, and as we can see from the devastating impacts for millions of lives as we breach 1 degree, that we have to prevent temperatures breaching 1.5, what we’re seeing is carbon emissions in 2021 at the highest in a decade. Temperature levels are heading towards at least two-and-a-half degrees, if not more. The G7 is still pouring close to 189 billion to fossil fuel extraction. They’re not making the pledges that are needed to make sure that they’re doing their fair share. And they’re still not even meeting the broken promise of a decade ago of realizing 100 billion in much-needed climate finance, when every estimate says at least the minimum that is now needed is at least close to a trillion a year, for each and every year for the coming decade.

    This is no longer about climate denialism. What we’re seeing is, is mitigation denialism. It’s the hope that somehow — and John Kerry famously said this at the G7 finance ministers’ meeting — that our quality of life is not up for negotiation, but we’re going to rely on technologies that don’t exist currently and that, somewhere in the future, is going to suck out hundreds — and I say hundreds — of billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere. I mean, that is just unprecedented, public policy being made on the hope of fingers being crossed and that something will rescue us in the future. And the poorest will pay the price.

    AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in an interview that originally appeared on NBC News and is broadcast here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global consortium of news outlets strengthening coverage of the climate story. He was interviewed by reporter Anne Thompson.

    ANNE THOMPSON: Can the world combat the worst of climate change without helping poor countries?

    SECRETARY–GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: It’s impossible. … You need to create the conditions for a transition from coal to renewable energy. And that, of course, requires financial investment, financial support and technological support to developing countries that still rely on coal for their own energy needs. … More and more countries are committing not to finance coal plants even abroad. Korea has done it. I hope the G7 will be able to do it.

    AMY GOODMAN: And so, Asad Rehman, talk more about this moment, where climate — it’s the first time ever it’s on the agenda of G7. And also, if you can talk specifically about Britain’s role on climate? The U.K. recently called for a climate Marshall Plan. And your assessment of President Biden’s plans?

    ASAD REHMAN: Well, the U.K. government takes the world stage and claims that it’s a climate leader and says, “We’ve cut our emissions by 50%.” But, actually, if you take out the — because none of those emissions include aviation or shipping or all the embedded emissions of the issues that — of the products that the U.K. consumes, we’re actually only talking about 15% emission reductions. That’s about half a percent of emission reduction. We’re nowhere near the scale of emission reductions. Rich countries are still talking about net-zero goals in 2050, when they should be talking about decarbonizing by 2030.

    And the COVID pandemic gives us a really good example of how these rich countries are, of course, responding, both to the COVID pandemic, but also to the climate crisis. We’ve all heard the words, “No one is safe until everyone is safe.” We can all see that millions of people are dying around in every corner of the world. And yet rich countries not just hoarded the vaccines, meaning that at the current rate it will be 57 years before everyone in the world is vaccinated, but they’re actively backing Big Pharma and protecting their profits. Now, if they won’t lift the intellectual property rights on COVID vaccines, what hope is there for poorer countries that they’re going to lift the intellectual property rights and provide the technology and the finance for them to be able to deal with the climate impacts, to be able to grow cleanly, to be able to transition away from the fossil fuel economy?

    And this is, of course, at the very same time as this incredible crisis of inequality, where 80% of the world faces poverty, half of it is still struggling on the equivalent of $5 a day, and not just facing that, but is rapidly getting worse. We’ve heard over the last year 500 million jobs have been lost. Hundreds of millions of people have been pushed into extreme poverty. The very tools that rich countries use to protect their economies are being denied to those in poorer countries. And what we’ve seen is simply rich countries doing too little too late and not taking up their responsibility, and unfortunately this G7 has not changed that at all.

    AMY GOODMAN: And finally, your organization, War on Want, a global anti-poverty organization, does more than focus on climate, so if you can make the link, and what you demand of the G7, not only around climate, but also in the midst of this pandemic? You have climate apartheid, what countries get hit the hardest, and also, of course, vaccine apartheid.

    ASAD REHMAN: Absolutely. We see these forms of apartheid being played out. As you rightly said, we see a COVID apartheid, we see climate apartheid, we see economic apartheid. We see inequality and injustice all around the world.

    Really, what the G7 should be announcing is a global Green New Deal. They should be announcing and saying, “We’re committed to making sure that everybody has the right to a living wage, to universal public services, health, education, housing.” We all have seen how critical they are, not only to dealing with the pandemic, but are critical in terms of dealing with the climate crisis. We need to make food and energy a public good, so that we can share them equitably. We have enough in the world, but, of course, much of it is concentrated in the hands of a small elite. Just the top 1%, their emissions currently are double those of the bottom three-and-a-half billion people. If they were just reducing their emissions, we’d begin to see a major step forward.

    We need a radical transformation of our broken economy. We need to fix our unjust fair trade — unjust trade rules. We need to cap the power of corporations. And even the announcement about taxation of multinationals, it’s, yes, a small step forward on the 15%, but we already can see that they are actively saying that that won’t apply to finance, that won’t apply to the big banks, that already there are going to be so many loopholes. What we really need is about 25% corporation tax around the world.

    We need to make sure that we’re not just canceling debt for the poorer countries, but actually we have a plan of reparations, of finance going from the Global North to the Global South. It’s no good talking about charity. And all of these countries talk about, you know, that their response has been greatly charitable. For every $1 that is going from the North to the South, $24 flows the other way and enriches our big multinationals and countries in the Global North.

    We can no longer tinker around the edges. We need a fundamental transition. And these coming years will determine, literally, the shape of the world. It will determine who dies, who lives, and what kind of economy that we’re going to have. There is incredible demands coming up from the bottom — you see it in every corner of the world — basically saying, “Our economy is no longer fit for purpose. It’s failing people. It doesn’t give people the quality of life that they need. It doesn’t give them dignity. We need a transformation.”

    AMY GOODMAN: Asad Rehman, I want to thank you for being with us, executive director of War on Want, global anti-poverty group, and the spokesperson for the COP26 Climate Coalition, speaking to us from London.

    Next up, the Biden administration continues to seek the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from Britain to the United States, where he faces up to 175 years in prison. We’ll speak to Julian’s father and half-brother. They’re touring the United States to advocate for his release from a high-security prison in Britain. Stay with us.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Don’t Just Send People Money During a Pandemic—Do It All the Time

    The evidence is in: Sending out direct cash payments has been a full-blown success—and we can’t afford to stop.

    By: JIM PUGH 

    It’s become almost a cliché in the politics of Washington, D.C.: Every time someone proposes expanding a social program or creating a new one, scores of politicians, lobbyists and so-called economic ​“experts” will pop up to tell you that it will cost too much and we can’t afford it. Somehow, money is never an issue when it comes to tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations or increasing our military budget, but programs that support everyday people are just too damn expensive.

    A new analysis from the University of Michigan on the impact of recent stimulus payments adds to a growing body of evidence that shows when it comes to direct cash assistance programs, cost is not a prohibitive issue. In fact, for social programs like these, we may be unable to afford not to do them.

    According to the analysis, which looked at data from the Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, in the weeks following the stimulus check payments in December 2020 and March 2021, households across the country saw a significant decrease in their material hardship. American families reported increased food security, a greater ability to pay for household expenses and less anxiety. This effect was particularly pronounced in low-income households and households with children — in the six weeks following the passage of the December 2020 Covid relief bill, amongst families with children, the rate of not having enough to eat fell by 21% and the rate of having difficulty paying for household expenses fell by 24%. These rates dropped again by 23% and 31%, respectively, following the passage of the American Rescue Plan in March 2021.

    These findings align with the results of a previous analysis in 2017 from the Roosevelt Institute which looked into various programs that provided direct, unconditional cash to individuals in the United States and Canada, such as the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend and the Eastern Band of Cherokees casino dividend program.

    Both of these analyses show the same dynamic: when people receive money with no strings attached, they spend it on the things they need, leading them to live healthier, less anxious lives.

    While these outcomes are certainly beneficial for recipients in the immediate term, the broader implications of these changes are just as important. When people don’t have food or are living in poverty, it’s not just a burden on them — it’s a burden on all of society. These conditions are directly tied to poorer health outcomes, which puts a drain on our nation’s healthcare system. Poor people are more likely to turn to crime as a means of supporting themselves. Those in poverty may require continued support from our inadequate existing social welfare programs, relying on programs like food stamps, housing assistance and disability insurance to barely make ends meet.

    The social implications of poverty are even more pronounced among children, where its impact on cognitive development and educational opportunities may alter their life trajectories. Living in a financially stable household and getting enough to eat could mean the difference between having opportunities later in life and getting trapped in a low-income job with no prospects for advancement.

    When considering the aggregate impact of poverty on our society, the results are staggering. A 2018 analysis in the Social Work Research journal found that childhood poverty alone costs our society more than $1 trillion every year from a combination of lost productivity, increased health and crime costs, and increased costs as a result of childhood homelessness and maltreatment.

    To accurately assess the cost of social programs, we should be comparing the required expenditures to the expected savings from poverty reduction.

    A good example is the recent expansion of the child tax credit — described as a ​“guaranteed income for families”—which is set to provide up to $300 per child per month for kids under the age of six and $250 per child per month for kids between six and seventeen starting in July.

    The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation expects this expansion to cost $110 billion for the year, while the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities projects that the program will decrease child poverty by more than 40%. Well, 40% of $1 trillion is $400 billion, which means the savings from this expansion are over three times the amount spent.

    There’s good reason to think that the latest round of stimulus checks will also yield positive long-term returns, as people teeter between regaining their financial footing and slipping into poverty. ​“This money is going towards all the bills that weren’t paid during the time we had to take off,” according to Sandy Lash, a single mother in Fort Wayne, Indiana who relied on the stimulus payments to make it through the pandemic. ​“Receiving these checks will enable [us] to make a difference and move up to where we don’t have to struggle anymore.”

    This presents our society with a clear choice: Do we allow increasing poverty and financial precarity to continue to drain away our society’s resources? Or do we make the investment now to create a secure and productive population through programs providing direct cash to families?

    An immediate first step would be to make the expanded child tax credit, which is set to expire after this year, a permanent, ongoing program. Beyond that, establishing a full, national guaranteed income program that provides monthly payments to all Americans — such as the one proposed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib through her Automatic BOOST to Communities Act—could pay massive dividends down the road by fully eliminating material poverty in the United States.

    It’s not hard to see which of these approaches is the more affordable one.

    The post Don’t Just Send People Money During a Pandemic—Do It All the Time appeared first on Basic Income Today.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Poverty Is A Weapon Of The Powerful: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

    Listen to a reading of this article:

    Learn enough about what’s happening in the world and you realize that most people in your society have worldviews that are completely and utterly wrong. This can seem bold, perhaps even arrogant, but if most people weren’t deluded about the world, the world wouldn’t be so fucked.

    And it’s not that people are dumb; intelligence has little to do with it. Some of the most intelligent people on earth promote the same deluded worldviews as everyone else. The problem isn’t intellect, it’s manipulation, and anyone can be manipulated no matter how smart they are. This mass-scale manipulation is the result of wealthy people buying up narrative influence in the form of media, political influence, think tanks, lobbying, NGOs, etc, in conjunction with the mass-scale manipulations of the powerful government agencies which are allied with them.

    The powerful work to manipulate the way the general public thinks, acts and votes to ensure that they remain in power. They pay special attention to who the most influential people in our society are, which is why the most prominent voices are so often the most delusional. There are filters in place designed to keep anyone from rising to positions of influence if they don’t support the consensus worldview promoted by the oligarchic empire, and once they do rise to influence they are actively herded into echo chambers which reinforce that worldview.

    This is further exacerbated by the fact that the most influential voices in a virulently capitalist society will be those who have profited and benefited from the status quo. Of course they’re going to believe the system is working fine; it treats them like royalty.

    This is why you can’t defer to recognized authorities when it comes to understanding your world; the system which selects and installs those authorities is designed to serve the powerful, not to tell the truth. The responsibility for understanding your world is yours, and yours alone.

    ❖

    ❖

    Poverty itself is a weapon of the powerful. Keep people too poor to fund political campaigns and you keep them powerless. Keep them too busy to research and they can’t see through your propaganda. Keep them desperate and you can get them hating each other instead of hating you. They’re not just robbing ordinary people so they can have more for themselves; the poverty itself actually benefits them. They would benefit from keeping you poor even if it gave them nothing else.

    It is not a coincidence that the most crucial nation in the oligarchic empire, the US, has the highest level of this kind of weaponized poverty. There’s a lot of power riding on what happens in America, so the powerful do everything they can to keep Americans under control.

    ❖

    People who act like China lifting millions out of poverty is no big deal have never lived in poverty.

    ❖

    If you don’t oppose western imperialist agendas against China then none of your other anti-imperialism matters. All of the western empire’s aggressions on the world stage are ultimately about smashing China; that’s checkmate on the global chessboard in the eyes of the empire. Preventing the rise of any other nation has been the foremost priority of the US empire since the fall of the Soviet Union. All the other little chess moves on the board have revolved around this ultimate goal. China is the only nation in a position to surpass the US.

    The western empire has been acutely aware that China would need to be smashed since before the empire had its headquarters in Washington. As Winston Churchill once put it:

    “I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them. I believe that as civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations. I believe in the ultimate partition of China—I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not have to do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph.”

    ❖

    Uh-oh, looks like Peru is going to need some help with its Freedom and Democracy. Anyone know any powerful governments who might be interested in helping Peru get some Freedom and Democracy?

    ❖

    Still mad at Assad for arming Al Qaeda and ISIS against himself and then imposing starvation sanctions on Syrians to keep himself from rebuilding the country.

    ❖

    I’m writing a horror movie about a group of psychopathic murderers inserting themselves into the world’s most powerful positions and terrorizing entire populations using the most deadly military force ever assembled.

    ❖

    It’s weird how few of the people opposing specific aspects of the imperial war machine do so on the foundational principle that murdering people is wrong and trying to dominate the entire planet is bad.

    ❖

    Electoral politics is decoy revolution. Don’t like the status quo? Elect Obama for Hope and Change! Still dislike the status quo? Elect Trump, he’ll fight the establishment! Oh no, Trump’s a fascist! Quick, fight fascism by electing Biden! And you elect the status quo each time.

    ❖

    Trump may have permanently broken liberals’ ability to think about politics in a way that doesn’t revolve around Trump.

    ❖

    Only infantile bootlickers want government-tied monopolistic internet platforms controlling what people can and cannot say about government Covid responses that affect everyone.

    ❖

    Oligarchs using disasters to rob the people and siphon their wealth to themselves is a feature, not a bug, of capitalism. Covid isn’t an aberration but a continuation of a well-established pattern, one which will necessarily last as long as the exploitation of the working class.

    “The Covid scam is the most evil thing happening in the world!”

    No, you only think that because most of the time this well-established pattern doesn’t affect you personally in a concrete and observable way. This has been happening for a very long time, and it’s going to keep happening until the end of capitalism.

    ❖

    ❖

    It’s funny how people think AI is going to save humanity when the people who control the AI are the worst humans alive.

    ❖

    FYI what divides the left is not leftists saying things that other leftists disagree with, it’s leftists being incapable of tolerating other leftists saying things they disagree with.

    ❖

    Once you’re clear that human behavior is driving us into extinction via nuclear war or climate collapse, once you’ve really grokked into the reality of what this means, it’s hard to take the sectarian ideological stuff seriously. We’re fucking dying, people. Quit dicking around.

    ___________________________

    The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at  or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on , , Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi,  or . If you want to read more you can buy my books. Everyone, racist platforms excluded,  to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, . 

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • The Conservative Court

    Since the Nixon era, the Supreme Court’s treatment of poverty and racial justice has made it a consistent enemy of society’s most marginalized.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Report Shows Stimulus Checks Significantly Reduced Hardship for Families

    President Joe Biden boards Air Force One before departing from Tulsa International Airport in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 1, 2021.

    A new report finds that the direct relief checks that were sent out as part of the stimulus packages passed by the federal government significantly reduced hardship for families, particularly low-income families.

    The University of Michigan report, first reported on by The New York Times, used Census Bureau data to analyze hardships faced by families over the course of the pandemic. The report authors found that hardships like financial instability fell sharply from December 2020 to April 2021, during which time the federal government sent two stimulus checks to most Americans, totalling $2,000.

    The analysis found that food insecurity fell over 40 percent in that time, financial instability fell 45 percent and common symptoms of depression dropped by 20 percent. The sharpest declines happened right after the checks were passed in December and March.

    “Our analyses thus far have yielded a fairly simple story: throughout the crisis, the level of hardship faced by U.S. households can be directly linked to the federal government’s response,” writes the report authors. They find that, while the economy’s recovery may have helped ease hardships, the stimulus checks were likely a larger contributing factor.

    Levels of hardship remained relatively steady from spring into fall last year. “This was suggestive of the efficacy of CARES Act income support provisions in stabilizing U.S. households in the midst of a global pandemic and economic crisis,” reads the report. The CARES Act was passed in March of 2020, and in April of last year the Census Bureau began conducting the surveys that the study pulls data from.

    Part of the reason that hardships remained stable through that time was the $600 supplemental unemployment checks in the CARES Act that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) had lobbied for. Those checks helped the nearly 1 in 5 American workers who were receiving unemployment benefits by July of last year. The report states that the supplements helped millions of Americans hold back financial and mental challenges.

    “We see an immediate decline among multiple lines of hardship concentrated among the most disadvantaged families,” H. Luke Shaefer, study co-author and professor at the University of Michigan, told The New York Times.

    Declines in hardships were especially pronounced for adults with children and adults in households with annual incomes less than $25,000. Both groups were facing more food insufficiency, difficulty paying bills and financial instability than other groups, for instance, and both groups saw the sharpest declines in the same areas following the stimulus checks from last December and earlier this year.

    Shaefer also argues that direct aid like the stimulus checks are an efficient form of government aid because struggling families know the most about where to spend their money. “Cash aid offers families great flexibility to address their most pressing problems, and getting it out quickly is something the government knows how to do,” Shaefer told The New York Times.

    The report’s findings line up with previous studies that have found that household income rose by a record 21.1 percent after this March’s stimulus checks — checks that didn’t get a single Republican vote in Congress.

    Congressional Republicans have been against the stimulus checks since the first stimulus was passed, saying that the aid is too broad. But, as the University of Michigan report shows, the stimulus checks reduced hardships for not only the low-income earners but also the people who received checks at the higher end of the income scale. That is likely why Republicans were touting some of the benefits of the stimulus bill despite none of them having voted for it.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • State Of The World: Poverty Is Widespread

    The world’s population was about 7.8 billion people in 2020. About 2.2 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water, and over 4 billion do not have safe sanitation.(1) About 800 million suffer from chronic undernourishment. A fifth of all children under 5 suffer from stunted growth.(2) Each year approximately 6 million children and many millions of adults die of easily preventable diseases(3) and 9 million people die of hunger.(4) Some progress has been made on some of these issues, particularly in China. However, things have been getting worse in other regions, such as Africa.(5) Since 1960, the income gap between rich countries and poor countries has roughly tripled in size.

    The post State Of The World: Poverty Is Widespread appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The damning UK stat everyone should see on #WorldHungerDay

    Friday 28 May is #WorldHungerDay. And while lack of access to food is a huge problem in the world’s poorest nations, it’s also a major issue in the UK.

    #WorldHungerDay

    As the #WorldHungerDay website noted:

    Hunger is not just about food. Hunger and poverty are inextricably linked to a nexus of issues including: the rights of women and girls, income opportunities, health, education, social justice, the environment and climate change.

    This year, #WorldHungerDay is focussing on:

    the critical importance of access to education, healthcare and technology in ending hunger.

    The scale of the problem globally is staggering. The World Hunger Clock keeps a live count of people in food poverty. As of 11:30am on 28 May, over 2.4 billion people live in “moderate” or “severe” food insecurity; over 819 million of these are classed as severe, and over 161 million children have impaired growth (“stunted”) due to a lack of food:

    World Hunger Clock 28 May

    The problem of food poverty also exists in the UK.

    A very British problem

    As foodbank charity the Trussell Trust tweeted:

    During the financial year 2020/21, the Trussell Trust said it saw a 33% increase in use on the previous year. It also gave out food parcels to nearly one million children.

    But the Trussell Trust seeing an explosion in demand is the tip of the iceberg. And it’s not just a coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic problem either.

    Massive food insecurity

    The World Health Organisation and other groups class food insecurity as people who have “limited access to food … due to lack of money or other resources”. As the charity Church Action on Poverty wrote, food insecurity in the UK has been a huge issue for years. It noted that:

    The Government’s own research conclusively shows that, even prior to the pandemic, one in twelve of all households in the UK were experiencing low or very low levels of food security.

    Drilling into the data, it found that in 2019/20:

    • 43% of households on Universal Credit “experience low or very low food security – over five times the national average of 8% across all households”.
    • 26% of household on the benefit “are ranked as having ‘very low’ food security – more than six times the national average of 4% for all households”.
    • People on other benefits “experiencing low or very low levels of food security” were as follows: Income Support (36%); Jobseekers Allowance (37%); Employment Support Allowance (31%).
    • “One in four households in receipt of carers allowance and more than one in five households in receipt of personal independence payments are food insecure”.
    An issue of class and protected groups

    The data also found that some groups experience “particularly high levels of household food insecurity”:

    • “31% of working age households living in social housing experience food insecurity compared to just 3% of owner occupiers”.
    • “29% of single parent households”.
    • “25% of households with one or more unemployed adults under state pension age”.
    • “19% of households with one or more disabled adults under state pension age”.
    • “19% of black households, compared to 8% for the general population”.
    How have we got here?

    As Church Action on Poverty summed up:

    It is an indictment of successive Governments that benefit levels across the board have been allowed to drop to such low levels that we have reached this stage.

    Millions of families face worrying whether their food will run out before they get money to buy more; can’t afford balanced meals; skip meals or are forced to eat less than they should because there isn’t enough money for food.

    Whether or not the UK will be in the same or a worse position on the next #WorldHungerDay remains to be seen. But unless urgent action is taken, it is, unfortunately, unlikely to improve any time soon.

    Featured image via Paula Peters 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • All the times Marcus Rashford did the government’s job for them

    Earlier this week, Marcus Rashford topped the Sunday Times giving list due to his donations to food poverty and community charities.

    In conjunction with FareShare, he has donated £20m – more than his own wealth of £16m. He is the youngest person ever to top the list.

    This adds to a year of work advocating and pressuring the government to provide free school meals for disadvantaged children.

    Here’s a look back at all the times Rashford pushed to help kids when the government didn’t.

     

    Free school meals

    Rashford first campaigned for free school meals to be extended over summer 2020 to help struggling families.

    His campaign eventually forced the government to make a U-turn and announce a £120m fund to provide meals for 1.3 million children.

    Ending child food poverty

    Rashford did not leave it there – he formed the Child Food Poverty Task Force in September 2020. In conjunction with several charities, he lobbied the government for long-term action on food poverty.

    He then started a petition calling for the government to end child food poverty. The petition asked for free school meals to be provided during all holidays to all households on Universal Credit. It also asked for voucher values to be increased.

    These were all recommendations from the National Food Strategy (NFS), an independent review of food policy commissioned by the government.

    More than one million people signed.

    Labour called for free school meals to be extended in parliament, but Conservative MPs voted the motion down 322 to 261.

    Rallying the community

    Instead, venues across the country stepped in to support Rashford’s campaign. Saying they ‘didn’t stand with the 322’, cafes, pubs, and restaurants pledged to provide food for children in need.

    Again, the campaign led to a government U-turn. Boris Johnson ended up personally phoning Rashford to tell him the government would provide a £396m package for free school meals during the Christmas, Easter, and summer holidays.

    The campaign is still calling for the government to provide free school meals to all families where parents are receiving benefits.

    Food parcels

    In January, several families posted photographs of their food hampers, many of which were small and insufficient.

    Rashford immediately called out the parcels as “not good enough“, saying kids and parents would still go hungry.

    The Department for Education later promised to investigate the contents of the parcels.

    Access to reading

    Rashford has now launched a book club to get disadvantaged children into reading. It kicked off in April with the donation of 50,000 books to primary schools.

    The club is targeted at the estimated 383,000 UK children who have never owned a book.

    From 2010-2019, cuts to local authority funding caused more than 800 public libraries in the UK to close.

    Getting results

    As MPs began debating Rashford’s petition yesterday, he tweeted:

    Rashford’s campaigning makes it clear it’s possible for the government to take action on food poverty – but it shouldn’t take so much work to get them there.

    Featured image via YouTube/BBC News

    By Jasmine Norden

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Rev. Barber Calls for “Third Reconstruction” to Lift 140 Million Out of Poverty

    Rev. Barber Calls for “Third Reconstruction” to Lift 140 Million Out of Poverty

    Reverend William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach, says the United States needs a “Third Reconstruction” aimed at lifting 140 million poor and low-income people out of poverty. Barber worked with Congressmembers Barbara Lee and Pramila Jayapal to unveil a congressional resolution for a Third Reconstruction this week, which includes measures to expand voting rights, implement immigration reform, raise the minimum wage, establish a federal jobs program and more. “There is not a scarcity of resources,” says Barber. “What there is is a scarcity of social justice conscience.”

    Please check back later for full transcript.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Coronavirus created more ‘Rich List’ billionaires than ever

    It’s official: the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic saw the richest people in the UK increase their wealth to over half a trillion pounds. 2020 saw more people become billionaires than ever before. That’s the verdict of the latest “Rich List”. But of course, for the rest of us, life wasn’t that fruitful.

    The Rich List just gets richer

    As PA reported, the Sunday Times Rich List showed that there are now a record 171 billionaires in the UK. Ukrainian-born Leonard Blavatnik tops the pile as the richest person in the country. He’s an oil and media investor. Blavatnik saw his fortune surge by £7.2bn to around £23bn during the year of the pandemic. His business interests include Warner Music, which he sold a £1.37bn stake in when it listed in the US last year.

    But as the Sunday Times tweeted, it was a record year for its Rich List:

    PA reported that the number of UK billionaires jumped by 24%. Their wealth rose by 21.7% over the year, going up by £106.5bn to £597.2bn. How odd, when compared to the wealth of the UK as a whole:

    “Unsettling”

    So, these are the 10 ‘fattest cats’ in the UK according to the Rich List:

    • Leonard Blavatnik – £23bn.
    • David and Simon Reuben – £21.46bn.
    • Sri and Gopi Hinduja and family – £17bn.
    • James Dyson and family – £16.3bn.
    • Lakshmi Mittal and family – £14.68bn.
    • Alisher Usmanov – £13.4bn.
    • Kirsten and Jorn Rausing – £13bn.
    • Roman Abramovich – £12.1bn.
    • Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken and Michel de Carvalho – £12.01bn.
    • Guy, George, Alannah and Galen Weston and family – £11bn.

    But even the Sunday Times had to admit that this sharp increase in the wealthiest people’s wealth was obscene. PA reported that compiler of the Rich List Robert Watts said:

    The global pandemic created lucrative opportunities for many online retailers, social networking apps and computer games tycoons.

    The fact many of the super-rich grew so much wealthier at a time when thousands of us have buried loved ones and millions of us worried for our livelihoods makes this a very unsettling boom.

    A nightmare for the rest of us

    Meanwhile, for the rest of us, the pandemic has been nothing short of a nightmare.

    It’s been marked by an increase in precariousness, poverty, and destitution for many people in the UK. As The Canary has documented, this is the reality if you didn’t make the Rich List:

    • The number of households living in destitution doubled in 2020.
    • Four in ten people who needed financial support to self-isolate couldn’t get it.
    • Chaos with Universal Credit included researchers slamming the contentious £20 uplift as “inadequate”.
    • Half a million people entitled to Universal Credit didn’t claim it due to the complexity of the system, for fear of looking like ‘scroungers’, and other reasons.
    • Unicef fed hungry children in the UK for the first time in its history.
    • The Trussell Trust saw food parcels it gave to children increase in number by 107% in 2020.
    • The Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) said that it saw an 88% increase in overall use between February and October 2020.
    • The Trussell Trust said it saw a 47% increase in “need” between 1 April and 30 September 2020. It gave out 1.2m food parcels.
    • By November 2020, almost 700,000 more people were in poverty than before the pandemic. This included 120,000 more children.

    And moreover, the poorest communities saw the highest coronavirus death rates. As The Canary previously reported, some attribute this in part to years of social security reform.

    As one Twitter user summed up:

    How’s that “levelling up” going now, Boris Johnson? Because the only levelling up so far has been for the Rich List billionaires.

    Featured image and additional reporting via PA

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • California Trial of Universal Basic Income Inspires More Cities to Follow Suit

    A mother and son walk through one of the neighborhoods of Stockton where participants in the city's universal basic income program live in Stockton, California, on February 7, 2020.

    It’s probably safe to say that a few years ago, most Americans weren’t familiar with the term universal basic income, commonly abbreviated as UBI. But more recently, as the idea has grown in popularity among the tech community, and with Andrew Yang’s presidential run putting it into the political spotlight, the idea of everybody in the country receiving a monthly check just for existing has begun to capture the public’s imagination and has become a more normalized part of the political lexicon.

    It’s important to note that there are multiple versions of universal basic income, from libertarian or right-wing iterations which see the UBI as a replacement for public benefits, to more progressive versions, such as those discussed in this article, which are intended as a supplement to already existing social safety net programs and which do not use means-testing (such as requiring employment) as a qualifying factor.

    In fact, just in the last few years, several cities and nonprofits, and even tech companies across the United States have begun launching guaranteed income pilot programs intended to study the practical effects that no-strings-attached cash payments may have on a wide variety of communities, spanning from immigrants of varied legal status, to formerly incarcerated people, to women of color who are raising children, and more. Although a number of these programs are not technically universal, instead targeting specific communities, a significant number of them are truly universal.

    Perhaps the most well-known universal basic income pilot program took place in the city of Stockton, California. The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, or SEED program, was launched in February 2019 and lasted 24 months. Led by former Stockton Mayor Michael D. Tubbs, the SEED initiative was the country’s first mayor-led guaranteed income program, giving $500 a month to 125 Stocktonians.

    The program, which concluded this February, was a randomized control trial, and has been evaluated by a team of independent researchers who just published a report sharing the study’s key findings.

    “The Stockton results were really powerful,” said Natalie Foster, co-founder of the Economic Security Project, a network that supports exploration and experimentation of a guaranteed income, and the first organization to put money into the SEED demonstration. “People reported much lower stress, less anxiety attacks, people went off meds — just a much lower load of stress in general, which is good for society.”

    Pam and Jim — one couple in their late 20s/early 30s who live in Stockton with their three school-age children and were recipients of the SEED funding — described how they used to regularly have panic attacks as a result of financial stress, but since receiving the monthly basic income, they’ve reported that their anxiety has greatly decreased.

    “I had panic attacks and anxiety,” Pam told researchers in Stockton. “I had to take a pill for it. And I haven’t even touched them in a while. I used to carry them on me all the time.”

    The report also showed that a guaranteed income reduced economic volatility. For example, researchers found that households receiving the intervention were better positioned over time to cover a $400 unexpected expense with cash or a credit card paid in full than the control group.

    At the start of the program, only 25 percent of recipients could pay for an unexpected expense with cash or a cash equivalent, rather than racking up debt. One year in, 52 percent of those in the treatment group could pay for an unexpected expense with cash or a cash equivalent.

    The research also showed that the intervention created new opportunities for self-determination, choice, goal-setting and risk-taking; and enabled recipients to find full-time employment. For example, in February of 2019, 28 percent of recipients had full-time employment, contrasted with 40 percent one year later.

    “When given a baseline of income security, people found full-time work at twice the rate as the control group because they had to invest in the risky endeavor of applying for a job,” Foster said. “By having a little bit more economic security, they were able to spend more time on their own employment and with their own families.”

    These findings are consistent with other universal basic income pilots, which show that, counter to what certain right-wing taking points against UBI might suggest, unconditional cash has actually been shown to increase participation in the labor force, rather than disincentivize it.

    The report also outlined how people spent the money, which was largely on goods and services and things like groceries and utilities. The monthly payments also provided recipients with something less tangible: time.

    “There is a story that has always stuck with me where one of the participants talked about going to the swimming pool with his children one Saturday morning after he started getting the monthly checks,” Foster said. “He realized that his kid knew how to swim, which is something he didn’t know because he’d never had the luxury of a Saturday morning with his children where he didn’t have to work.”

    The key findings from the SEED program reflect those of other pilot studies as well, which show that when given financial opportunities, people generally utilize them in important and productive ways. For example, the “Mincome” experiment, which provided a guaranteed income to the entire town of Dauphin, Canada, in the 1970s, resulted in fewer teenage boys dropping out of school to enter the work force and more people taking job training courses at the local community college.

    The promising data coming out of pilots and demonstrations like those in Dauphin and Stockton have helped to spur a national movement. In fact, Mayor Tubbs’s SEED demonstration inspired him to launch Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, a coalition which consists of more than 40 mayors across the country, from large metropolises like Los Angeles, California, to smaller cities such as Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Montpelier, Vermont.

    “Those mayors are saying they support a federal guaranteed income, and that it would make the local economies and the households in their cities much better off if there were income security provided,” Foster said. “So, many of these mayors are going to demonstrate what a guaranteed income looks like in their city.”

    One of these cities is Patterson, New Jersey, where Mayor Andre Sayegh announced the launch of a pilot program called Guaranteed Income in March 2021. The program will give $400 per month to 110 people, regardless of employment status, for a one year.

    But not all cities are waiting for their mayors and policy makers to make the first move. In 2018, a group of mothers in the city of Jackson, Mississippi, launched the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, the first pilot in the U.S. to offer monthly payments specifically to low-income African American mothers.

    “It currently is the longest-running guaranteed income project in the country, and it was the first guaranteed income project to take a gender and racial justice approach,” Aisha Nyandoro, the program’s founder, told Truthout. “We can’t talk about economic inequalities or economic justice or a guaranteed income without talking about race and gender and the role that those two realities are playing in the significant inequalities and inequities that we see around wealth.”

    The Magnolia Mother’s program provides Black mothers in Jackson $1,000 per month for 12 months, and has supported 230 mothers since its inception. There is also a multi-generational component to the project which invests a one-time deposit of $1,000 into a savings account for the children of the mothers in the program.

    “Our moms always talk about how it gives them breathing room, it provides the space so they can zoom out and reflect and think and plan,” Nyandoro said. “People pay off debt, explore home ownership, get cars, go on vacation for the first time. One of our moms in our first year went to visit her father — she hadn’t seen her father in over 20 years because neither one of them had ever had the disposable cash necessary to go visit each other.”

    The guaranteed income provided by the Magnolia Mother’s program is not technically a universal basic income because it’s targeted to a specific, marginalized demographic, a relatively recent trend in the movement for a basic income.

    “I do believe that targeted programs like ours can have a universal impact,” Nyandoro said. “The work that we have done and that SEED has done and all of the other advocates who have been working for this for the last few years, all of that research and all of our advocacy has really helped to lead the charge for cash disbursements, or stimulus checks, or the child tax credit that we’re seeing now. And that is all universal.”

    Although not officially partnered with the city, Jackson’s mayor, Chokwe Lumumba, is a member of the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income coalition, so the potential for a municipal guaranteed income program is not off the table.

    “The demonstrations of basic income are replicating in cities across the United States at incredible speed and have spurred a federal conversation,” Economic Security Project’s Foster told Truthout. “We live in an era of pandemics. There will be more and more income instability and income insecurity, and guaranteed income is something that should be part of our 21st century social contract to help families weather coming pandemics, whether they be disruptions to the labor market, climate-induced disasters or future viruses.”

    Although still somewhat siloed in specific localities, the pilot studies and guaranteed income programs emerging across the country are all providing useful and important data on the positive outcomes of providing individuals and communities with unconditional cash. This data is important to starting a national conversation about basic income and is also useful for policy makers when considering the potential for municipal, state or even federal programs.

    “What’s important is that these demonstrations show what’s possible — but they are never a substitute for public policy.” Foster said. “I think we’re at a moment, as a society, where we’re inspired by these pilots and are moving to make them policy — we’re going from pilots to policy.”

    There are currently around 30 guaranteed income pilots either taking place or being planned all across the country, mostly having taken place or having been announced in the last two or three years. With mayors in cities like Oakland, California, and Hartford, Connecticut, unveiling new basic income pilots in just the last few months, it’s clear that more and more municipalities are interested in reimagining how to ensure economic security and stability for their residents.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • What a Florida School’s Standardized Test Scores Won’t Show

    “What I’m working on—like making sure students have access to food, clean clothing, and streetlights—may not look like what I’m working on,” Catherine Gilmore told me over a phone call. Gilmore has worked as an educator in Hillsborough County, Florida, for 13 years, and has spent the last six years at Gibsonton Elementary School where she was in the classroom for four years prior to spending the last two years as the community schools coordinator there. During our phone call, she explained to me how her school has addressed its low scores on the state’s school performance report card. And it seems to be working.

    In the 2017-2018 school year, Gibsonton received a grade of “D” on the state’s annual report card that assesses elementary schools on the basis of their scores on standardized achievement tests. In 2018-2019, Gibsonton raised its grade to a “C.”

    While Gilmore welcomed the progress, she warned against overemphasizing these assessments, calling them “lagging indicators.”

    “State standardized testing mostly just identifies student demographics,” she told me, an observation that is validated by research. “Sure, we use data, including test scores. But we use data to drive for the right things rather than letting data get in the way.”

    The “right things,” in her view, are the factors—what she spends her time on—that she believes tend to correlate with test scores but are often ignored by school improvement approaches that tend to blame educators when test scores are low.

    Often, what can lead to low test scores may have nothing to do with academics. For instance, making sure students are well-fed seems self-evident because students who are hungry aren’t going to do very well at schoolwork. Making sure students have clean clothes seems a little less obvious. But streetlights?

    What Gilmore is practicing is an approach to school improvement that is getting more attention—and perhaps a lot more money—as schools reopen from the pandemic; and policy experts, politicians, and pundits hail the restart as a clean slate for drawing up new plans for “redesigning” schools.

    Addressing More Than Just a Test Score

    The approach Gilmore refers to, called “community schools,” looks at addressing student achievement by responding to the full range of factors in the community that can influence learning, including factors outside of schools.

    The approach, as defined by the U.S. Department of Education’s Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) program, involves “the coordination, integration, accessibility, and effectiveness of services for children and families, particularly for children attending high-poverty schools, including high-poverty rural schools.”

    The community schools approach got its first significant national attention in the 2020 presidential campaign when, as Reuben Jacobson from American University’s School of Education wrote in an op-ed for the Hill, “[a]ll of the leading candidates, from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), … committed to further investing in community schools through their education proposals.”

    The profile of the community schools approach rose even higher in April 2021, reported the 74, when the Biden administration proposed a fiscal 2022 budget for the education department that included an increase in spending of $413 million for the FSCS, a nearly 15-fold boost for the program, from $30 million to $443 million.

    Days after the budget announcement, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona visited an elementary school in Prince George’s County, Maryland—where schools recently reopened—that “is one of 65 ‘community schools’ in the county,” the Washington Post reported, “each considered a hub for family support and social services, along with student learning.” This marked one of the first school visits of his tenure.

    ‘Our Families Are Struggling to Survive’

    Gibsonton Elementary is part of the Hillsborough County Public Schools system, the seventh-largest school district in the U.S., serving nearly 224,000 students. The district is in its third year of implementing the community schools approach, Rob Kriete, president of Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association, told me.

    Kriete taught middle school and high school English for 24 years in Hillsborough County before taking temporary leave to serve as the president of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association, which is affiliated with the state and national teachers’ unions.

    Six schools in the district are in their third year of using the community schools approach, two are in their second year, and two more are being added next year.

    “We’ve been very intentional about the schools we’ve picked to adopt the approach,” Kriete said, but the district has not taken a “top-down approach,” and has instead chosen schools that seem well-suited to the approach and have leadership and faculty who are agreeable to the demands of it.

    Gibsonton Elementary seemed like a good fit. The school is just one of a handful of schools in Gibsonton, an unincorporated, semi-rural community south of Tampa Bay that has its roots in agriculture, light manufacturing, maritime-related businesses, and the carnival industry.

    Nearly 20 percent of households in the community are at or below the poverty rate, according to World Population Review, with a median house value of only $188,400, and with 71 percent of adults having attained an education of less than an associate or college degree.

    The community seems bereft of many services children and families would need.

    Clinics and other health care facilities are sparse and modest and mostly inconvenient to families living near the elementary school. Facilities for dental care and eye care are even rarer. Other than a Walmart Supercenter, there are no grocery stores, so many families have to rely on small convenience stores and bare-bones retailers like Dollar General and Family Dollar that offer very little in the way of fresh and nutritious food.

    Gibsonton Elementary also has a student population that often struggles in the public school system. Most of the students (56.4 percent) are Hispanic, according to state data, and nearly all the students are economically disadvantaged (94.1 percent), with 26.3 percent being English language learners, and 23.8 percent having some sort of disability.

    “We became a community school because we really needed the outside help,” Gilmore told me. “Our families are struggling to survive,” she said. Many of the school’s families are generational carnival people and live in old and often rundown trailers. Some still leave in May and return in October, which is considered the peak season for the carnival industry.

    “There’s so much growth in communities all around us,” she said, referring to the more prosperous Tampa metro area, “but the growth hasn’t improved our community.”

    What the Community Really Needs

    In March 2018, Gibsonton Elementary leadership, faculty, and support staff agreed the school should adopt the community schools approach. “The entire school had to be behind the idea,” she said, “and we were.” Out of the six candidates who applied for school improvement coordinator, a key position the approach requires, Gilmore was chosen.

    Much of what the school needed seemed obvious to Gilmore and her colleagues, but the first year of implementing the community schools model requires the school to conduct a needs assessment, including an audit of program strengths and weaknesses and assets in the surrounding community, and an outreach, via surveys and interviews, to students, parents, business leaders, local nonprofits, and others.

    “We interviewed 92 percent of parents, including both parents in two-parent households,” Gilmore recalled. “We really wanted to get a thorough understanding of our stakeholders’ needs and what they felt were the problems.”

    After the audit and survey results were accumulated and ranked, the foremost concern was the low rate of student attendance. Parent engagement was also lacking, and families said they wanted a more enriching program for their children—not just the basics.

    Poised with that knowledge, Gilmore and her colleagues went about the work of addressing the school’s attendance problems.

    But what they had not prepared to address, but were actually better prepared for because they adopted the community schools approach, was a pandemic.

    Not a One-Size-Fits-All Approach

    “When COVID-19 hit, the first thing we knew we had to do was find [and reach out to] our [students’] families,” Gilmore recalled.

    She helped organize a team to make phone calls and canvass neighborhoods. Because of the community’s ties to the carnival business, family mobility rates in Gibsonton were already high. COVID-19 would only make transience worse. Yet, within four weeks, Gilmore and her team found every Gibsonton Elementary student, the first school in Hillsborough County to do so.

    “We were 100 percent better able to make the transition [caused by COVID-19] because of the community schools model,” Gilmore said. “Because we were already talking with our families, they weren’t afraid of us. Also, because we had created my position [of school improvement coordinator], we had more capacity. The model ensured we had structures and people in place.”

    The dialogue the school had already established with its families also ensured the response to their efforts would be effective.

    “The community schools approach was well-suited to the crisis because the approach demands that you stop, ask questions, and listen to those you serve,” Kriete explained. “Another strength of the community schools approach is that it is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and there is a lot of flexibility built into it.”

    Based on the community input, the school expanded its on-campus food pantry to include more fresh fruit and vegetables, bread, and fresh meat. For those families who couldn’t come to campus, the school provided prepackaged boxes.

    When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis mandated schools reopen for in-person learning in August 2020, Gibsonton Elementary had in place resources and infrastructure to support families still reeling from the pandemic.

    Parents who attended the open house found, in their children’s seats, backpacks full of supplies their children would need for the new school year. “I saw parents leaving in tears from the relief that they would start off the year with supplies,” Gilmore recalled. (Parents who couldn’t attend the open house got supplies through the school’s backpack program.)

    Every two months, the school sends out fliers asking families what they need, and in one month, that outreach helped 644 families with a wide array of assistance.

    “Today I helped a family find a home,” Gilmore told me during our phone call. “In November and December [2020], we helped families deal with evictions and utilities.”

    What Raised Reading and Math Scores

    Big contributors to Gibsonton’s rise from grade “C” to “D” on Florida’s school performance report card were the school’s dramatic increases in students who achieved learning gains shown in assessment test scores from one year to the next.

    Comparing 2017-2018 results to those in 2018-2019, achievement gains in English language arts increased by 12.8 percentage points. The gains were even larger in mathematics, 16.3 points. The increases were more significant for the lowest-performing 25 percent of students, rising by 16.6 percentage points in English language arts and 24.8 points in mathematics.

    Gilmore believes much of these gains had to do with the work the school did to increase attendance. But how they went about increasing attendance was guided by their use of the community schools approach.

    “When we found out there was a problem with attendance, we asked parents why,” she recalled, and one of the most frequent responses they heard was that not having clean clothes was an impediment to coming to school.

    The school responded by installing a campus washer-dryer and eventually opened a clothing closet that provided some free clothing articles.

    Another factor contributing to the attendance problem was that in the shorter daylight hours of winter, streets were often too dark for students to safely walk to the bus or to school, and there were too few streetlights.

    Given this response, the school organized an effort to have the county install new streetlights around the school. Working with the commissioners, the number of streetlights near the school quickly increased from nine to 51. Attendance immediately improved.

    What Gilmore hopes to move to next is to work with a local nonprofit to provide mental health services to help children and families through the social and emotional traumas of the pandemic.

    “Having the community schools approach that includes someone like me in place is critical,” she said. “If a school has all these needs, but no one in place specifically focusing on those needs, then that work goes by the wayside. Teachers and principals simply don’t have the time to address these issues.”

    The post What a Florida School’s Standardized Test Scores Won’t Show first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Honoring Mothers Must Include Environmental Justice and Raising Wages

    Juthaporn Chaloeicheep, 44, and son Douglas Jones, 5, stand for a portrait in the courtyard of Arnett Watson Apartments, a permanent supportive housing community where they reside in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California, on March 16, 2021.

    One hundred and fifty years ago, in the bloody wake of the Civil War, the abolitionist Julia Ward Howe issued a “Mother’s Day Proclamation.” The world, she wrote, could no longer bear such terrible violence and death. She called on women across the country to “rise up through the ashes and devastation” and come together in the cause of peace. Forty years later, her daughter Anna Jarvis created Mother’s Day.

    In the midst of another national trauma, with the latest Mother’s Day just past, perhaps it’s an auspicious moment to celebrate not just mothers, but women more generally. I think about countless women like my mom (who died nearly a year ago) enduring tremendous adversity to make ends meet and care for those they love. During the pandemic, after all, women have found themselves on the front lines in so many ways. They make up more than 75% of healthcare workers, almost 80% of frontline social workers, and more than 70% of government and community-based service workers. Add in one more thing: women have been hit first and worst by the economic crisis that Covid-19 set off, as female-dominated industries like retail, leisure, and hospitality were decimated.

    The situation continues to be so dire for women that economists have even begun to talk about a “shecession.” A recent poll found that a quarter of women claimed they were financially worse off a year into the pandemic. In March, the percentage of women out of, or looking for, work was the highest it’s been since December 1988. For the first time in American history, job and income losses in an economic crisis have been worse for women than for men. And it’s been poorer women and women of color who have been hit hardest of all.

    But the true depth of this crisis can’t be measured by job numbers and frontline risks alone. In an intensified yet eerily familiar way, this past year-plus has laid bare the pressures, burdens, and violence that women, especially poor women and women of color, face every day. It’s highlighted the disproportionate, unpaid labor they shoulder at home; the role they take in raising and educating children while caring for the sick and elderly; and the paternalistic, often punitive, presence of welfare and law enforcement agencies like Child Protective Services, the police, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in their lives.

    In such a moment, we should all think about the opening words of Howe’s 150-year-old proclamation: “Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!”

    Of Water and Tears

    Before slavery was outlawed in America, formerly enslaved abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass insisted that those who feel the first pains of injustice must be the first to strike out against it. That was the very kind of “baptism” Howe invoked in her proclamation — an invitation to initiate women into struggles born from those already so much a part of their lives. Today, her invocation of “water and tears” should resonate for millions. Among them, it may have no greater relevance than for the women of the Michigan cities of Flint and Detroit.

    April 25th marked the seventh anniversary of the ongoing water crisis in Flint. Many will remember the breaking news coverage about the lead poisoning of that city’s water system at the end of 2015. Others will recall President Barack Obama’s “mission accomplished” moment when he visited Flint and drank a cup of newly filtered tap water. But for the many women, poor and largely of color, who have become Flint’s “water protectors,” the crisis isn’t over. Even now, new water lines are still needed in some neighborhoods. A $641 million class-action settlement fund from lawsuits against the state of Michigan has indeed recently been set up for Flint residents, particularly impacted children, to receive help. However, community leaders are continuing to organize, because unfortunately many of the families and children who need the resources the most will be left out since the settlement requires documentation, which the poorest and most vulnerable families will struggle to obtain.

    It’s important to note that the struggle of these warriors for clean water did not begin when the first cameras arrived in Flint to record the disaster. It began when, in 2011, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed an unelected emergency manager to rule the city with near-dictatorial powers.

    A similar emergency manager had already imposed mass water shutoffs in Detroit after that city went bankrupt, while the one in Flint switched from piping in well-treated water from Detroit to pumping water directly out of the Flint River, which had been an unofficial waste-disposal site for local industry for decades. It was seen as a cost-saving measure for that financially strapped city until a new water-piping system could be built. Warnings and safety precautions were ignored when it came to lead and other pollutants ending up in local drinking water, a decision that would, in the end, condemn Flint’s inhabitants to years of mass lead poisoning. Because of that same tainted water, more than 100 people would also die of Legionnaires’ disease.

    We’re talking about a place that had once been a beacon of industry and prosperity, a city now struggling under the weight of deindustrialization and growing poverty. Claire McClinton, a long-time Flint community organizer and leader, summed up the crisis this way: “They could not have taken our water away without taking our democracy first.”

    Her words are informed as much by history as by contemporary events. McClinton and many of the other women fighting for clean water had already spent decades organizing for a broad range of welfare, labor, and economic rights. She and many of those other Michigan water warriors are my political mothers and mentors. No wonder I once again celebrated them (as well as my own mom) this Mother’s Day.

    Even earlier, in 1996, during the heyday of neoliberal austerity politics, welfare-rights and labor activists like those in Flint and Detroit witnessed Democratic President Bill Clinton eliminate the entitlement of millions to welfare and better living standards of millions by signing into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Among its other “reforms,” it replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children, a program which provided desperately needy children with welfare payments, with the far more restrictive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. They watched as government agencies kicked staggering numbers of people off life-saving federal assistance programs and continued to forcibly rip kids away from parents who, in terrible economic circumstances, could no longer afford to feed and house their own families adequately.

    As the situation in Flint made clear, the historic fight for welfare was integrally connected to the ongoing fight for clean and affordable water, as well as, in our present moment in thousands of communities, the fight for living wages and voting rights. And don’t forget the need for a revival of an increasingly impoverished, not to say (in the wake of Donald Trump) ravaged, democracy.

    Indeed, all these issues raise questions about the role the government should play in caring for people and addressing fundamental fractures in society like poverty, hunger, and sickness, which always disproportionately hurt women. All of these are, then — or at least should be — non-negotiable issues for women today.

    Lifting From the Bottom Up

    The first 100 days of the administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have clearly represented a surprising pivot from neoliberalism’s halcyon days under Clinton. For an anti-poverty organizer like myself, schooled in the politics of the 1990s and early 2000s, it was startling, even moving, to watch Biden address a joint session of Congress and announce that “trickle-down economics has never worked. It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle-out… We have a real chance to root out systemic racism that plagues American life… A chance to deliver real equity. Good jobs and good schools. Affordable housing. Clear air and clean water.”

    Without a doubt, one of the administration’s biggest achievements so far is the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a $1.9-trillion relief package that has already begun to inject desperately needed resources into a needy America. Included in it was the Child Tax Credit (CTC), a potentially breakthrough anti-poverty program.

    The CTC could be transformative for millions of poor families, especially if it were to be expanded and made permanent. For some observers, it may seem like a good idea conceived by policy experts for a critical but passing moment of national need. Dig a little deeper, though, and what you’ll find is that the CTC is an inheritance from the efforts of poor women over these last decades, especially those of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) in the 1960s and 1970s, some of whom are still organizing in Flint and Detroit.

    The NWRO was a national organization of poor women on welfare, Black and white alike, at a time when more than eight million single women and their children received regular but meager benefits through the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. NWRO leaders, however, saw such welfare not as a form of charity, but as a right. They insisted on the dignity of all work, whether in traditional jobs or at home, and the need to compensate all women for their labor. They championed a welfare system that wouldn’t separate the “deserving” from “undeserving” poor but instead put agency and power in the hands of welfare recipients rather than bureaucrats and social workers.

    As it grew, their organizing coalesced around a demand for a guaranteed adequate annual income — and, in the late 1960s, they would prove a force to be reckoned with, recruiting leaders like Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., to their cause. Their political imaginations were decades ahead of their time and their moral clarity on the position of poor women in this society prophetically advanced.

    In 1972, Johnnie Tillmon, the first chairwoman of the NWRO, published a paradigm-shifting essay entitled “Welfare is a Women’s Issue,” in which she wrote:

    “I’m a woman. I’m a black woman. I’m a poor woman. I’m a fat woman. I’m a middle-aged woman. And I’m on welfare. In this country, if you’re any of those things you count less as a human being. If you’re all of those things, you don’t count at all.”

    Nearly half a century later, as we pause to honor mothers, isn’t it time to recognize the ways women like Johnnie Tillmon have for all too long been discarded by this society? Isn’t it time to be honest about those men — and women — who have risen to great heights, only to wield power in ways that hurt women? As for me, I can’t forget the moment when, during the fight over ARPA, Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema, a Democrat, made a show of walking past the Senate clerk’s desk, giving an exaggerated thumbs down to an amendment to the bill that would have raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

    When a reporter from the Huffington Post inquired about her vote, the senator’s spokesperson claimed that it was sexist to comment on a female politician’s “body language” or “physical demeanor.” Much more harmful to women, though, is the disproportionate impact of poverty and low wages on their families and them.

    Sinema represents a state in which nearly three million people are poor or one emergency away from economic ruin, a majority of them women. It’s troubling, then, that a woman who has reportedly experienced poverty herself (although questions have been raised about whether she has exaggerated how poor she was) would deny living wages to poor and low-income women in her state and across the country. Among the Democrats in the Senate joining Sinema in dissent were New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, as well as five male senators. (All seven of them are millionaires.) Their actions are a stark reminder that women need genuine representation in Congress, as well as policies that lift us all.

    Sadly, that “Nay” vote against including a minimum wage raise in the Covid-19 relief package hurt women, people of color, and the poor. Altogether, 59% of low-wage workers are women and nearly 40% of all Black workers labor for less than $15 an hour. Yes, during the pandemic, we’ve begun calling many low-wage workers “essential.” It turns out, though, that they aren’t essential enough to be guaranteed wages that might help them afford the essentials of life.

    Now, Sinema is also at the center of another legislative battle — about the future of the filibuster, a racist relic of the slavery and then Jim Crow eras that still has democracy in chains. It continues to prove a powerful cudgel for extremists in the Republican Party who are increasingly unable to win a governing majority fairly. It’s especially useful for those determined to stonewall on a host of policies that disproportionately impact women, from wage increases to welfare programs and reproductive rights. Sadly, despite claiming to care about sexism and the fortunes of women, Sinema continues to help hold the Senate hostage to score political points.

    Arise Women of This Day

    As a white woman — a mother, a pastor, a feminist, an activist, a teacher, and the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival — I feel obliged to challenge Senator Sinema: for her performance on the Senate floor, for her stance against living wages and for the filibuster, and for the long-term impact her actions will have on the 140 million poor and low-income people in this country, especially the 74 million poor and low-income women.

    I also feel honored and obliged to uphold the work of women like Claire McClinton, Johnnie Tillmon, and Julia Ward Howe who have allowed us glimpses of what a government and economy that served and empowered all women could look like and who have highlighted the prophetic leadership of women impacted by the social injustices of their day. Now is the time to raise wages, ensure vaccine equity, and so much more. Now is the time to lift from the bottom so that all of society can rise, as poor people have been saying for years and President Biden has recently reaffirmed.

    Tillmon couldn’t have made it clearer for us. “Women’s liberation,” she said so many years ago, “is simple. No woman in this country can feel dignified, no woman can be liberated, until all women get off their knees.”

    Today, let’s hear her and arise together! In truth, every day should be Mother’s Day.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Thousands of Cambodians go hungry in strict lockdown zones

    Rights groups say government and UN inaction has left people lacking food and medicine for weeks

    Tens of thousands of Cambodians are going hungry under the country’s strict lockdown as Covid cases continue to rise amid criticism from human rights groups that the government and the UN are being too slow to act.

    The south-east Asian country had recorded one of the world’s smallest coronavirus caseloads, but infections have climbed from about 500 in late February to 20,695 this week, with 136 deaths.

    Related: Cambodia accused of using Covid to edge towards ‘totalitarian dictatorship’

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Q&A: Makers Behind Student-Led Climate Inequality Film ‘OUR 4°C-ABLE WORLD’ – ‘The Problem Lies In The Communication Of This Issue’

    8 Mins Read OUR 4°C-ABLE WORLD is a new student-led theatrical production that has premiered on YouTube on May 1, centred on the disproportionate impact of the climate emergency on marginalised communities. Following the fictional story of teenage climate activist Jane, the film takes viewers on her journey to discovering the intersectionality between the climate crisis, poverty and […]

    The post Q&A: Makers Behind Student-Led Climate Inequality Film ‘OUR 4°C-ABLE WORLD’ – ‘The Problem Lies In The Communication Of This Issue’ appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Approaching Poverty Systemically

    Man laying on sidewalk (Image Source: Pexels)

    As we face the stark reality that one in seven Americans are projected to have resources below the poverty level in 2021, the world demands systemic solutions. No problem as widespread as poverty in America and across the world can be blamed entirely on the individuals and families that poverty affects — though some would certainly argue this point.

    Approaching poverty systemically may be the only way we can make progress at any significant rate. From minimum wage to criminal justice reform, systemic changes have the potential to make a real impact on poverty at a national level. Adopted at scale, systemic solutions can help end the global travesty that is poverty.

    But understanding potential fixes requires first assessing the causes of poverty. With a systemic approach, we can broaden the picture and give context to the millions of families struggling with a lack of resources. In turn, working solutions can become much clearer.

    Assessing the Causes of Poverty

    A host of factors contribute to the problem of poverty. From geographical locations where access to jobs and opportunities is scarce to faulty education systems that add to the problem of generation poverty, the causes of inequality on a massive scale are far-ranging and nebulous. While a world without any poverty may be difficult to imagine, addressing the root causes behind the millions without access to resources — even in countries as wealthy as America — can help give us the tools to make systemic changes.

    Here are three of the most prominent causes of widespread poverty:

    Wage Inequality

    Often, the poverty problem goes hand-in-hand with a lack of access to jobs that pay a living wage. Either these are leaving cities in the post-industrial economic shift, or the jobs that remain simply do not pay enough. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that as many as 11.4% of full-time, year-round American workers were not being paid enough to break past poverty thresholds. For CEOs, however, the situation is much different. From 1978 to 2019, CEO pay increased by 1,167%. For typical workers, wages grew only 13.7% in the same period.

    Social Injustice

    The problem of wage inequality is only compounded by the social injustice still commonly experienced by women and minorities in the sectors of the economy they more often occupy. The EPI found that female workers were paid poverty wages at a greater rate than men (13.5% compared to 9.6% of men). Meanwhile, destructive austerity policies like those employed in the UK disproportionately impact women, children, and minorities, pushing vulnerable families into greater levels of poverty. Social injustice keeps certain groups from getting ahead, a problem caused by poor governmental representation, underpayment in sectors of the economy like service, and limited access to other necessary resources like childcare.

    Lack of Resources

    Finally, the limits of resources and their even geographical spread equate to greater levels of poverty. For example, UNESCO has found that if all students in low-income countries were given the education to acquire elementary reading skills, as many as 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty. Limited access to education, clean water, food, and healthcare all contribute to poverty around the world. Now, climate change threatens access to food and water in various regions, meaning the problem will only get worse without systemic solutions.

    Applying Systemic Changes

    Applying solutions on a scale large enough to make a real difference requires understanding the causes of poverty and combating them at their source. With that achieved, we can propose informed solutions at a systemic level that may play a role in elevating families out of poverty and establishing greater levels of equality throughout the world. From federal minimum wages to education systems, this is much more possible than you might imagine.

    Addressing Pay Disparities and Social Injustice

    First, we can address the problem of wage inequality. This can start with a minimum wage increase, which has the power to impact the lives of 32 million workers. The Raise the Wage Act of 2021, for example, is projected to make a huge difference in the lives of workers relegated to low-wage work, which are disproportionately people of color. In fact, by lifting the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, the 23% of the workforce made up of Black women and Latinas would experience an annual income boost between $3,500 and $3,700 per individual.

    Additionally, we can create legislation that ties CEO pay to that of their workforce. There is no conscionable reason that CEOs should be making hundreds of times more a year than their employees. Shareholders often do not even understand the pay packages they offer CEOs, and higher rates of pay have been associated with poorer market performance. With tax incentives for more equitable pay ratios, we can better combat inequality on a systemic level.

    Building Better Resources

    Then, we can better address the resource discrepancies on a global scale. From education to criminal justice systems, resources are needed to mitigate the damages of poverty and curb the cycles of poverty born by system problems. Social workers are needed to empower and advocate for communities all over the world, educating them about the resources available to them and providing even more. Schools must support their students with programs designed to elevate them based on specific needs, while criminal justice reform must support re-entry.

    All these resources can help a family survive unexpected financial hardships, especially after COVID. In the era of mass global financial instability, giving communities across the world the means to succeed will help eradicate poverty. Through education, opportunity, and equity, we can ensure that talent and ability aren’t lost to the shackles of social injustice that hold too many individuals back. But we must ensure that systemic solutions are built with and for the families they target.

    By advocating for systemic change, you can support a richer, better world. Start now by exploring the needs of your community and supporting legislation that improves pay and resource accessibility.

    Beau Peters is a freelance writer based out of Portland, OR. He has a particular interest in covering workers’ rights, social justice, and workplace issues and solutions. Read other articles by Beau.

    This article was posted on Sunday, May 2nd, 2021 at 5:42pm and is filed under Criminal Justice System, Economic Inequality, Education, Minimum Wage, Poverty, Unemployment.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Approaching Poverty Systemically

    Man laying on sidewalk (Image Source: Pexels)

    As we face the stark reality that one in seven Americans are projected to have resources below the poverty level in 2021, the world demands systemic solutions. No problem as widespread as poverty in America and across the world can be blamed entirely on the individuals and families that poverty affects — though some would certainly argue this point.

    Approaching poverty systemically may be the only way we can make progress at any significant rate. From minimum wage to criminal justice reform, systemic changes have the potential to make a real impact on poverty at a national level. Adopted at scale, systemic solutions can help end the global travesty that is poverty.

    But understanding potential fixes requires first assessing the causes of poverty. With a systemic approach, we can broaden the picture and give context to the millions of families struggling with a lack of resources. In turn, working solutions can become much clearer.

    Assessing the Causes of Poverty

    A host of factors contribute to the problem of poverty. From geographical locations where access to jobs and opportunities is scarce to faulty education systems that add to the problem of generation poverty, the causes of inequality on a massive scale are far-ranging and nebulous. While a world without any poverty may be difficult to imagine, addressing the root causes behind the millions without access to resources — even in countries as wealthy as America — can help give us the tools to make systemic changes.

    Here are three of the most prominent causes of widespread poverty:

    Wage Inequality

    Often, the poverty problem goes hand-in-hand with a lack of access to jobs that pay a living wage. Either these are leaving cities in the post-industrial economic shift, or the jobs that remain simply do not pay enough. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that as many as 11.4% of full-time, year-round American workers were not being paid enough to break past poverty thresholds. For CEOs, however, the situation is much different. From 1978 to 2019, CEO pay increased by 1,167%. For typical workers, wages grew only 13.7% in the same period.

    Social Injustice

    The problem of wage inequality is only compounded by the social injustice still commonly experienced by women and minorities in the sectors of the economy they more often occupy. The EPI found that female workers were paid poverty wages at a greater rate than men (13.5% compared to 9.6% of men). Meanwhile, destructive austerity policies like those employed in the UK disproportionately impact women, children, and minorities, pushing vulnerable families into greater levels of poverty. Social injustice keeps certain groups from getting ahead, a problem caused by poor governmental representation, underpayment in sectors of the economy like service, and limited access to other necessary resources like childcare.

    Lack of Resources

    Finally, the limits of resources and their even geographical spread equate to greater levels of poverty. For example, UNESCO has found that if all students in low-income countries were given the education to acquire elementary reading skills, as many as 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty. Limited access to education, clean water, food, and healthcare all contribute to poverty around the world. Now, climate change threatens access to food and water in various regions, meaning the problem will only get worse without systemic solutions.

    Applying Systemic Changes

    Applying solutions on a scale large enough to make a real difference requires understanding the causes of poverty and combating them at their source. With that achieved, we can propose informed solutions at a systemic level that may play a role in elevating families out of poverty and establishing greater levels of equality throughout the world. From federal minimum wages to education systems, this is much more possible than you might imagine.

    Addressing Pay Disparities and Social Injustice

    First, we can address the problem of wage inequality. This can start with a minimum wage increase, which has the power to impact the lives of 32 million workers. The Raise the Wage Act of 2021, for example, is projected to make a huge difference in the lives of workers relegated to low-wage work, which are disproportionately people of color. In fact, by lifting the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, the 23% of the workforce made up of Black women and Latinas would experience an annual income boost between $3,500 and $3,700 per individual.

    Additionally, we can create legislation that ties CEO pay to that of their workforce. There is no conscionable reason that CEOs should be making hundreds of times more a year than their employees. Shareholders often do not even understand the pay packages they offer CEOs, and higher rates of pay have been associated with poorer market performance. With tax incentives for more equitable pay ratios, we can better combat inequality on a systemic level.

    Building Better Resources

    Then, we can better address the resource discrepancies on a global scale. From education to criminal justice systems, resources are needed to mitigate the damages of poverty and curb the cycles of poverty born by system problems. Social workers are needed to empower and advocate for communities all over the world, educating them about the resources available to them and providing even more. Schools must support their students with programs designed to elevate them based on specific needs, while criminal justice reform must support re-entry.

    All these resources can help a family survive unexpected financial hardships, especially after COVID. In the era of mass global financial instability, giving communities across the world the means to succeed will help eradicate poverty. Through education, opportunity, and equity, we can ensure that talent and ability aren’t lost to the shackles of social injustice that hold too many individuals back. But we must ensure that systemic solutions are built with and for the families they target.

    By advocating for systemic change, you can support a richer, better world. Start now by exploring the needs of your community and supporting legislation that improves pay and resource accessibility.

    Beau Peters is a freelance writer based out of Portland, OR. He has a particular interest in covering workers’ rights, social justice, and workplace issues and solutions. Read other articles by Beau.

    This article was posted on Sunday, May 2nd, 2021 at 5:42pm and is filed under Criminal Justice System, Economic Inequality, Education, Minimum Wage, Poverty, Unemployment.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Approaching Poverty Systemically

    Man laying on sidewalk (Image Source: Pexels)

    As we face the stark reality that one in seven Americans are projected to have resources below the poverty level in 2021, the world demands systemic solutions. No problem as widespread as poverty in America and across the world can be blamed entirely on the individuals and families that poverty affects — though some would certainly argue this point.

    Approaching poverty systemically may be the only way we can make progress at any significant rate. From minimum wage to criminal justice reform, systemic changes have the potential to make a real impact on poverty at a national level. Adopted at scale, systemic solutions can help end the global travesty that is poverty.

    But understanding potential fixes requires first assessing the causes of poverty. With a systemic approach, we can broaden the picture and give context to the millions of families struggling with a lack of resources. In turn, working solutions can become much clearer.

    Assessing the Causes of Poverty

    A host of factors contribute to the problem of poverty. From geographical locations where access to jobs and opportunities is scarce to faulty education systems that add to the problem of generation poverty, the causes of inequality on a massive scale are far-ranging and nebulous. While a world without any poverty may be difficult to imagine, addressing the root causes behind the millions without access to resources — even in countries as wealthy as America — can help give us the tools to make systemic changes.

    Here are three of the most prominent causes of widespread poverty:

    Wage Inequality

    Often, the poverty problem goes hand-in-hand with a lack of access to jobs that pay a living wage. Either these are leaving cities in the post-industrial economic shift, or the jobs that remain simply do not pay enough. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that as many as 11.4% of full-time, year-round American workers were not being paid enough to break past poverty thresholds. For CEOs, however, the situation is much different. From 1978 to 2019, CEO pay increased by 1,167%. For typical workers, wages grew only 13.7% in the same period.

    Social Injustice

    The problem of wage inequality is only compounded by the social injustice still commonly experienced by women and minorities in the sectors of the economy they more often occupy. The EPI found that female workers were paid poverty wages at a greater rate than men (13.5% compared to 9.6% of men). Meanwhile, destructive austerity policies like those employed in the UK disproportionately impact women, children, and minorities, pushing vulnerable families into greater levels of poverty. Social injustice keeps certain groups from getting ahead, a problem caused by poor governmental representation, underpayment in sectors of the economy like service, and limited access to other necessary resources like childcare.

    Lack of Resources

    Finally, the limits of resources and their even geographical spread equate to greater levels of poverty. For example, UNESCO has found that if all students in low-income countries were given the education to acquire elementary reading skills, as many as 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty. Limited access to education, clean water, food, and healthcare all contribute to poverty around the world. Now, climate change threatens access to food and water in various regions, meaning the problem will only get worse without systemic solutions.

    Applying Systemic Changes

    Applying solutions on a scale large enough to make a real difference requires understanding the causes of poverty and combating them at their source. With that achieved, we can propose informed solutions at a systemic level that may play a role in elevating families out of poverty and establishing greater levels of equality throughout the world. From federal minimum wages to education systems, this is much more possible than you might imagine.

    Addressing Pay Disparities and Social Injustice

    First, we can address the problem of wage inequality. This can start with a minimum wage increase, which has the power to impact the lives of 32 million workers. The Raise the Wage Act of 2021, for example, is projected to make a huge difference in the lives of workers relegated to low-wage work, which are disproportionately people of color. In fact, by lifting the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, the 23% of the workforce made up of Black women and Latinas would experience an annual income boost between $3,500 and $3,700 per individual.

    Additionally, we can create legislation that ties CEO pay to that of their workforce. There is no conscionable reason that CEOs should be making hundreds of times more a year than their employees. Shareholders often do not even understand the pay packages they offer CEOs, and higher rates of pay have been associated with poorer market performance. With tax incentives for more equitable pay ratios, we can better combat inequality on a systemic level.

    Building Better Resources

    Then, we can better address the resource discrepancies on a global scale. From education to criminal justice systems, resources are needed to mitigate the damages of poverty and curb the cycles of poverty born by system problems. Social workers are needed to empower and advocate for communities all over the world, educating them about the resources available to them and providing even more. Schools must support their students with programs designed to elevate them based on specific needs, while criminal justice reform must support re-entry.

    All these resources can help a family survive unexpected financial hardships, especially after COVID. In the era of mass global financial instability, giving communities across the world the means to succeed will help eradicate poverty. Through education, opportunity, and equity, we can ensure that talent and ability aren’t lost to the shackles of social injustice that hold too many individuals back. But we must ensure that systemic solutions are built with and for the families they target.

    By advocating for systemic change, you can support a richer, better world. Start now by exploring the needs of your community and supporting legislation that improves pay and resource accessibility.

    Beau Peters is a freelance writer based out of Portland, OR. He has a particular interest in covering workers’ rights, social justice, and workplace issues and solutions. Read other articles by Beau.

    This article was posted on Sunday, May 2nd, 2021 at 5:42pm and is filed under Criminal Justice System, Economic Inequality, Education, Minimum Wage, Poverty, Unemployment.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Approaching Poverty Systemically

    Man laying on sidewalk (Image Source: Pexels)

    As we face the stark reality that one in seven Americans are projected to have resources below the poverty level in 2021, the world demands systemic solutions. No problem as widespread as poverty in America and across the world can be blamed entirely on the individuals and families that poverty affects — though some would certainly argue this point.

    Approaching poverty systemically may be the only way we can make progress at any significant rate. From minimum wage to criminal justice reform, systemic changes have the potential to make a real impact on poverty at a national level. Adopted at scale, systemic solutions can help end the global travesty that is poverty.

    But understanding potential fixes requires first assessing the causes of poverty. With a systemic approach, we can broaden the picture and give context to the millions of families struggling with a lack of resources. In turn, working solutions can become much clearer.

    Assessing the Causes of Poverty

    A host of factors contribute to the problem of poverty. From geographical locations where access to jobs and opportunities is scarce to faulty education systems that add to the problem of generation poverty, the causes of inequality on a massive scale are far-ranging and nebulous. While a world without any poverty may be difficult to imagine, addressing the root causes behind the millions without access to resources — even in countries as wealthy as America — can help give us the tools to make systemic changes.

    Here are three of the most prominent causes of widespread poverty:

    Wage Inequality

    Often, the poverty problem goes hand-in-hand with a lack of access to jobs that pay a living wage. Either these are leaving cities in the post-industrial economic shift, or the jobs that remain simply do not pay enough. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that as many as 11.4% of full-time, year-round American workers were not being paid enough to break past poverty thresholds. For CEOs, however, the situation is much different. From 1978 to 2019, CEO pay increased by 1,167%. For typical workers, wages grew only 13.7% in the same period.

    Social Injustice

    The problem of wage inequality is only compounded by the social injustice still commonly experienced by women and minorities in the sectors of the economy they more often occupy. The EPI found that female workers were paid poverty wages at a greater rate than men (13.5% compared to 9.6% of men). Meanwhile, destructive austerity policies like those employed in the UK disproportionately impact women, children, and minorities, pushing vulnerable families into greater levels of poverty. Social injustice keeps certain groups from getting ahead, a problem caused by poor governmental representation, underpayment in sectors of the economy like service, and limited access to other necessary resources like childcare.

    Lack of Resources

    Finally, the limits of resources and their even geographical spread equate to greater levels of poverty. For example, UNESCO has found that if all students in low-income countries were given the education to acquire elementary reading skills, as many as 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty. Limited access to education, clean water, food, and healthcare all contribute to poverty around the world. Now, climate change threatens access to food and water in various regions, meaning the problem will only get worse without systemic solutions.

    Applying Systemic Changes

    Applying solutions on a scale large enough to make a real difference requires understanding the causes of poverty and combating them at their source. With that achieved, we can propose informed solutions at a systemic level that may play a role in elevating families out of poverty and establishing greater levels of equality throughout the world. From federal minimum wages to education systems, this is much more possible than you might imagine.

    Addressing Pay Disparities and Social Injustice

    First, we can address the problem of wage inequality. This can start with a minimum wage increase, which has the power to impact the lives of 32 million workers. The Raise the Wage Act of 2021, for example, is projected to make a huge difference in the lives of workers relegated to low-wage work, which are disproportionately people of color. In fact, by lifting the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, the 23% of the workforce made up of Black women and Latinas would experience an annual income boost between $3,500 and $3,700 per individual.

    Additionally, we can create legislation that ties CEO pay to that of their workforce. There is no conscionable reason that CEOs should be making hundreds of times more a year than their employees. Shareholders often do not even understand the pay packages they offer CEOs, and higher rates of pay have been associated with poorer market performance. With tax incentives for more equitable pay ratios, we can better combat inequality on a systemic level.

    Building Better Resources

    Then, we can better address the resource discrepancies on a global scale. From education to criminal justice systems, resources are needed to mitigate the damages of poverty and curb the cycles of poverty born by system problems. Social workers are needed to empower and advocate for communities all over the world, educating them about the resources available to them and providing even more. Schools must support their students with programs designed to elevate them based on specific needs, while criminal justice reform must support re-entry.

    All these resources can help a family survive unexpected financial hardships, especially after COVID. In the era of mass global financial instability, giving communities across the world the means to succeed will help eradicate poverty. Through education, opportunity, and equity, we can ensure that talent and ability aren’t lost to the shackles of social injustice that hold too many individuals back. But we must ensure that systemic solutions are built with and for the families they target.

    By advocating for systemic change, you can support a richer, better world. Start now by exploring the needs of your community and supporting legislation that improves pay and resource accessibility.

    The post Approaching Poverty Systemically first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • A collection of working-class lockdown diaries is set to show what others won’t

    A project which asked working class people to keep diaries during the first coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown is nearly complete. It’s now nearly ready for release as a graphic novel. But the project of lockdown diaries needs your help. It’s fundraising to get these crucial pieces of class and social history published.

    Looking from the inside out

    Lockdown Diaries of the Working Class is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. It was founded by Dr Lisa McKenzie. She’s a working-class academic and sociologist who’s also an ethnographer. That’s someone who studies human culture and society; kind-of like an anthropologist. The difference is an ethnographer gathers and then presents the information from the point of view of the person/people being studied.

    McKenzie’s approach always aims to be inclusive. She includes working-class people in the research process rather than just looking from the outside in at them. An excellent example of this is her groundbreaking book Getting By. McKenzie spent several years interviewing, studying, and observing the residents of the St Ann’s estate in Nottingham. It was the estate she grew up on. The book smashed the establishment’s classist and racist narratives and tropes about life on council estates. Because McKenzie painted a picture of a community, its characters, and its values that the system rarely allows outsiders to see.

    McKenzie has now turned her attention to life during lockdown. And the results could make for equally groundbreaking reading.

    Lockdown Diaries

    McKenzie launched the Lockdown Diaries at the start of the pandemic. She was worried about how life for the poorest people in the UK would be documented. That is, she was worried that other people would co-opt and narrate the lived experiences of working class people. McKenzie wanted them to tell their own stories. So, she contacted people she had worked with previously on other projects. McKenzie also put call-outs on social media. As she wrote for the London School of Economics (LSE):

    I recruited 38 individual working-class diary writers. Some of them wrote for four weeks, while mothers who were home-schooling did five-seven days. I was sent pictures, images, traditional diaries, doodles, and short video diaries. They add up to an enormous amount of rich data from those first weeks of lockdown.

    But for McKenzie, the project was about a lot more than just diaries.

    The academic route

    She told The Canary:

    Initially I wasn’t really thinking about what I would do with this. At the beginning of lockdown, like everyone I was watching the telly a lot. And I realised that the same voices had got all the air space. Working class people were either being spoken about or not at all. I sat there wondering what was happening to the foodbank users that would be running out of food or couldn’t get out their houses. I saw the valorisation of the same groups nurses, medics but not others supermarket workers. And I knew from experience that working class voices would be absent now, and totally disappear in a year.

    So, I just thought: ask people to write me diaries. I went to the university I lecture at and got ethical clearance. It was going to be a bog standard piece of academic research (it never was but I told myself that).

    Shut-down

    But getting Lockdown Diaries going wasn’t that simple. McKenzie said that she couldn’t get funding for it:

    When I couldn’t get any academic funding to do the academic thing, I realised that I didn’t want working class voices removed by the academic process. So, I thought I’m going to self-publish a beautiful graphic novel; one that pays tribute to our humour, sadness and resilience.

    So, Lockdown Diaries was born. The project is currently on Kickstarter. It needs funding of around £12,500 to properly publish it and pay people; not McKenzie though, who’s doing the project for free. You can pledge here. And it’s her approach to the project that partly got it to this point.

    The trust issue

    McKenzie is different to most of her peers. Being from a working-class background gives her credibility with the communities she works with. And she has always stayed true to her roots. This is crucial. Because as most people from poor backgrounds know, trust of outsiders and people from the system is a major issue. You’re all too often burned by the people who are supposed to be supporting you. As she wrote in Getting By:

    Even though I had lived on the estate for over 20 years, the women [McKenzie wanted to speak to] did not welcome me into their lives with open arms, They were initially sceptical… More importantly, most people in St Ann’s were acutely aware that asking questions in the neighbourhood usually led to the neighbourhood being represented negatively, or ‘outsiders’ using local knowledge for their own benefit.

    Respect

    McKenzie was confident that the people would trust her to handle Lockdown Diaries with care and sensitivity. She told The Canary:

    I think people trust me. I’m so far away from the normal academic and haven’t let working class people down so far. That probably means I’m a crap academic…! But it also means there was trust. On a personal note, if there was or would be any danger of disrespecting the diary writers, I would have pulled the whole thing. Which is why I’m not glad I’m doing this totally independently and away from the university. It’s on me. And I have always taken my responsibility and love for my class seriously; far more than to the university.

    Moreover, trust isn’t the only potential issue McKenzie could’ve faced.

    Time poverty

    Much like trust, anyone who’s poor knows that time’s not your friend, You never have enough of it. Things you would like to do get put-off because of things you have to do. The idea of ‘choice’ is often out of reach. And the means to get yourself out of income poverty are restricted by time. This is called time poverty. The system which causes people to be time poor often doesn’t recognise it. But it’s a real thing – as many poor, working class people will tell you.

    McKenzie made Lockdown Diaries so accessible that none of this was an issue. She told The Canary:

    Because I only asked for a maximum of 28 days, I think it was manageable. Some of the mothers who were home schooling only did 5-7 days. But that was enough. I had one diary sent by text everyday, because he didn’t have access to a computer. Some diaries came as images… I had some diarists whose English was a second language. So, they chose to send me photos, some of which came as pictures of actual writing. It all really showed the diversity of who we are.

    So, the participants wrote their diaries. And when McKenzie got them, her reaction was telling.

    “Overwhelmed”

    She told The Canary:

    Initially I couldn’t read them. I was living on my own and going through the same stuff. But when I started to read them, I was overwhelmed emotionally. When someone writes to you they write in a far more personal way than an interview. They often started with “Dear Lisa”. And it broke me to be honest. A year on, I’m reading them again and honestly, they are incredible. The humour, misery but also massive resilience is all over them. I have people from East London to rural Wales and everywhere in between. A range of people, of different ages. But all of them incredible writers and documenters.

    A graphic novel

    McKenzie shared a preview of Lockdown Diaries in her LSE column. The project is going to be a graphic novel. And the artist Social Commontating has already turned one family’s lockdown diary into strip art:

    Lockdown Diaries Strip Art

    Lockdown Diaries strip art

    There are things that are similar between McKenzie’s book Getting By and the Lockdown Diaries. One of them is that poor, working class people get to tell their stories. And they’re presented in a way which means none of these people’s truths are lost or misrepresented. Because all too often, this isn’t the case.

    Deplatformed

    McKenzie told The Canary:

    I definitely think that since 2008 there has been a gradual decline in working class people having any platform at all. And then it seemed to drop off a cliff after 2013. The middle class have every single space tied and locked up. This means a project like this can only happen through solidarity; from beginning to end.

    It cannot be done any other way, because there are too many middle class gate keepers. They tell us what our stories and lives need to look and sound like; what is acceptable and what isn’t. And then we become sieved of everything we are. Finally, we become a pure character of who and what the middle class can cope with around working class people. We need to be the pure victim or the pure enemy: the right-wing football-gammon Brexiteer – or the single mother trying her best working three jobs and advocating education and social mobility to her children. That’s what my intent is in everything I do: to not let the middle class tell our stories and narrate who we are.

    Constant exhaustion

    Being poor and working class is exhausting:

    • The fear you feel every time you put your card into a cashpoint; not knowing if you’ve got any money or not.
    • Counting how many sheets of toilet paper you use so you can save a quid on next week’s shopping.
    • The devastating feeling when you know your kid wants something bought for them but they daren’t ask you.
    • Hiding a brown envelope until you can find the courage to open it.
    • Automatically ducking down and holding your breath when someone knocks at the door in case it’s bailiffs.

    But what’s also exhausting is the zero representation you have.

    Time to take back our spaces

    Poor, working class people rarely see themselves in academic, media, or public life. And if they are shown, it’s often stereotypes. Feeling like no-one outside your own community understands or properly reps you is isolating, demoralising, and frustrating. It also makes you angry seeing people who are not working class (but say they are) speaking on ‘your behalf’. So Lockdown Diaries aims to change this.

    McKenzie summed-up her feelings about Lockdown Diaries:

    I just that I hope this type of DIY research and publishing will be taken seriously by ‘them’. Because this is the only way to make sure minority and working class voices are not cleansed and cleaned by the process.

    Knowing McKenzie, no filters will be needed. Lockdown Diaries should be a groundbreaking, heartfelt, and important project. And moreover, it will mark an important moment in the history books: one where working class people’s voices were properly heard.

    You can pledge to the Lockdown Diaries Kickstarter here.

    Featured image and additional images via Social Commontating/Lisa McKenzie

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Economic Collapse Continues Uninterrupted

    To conceal the economic and social decline that continues to unfold at home and abroad, major newspapers are working overtime to promote happy economic news. Many headlines are irrational and out of touch. They make no sense. Desperation to convince everyone that all is well or all will soon be great is very high. The assault on economic science and coherence is intense. Working in concert, and contrary to the lived experience of millions of people, many newspapers are declaring miraculous “economic growth rates” for country after country. According to the rich and their media, numerous countries are experiencing or are on the cusp of experiencing very strong “come-backs” or “complete recoveries.” Very high rates of annual economic growth, generally not found in any prior period, are being floated regularly. The numbers defy common sense.

    In reality, economic and social problems are getting worse nationally and internationally.

    “Getting back to the pre-Covid standard will take time,” said Carmen Reinhart, the World Bank’s chief economist. “The aftermath of Covid isn’t going to reverse for a lot of countries. Far from it.” Even this recent statement is misleading because it implies that pre-Covid economic conditions were somehow good or acceptable when things have actually been going downhill for decades. Most economies never really “recovered” from the economic collapse of 2008. Most countries are still running on gas fumes while poverty, unemployment, under-employment, inequality, debt, food insecurity, generalized anxiety, and other problems keep worsening. And today, with millions of people fully vaccinated and trillions of phantom dollars, euros, and yen printed by the world’s central banks, there is still no real and sustained stability, prosperity, security, or harmony. People everywhere are still anxious about the future. Pious statements from world leaders about “fixing” capitalism have done nothing to reverse the global economic decline that started years ago and was intensified by the “COVID Pandemic.”

    In the U.S. alone, in real numbers, about 3-4 million people a month have been laid off for 13 consecutive months. At no other time in U.S. history has such a calamity on this scale happened. This has “improved” slightly recently but the number of people being laid off every month remains extremely high and troubling. In New York State, for example:

    the statewide [official] unemployment rate remains the second highest in the country at just under 9%. One year after the start of the pandemic and the recession it caused, most of the jobs New York lost still have not come back. (emphasis added, April 2021).

    In addition, nationally the number of long-term unemployed remains high and the labor force participation rate remains low. And most new jobs that are “created” are not high-paying jobs with good benefits and security. The so-called “Gig Economy” has beleaguered millions.

    Some groups have been more adversely affected than others. In April 2021, U.S. News & World Report conveyed that:

    In February 2020, right before the coronavirus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, Black women had an employment to population ratio of 60.8%; that now stands at 54.8%, a drop of 6 percentage points.

    The obsolete U.S. economic system has discarded more than half a million black women from the labor force in the past year.

    In December 2019, around the time the “COVID Pandemic” began to emerge, Brookings reported that:

    An estimated 53 million people—44 percent of all U.S. workers ages 18–64—are low-wage workers. That’s more than twice the number of people in the 10 most populous U.S. cities combined. Their median hourly wage is $10.22, and their median annual earnings are $17,950.

    The Federal Reserve reports that 37 percent of Americans in 2019 did not have $400 to cover an unanticipated emergency. In Louisiana alone, 1 out of 5 families today are living at the poverty level.  Sadly, “60% of Americans will live below the official poverty line for at least one year of their lives.” While American billionaires became $1.3 trillion richer, about 8 million Americans joined the ranks of the poor during the “COVID Pandemic.”

    And more inflation will make things worse for more people. A March 2021 headline from NBC News reads: “The price of food and gas is creeping higher — and will stay that way for a while.”  ABC News goes further in April 2021 and says that “the post-pandemic economy will include higher prices, worse service, longer delays.”

    Homelessness in the U.S. is also increasing:

    COVID-driven loss of jobs and employment income will cause the number of homeless workers to increase each year through 2023. Without large-scale, government employment programs the Pandemic Recession is projected to cause twice as much homelessness as the 2008 Great Recession. Over the next four years the current Pandemic Recession is projected to cause chronic homelessness to increase 49 percent in the United States, 68 percent in California and 86 percent in Los Angeles County. [The homeless include the] homeless on the streets, shelter residents and couch surfers. (emphasis added, January 11, 2021)

    Perhaps ironically, just “Two blocks from the Federal Reserve, a growing encampment of the homeless grips the economy’s most powerful person [Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell].”

    Officially, about four million businesses, including more than 110,000 restaurants, have permanently closed in the U.S. over the past 14 months.  In April 2021 Business Insider stated that, “roughly 80,000 stores are doomed to close in the next 5 years as the retail apocalypse continues to rip through America.”  The real figure is likely higher.

    Bankruptcies have also risen in some sectors. For example, bankruptcies by North American oil producers “rose to the highest first-quarter level since 2016.”

    In March 2021 the Economic Policy Institute reported that “more than 25 million workers are directly harmed by the COVID labor market.” Anecdotal evidence suggests that there are more than 100 applicants for each job opening in some sectors.

    Given the depth and breadth of the economic collapse in the U.S., it is no surprise that “1 in 6 Americans went into therapy for the first time in 2020.” The number of people affected by depression, anxiety, addiction, and suicide worldwide as a direct result of the long depression is very high. These harsh facts and realities are also linked to more violence, killings, protests, demonstrations, social unrest, and riots worldwide.

    In terms of physical health, “Sixty-one percent of U.S. adults report undesired weight changes since the COVID-19 pandemic began.” This will only exacerbate the diabetes pandemic that has been ravaging more countries every year.

    On another front, the Pew Research Center informs us that, as a result of the economic collapse that has unfolded over the past year, “A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression.”   And it does not help that student debt now exceeds $1.7 trillion and is still climbing rapidly.

    Millions of college faculty have also suffered greatly over the past year. A recent survey by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) found that:

    real wages for full-time faculty decreased for the first time since the Great Recession[in 2008], and average wage growth for all ranks of full-time faculty was the lowest since the AAUP began tracking annual wage growth in 1972. After adjusting for inflation, real wages decreased at over two-thirds of colleges and universities. The number of full-time faculty decreased at over half of institutions.

    This does not account for the thousands of higher education adjuncts (part-time faculty) and staff that lost their jobs permanently.

    In April 2021, the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities stated that, “millions of people are still without their pre-pandemic income sources and are borrowing to get by.” Specifically:

    • 54 million adults said they didn’t use regular income sources like those received before the pandemic to meet their spending needs in the last seven days.
    • 50 million used credit cards or loans to meet spending needs.
    • 20 million borrowed from friends or family. (These three groups overlap.)

    Also in April 2021, the Washington Post wrote:

    The pandemic’s disruption has created inescapable financial strain for many Americans. Nearly 2 of 5 of adults have postponed major financial decisions, from buying cars or houses to getting married or having children, due to the coronavirus crisis, according to a survey last week from Bankrate.com. Among younger adults, ages 18 to 34, some 59 percent said they had delayed a financial milestone. (emphasis added)

    According to Monthly Review:

    The U.S. economy has seen a long-term decline in capacity utilization in manufacturing, which has averaged 78 percent from 1972 to 2019—well below levels that stimulate net investment. (emphasis added, January 1, 2021).

    Capitalist firms will not invest in new ventures or projects when there is little or no profit to be made, which is why major owners of capital are engaged in even more stock market manipulation than ever before. “Casino capitalism” is intensifying. This, in turn, is giving rise to even larger stock market bubbles that will eventually burst and wreak even more havoc than previous stock market crashes. The inability to make profit through normal investment channels is also why major owners of capital are imposing more public-private “partnerships” (PPPs) on people and society through neoliberal state restructuring. Such pay-the-rich schemes further marginalize workers and exacerbate inequality, debt, and poverty. PPPs solve no problems and must be replaced by human-centered economic arrangements.

    The International Labor Organization estimates that the equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs have been lost globally as a result of government actions over the past 13-14 months.

    In March of this year, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations reported that, “Acute hunger is set to soar in over 20 countries in the coming months without urgent and scaled-up assistance.” The FAO says, “”The magnitude of suffering is alarming.”

    And according to Reuters, “Overall, global FDI [Foreign Direct Investment] had collapsed in 2020, falling by 42% to an estimated $859 billion, from $1.5 trillion in 2019, according to the UNCTAD report.” UNCTAD stands for United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

    The international organization Oxfam tells us that:

    The coronavirus pandemic has the potential to lead to an increase in inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began…. Billionaire fortunes returned to their pre-pandemic highs in just nine months, while recovery for the world’s poorest people could take over a decade. (emphasis added, January 25, 2021)

    According to the World Bank, “The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed about 120 million people into extreme poverty over the last year in mostly low- and middle-income countries.”  And despite the roll-out of vaccines in various countries:

    the economic implications of the pandemic are deep and far-reaching. It is ushering in a “new poor” profile that is more urban, better educated, and reliant on informal sector work such as construction, relative to the existing global poor (those living on less than $1.90/day) who are more rural and heavily reliant on agriculture. (emphasis added)

    Another source notes that:

    Pew Research Center, using World Bank data, has estimated that the number of poor in India (with income of $2 per day or less in purchasing power parity) has more than doubled from 60 million to 134 million in just a year due to the pandemic-induced recession. This means, India is back in a situation to be called a “country of mass poverty” after 45 years. (emphasis added)

    In Europe, there is no end in sight to the economic decline that keeps unfolding. The United Kingdom, for example, experienced its worst economy in literally 300 years:

    The economy in the U.K. contracted 9.9 percent in 2020, the worst year on record since 1709, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a report on Friday (Feb. 12). The overall economic drop in 2020 was more than double in 2009, when U.K. GDP declined 4.1 percent due to the worldwide financial crisis. Britain experienced the biggest annual decline among the G7 economies — France saw its economy decline 8.3 percent, Italy dropped 8.8 percent, Germany declined 5 percent and the U.S. contracted 3.5 percent. (emphasis added)

    Another source also notes that, “The Eurozone is being haunted by ‘ghost bankruptcies,’ with more than 200,000 firms across the European Union’s four biggest nations under threat when Covid financial lifelines stop.” In another sign of economic decline, this time in Asia, Argus Media reported in April 2021 that Japan’s 2020-21 crude steel output fell to a 52-year low.

    Taken alone, on a country-by-country basis, these are not minor economic downturns, but when viewed as a collective cumulative global phenomenon, the consequences are more serious. It is a big problem when numerous economies decline simultaneously. The world is more interdependent and interconnected than ever. What happens in one region necessarily affects other regions.

    One could easily go country by country and region by region and document many tragic economic developments that are still unfolding and worsening. Argentina, Lebanon, Colombia, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Jordan, South Africa, Nigeria, and dozens of other countries are all experiencing major economic setbacks and hardships that will take years to overcome and will negatively affect the economies of other countries in an increasingly interdependent world. And privatization schemes around the world are just making conditions worse for the majority of people. Far from solving any problems, neoliberalism has made everything worse for working people and society.

    It is too soon for capitalist ideologues to be euphoric about “miraculous economic growth and success.” There is no meaningful evidence to show that there is deep, significant, sustained economic growth on a broad scale. There is tremendous economic carnage and pain out there, and the scarring and consequences are going to linger for some time. No one believes that a big surge of well-paying jobs is right around the corner. Nor does anyone believe that more schemes to pay the rich under the banner of high ideals will improve things either.

    Relentless disinformation about the economy won’t solve any problems or convince people that they are not experiencing what they are experiencing. Growing poverty, hunger, homelessness, unemployment, under-employment, debt, inequality, anxiety, and insecurity are real and painful. They require real solutions put forward by working people, not major owners of capital concerned only with maximizing private profit as fast as possible.

    The economy cannot improve and serve a pro-social aim and direction so long as those who produce society’s wealth, workers, are disempowered and denied any control of the economy they run. Allowing major decisions to be made by a historically superfluous financial oligarchy is not the way forward. The rich and their representatives are unfit to rule and have no real solutions for the recurring crises caused by their outmoded system. They are focused mainly on depriving people of an outlook that opens the path of progress to society.

    There is no way for the massive wealth of society to be used to serve the general interests of society so long as the contradiction between the socialized nature of the economy and its continued domination by competing private interests remain unresolved. All we are left with are recurring economic crises that take a bigger and bigger toll on humanity. To add insult to injury, we are told that there is no alternative to this outdated system, and that the goal is to strive for “inclusive capitalism,” “ethical capitalism,” “responsible capitalism,” or some other oxymoron.

    But there is an alternative. Existing conditions do not have to be eternal or tolerated. History shows that conditions that favor the people can be established. The rich must be deprived of their ability to deprive the people of their rights, including the right to govern their own affairs and control the economy. The economy, government, nation-building, and society must be controlled and directed by the people themselves, free of the influence of narrow private interests determined to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone and everything else.

    The rich and their political and media representatives are under great pressure to distort social consciousness, undermine the human factor, and block progress. The necessity for change is for humanity to rise up and usher in a modern society that ensures prosperity, stability, and peace for all. It can be done and must be done.

    The post Economic Collapse Continues Uninterrupted first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Economic Collapse Continues Uninterrupted

    To conceal the economic and social decline that continues to unfold at home and abroad, major newspapers are working overtime to promote happy economic news. Many headlines are irrational and out of touch. They make no sense. Desperation to convince everyone that all is well or all will soon be great is very high. The assault on economic science and coherence is intense. Working in concert, and contrary to the lived experience of millions of people, many newspapers are declaring miraculous “economic growth rates” for country after country. According to the rich and their media, numerous countries are experiencing or are on the cusp of experiencing very strong “come-backs” or “complete recoveries.” Very high rates of annual economic growth, generally not found in any prior period, are being floated regularly. The numbers defy common sense.

    In reality, economic and social problems are getting worse nationally and internationally.

    “Getting back to the pre-Covid standard will take time,” said Carmen Reinhart, the World Bank’s chief economist. “The aftermath of Covid isn’t going to reverse for a lot of countries. Far from it.” Even this recent statement is misleading because it implies that pre-Covid economic conditions were somehow good or acceptable when things have actually been going downhill for decades. Most economies never really “recovered” from the economic collapse of 2008. Most countries are still running on gas fumes while poverty, unemployment, under-employment, inequality, debt, food insecurity, generalized anxiety, and other problems keep worsening. And today, with millions of people fully vaccinated and trillions of phantom dollars, euros, and yen printed by the world’s central banks, there is still no real and sustained stability, prosperity, security, or harmony. People everywhere are still anxious about the future. Pious statements from world leaders about “fixing” capitalism have done nothing to reverse the global economic decline that started years ago and was intensified by the “COVID Pandemic.”

    In the U.S. alone, in real numbers, about 3-4 million people a month have been laid off for 13 consecutive months. At no other time in U.S. history has such a calamity on this scale happened. This has “improved” slightly recently but the number of people being laid off every month remains extremely high and troubling. In New York State, for example:

    the statewide [official] unemployment rate remains the second highest in the country at just under 9%. One year after the start of the pandemic and the recession it caused, most of the jobs New York lost still have not come back. (emphasis added, April 2021).

    In addition, nationally the number of long-term unemployed remains high and the labor force participation rate remains low. And most new jobs that are “created” are not high-paying jobs with good benefits and security. The so-called “Gig Economy” has beleaguered millions.

    Some groups have been more adversely affected than others. In April 2021, U.S. News & World Report conveyed that:

    In February 2020, right before the coronavirus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, Black women had an employment to population ratio of 60.8%; that now stands at 54.8%, a drop of 6 percentage points.

    The obsolete U.S. economic system has discarded more than half a million black women from the labor force in the past year.

    In December 2019, around the time the “COVID Pandemic” began to emerge, Brookings reported that:

    An estimated 53 million people—44 percent of all U.S. workers ages 18–64—are low-wage workers. That’s more than twice the number of people in the 10 most populous U.S. cities combined. Their median hourly wage is $10.22, and their median annual earnings are $17,950.

    The Federal Reserve reports that 37 percent of Americans in 2019 did not have $400 to cover an unanticipated emergency. In Louisiana alone, 1 out of 5 families today are living at the poverty level.  Sadly, “60% of Americans will live below the official poverty line for at least one year of their lives.” While American billionaires became $1.3 trillion richer, about 8 million Americans joined the ranks of the poor during the “COVID Pandemic.”

    And more inflation will make things worse for more people. A March 2021 headline from NBC News reads: “The price of food and gas is creeping higher — and will stay that way for a while.”  ABC News goes further in April 2021 and says that “the post-pandemic economy will include higher prices, worse service, longer delays.”

    Homelessness in the U.S. is also increasing:

    COVID-driven loss of jobs and employment income will cause the number of homeless workers to increase each year through 2023. Without large-scale, government employment programs the Pandemic Recession is projected to cause twice as much homelessness as the 2008 Great Recession. Over the next four years the current Pandemic Recession is projected to cause chronic homelessness to increase 49 percent in the United States, 68 percent in California and 86 percent in Los Angeles County. [The homeless include the] homeless on the streets, shelter residents and couch surfers. (emphasis added, January 11, 2021)

    Perhaps ironically, just “Two blocks from the Federal Reserve, a growing encampment of the homeless grips the economy’s most powerful person [Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell].”

    Officially, about four million businesses, including more than 110,000 restaurants, have permanently closed in the U.S. over the past 14 months.  In April 2021 Business Insider stated that, “roughly 80,000 stores are doomed to close in the next 5 years as the retail apocalypse continues to rip through America.”  The real figure is likely higher.

    Bankruptcies have also risen in some sectors. For example, bankruptcies by North American oil producers “rose to the highest first-quarter level since 2016.”

    In March 2021 the Economic Policy Institute reported that “more than 25 million workers are directly harmed by the COVID labor market.” Anecdotal evidence suggests that there are more than 100 applicants for each job opening in some sectors.

    Given the depth and breadth of the economic collapse in the U.S., it is no surprise that “1 in 6 Americans went into therapy for the first time in 2020.” The number of people affected by depression, anxiety, addiction, and suicide worldwide as a direct result of the long depression is very high. These harsh facts and realities are also linked to more violence, killings, protests, demonstrations, social unrest, and riots worldwide.

    In terms of physical health, “Sixty-one percent of U.S. adults report undesired weight changes since the COVID-19 pandemic began.” This will only exacerbate the diabetes pandemic that has been ravaging more countries every year.

    On another front, the Pew Research Center informs us that, as a result of the economic collapse that has unfolded over the past year, “A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression.”   And it does not help that student debt now exceeds $1.7 trillion and is still climbing rapidly.

    Millions of college faculty have also suffered greatly over the past year. A recent survey by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) found that:

    real wages for full-time faculty decreased for the first time since the Great Recession[in 2008], and average wage growth for all ranks of full-time faculty was the lowest since the AAUP began tracking annual wage growth in 1972. After adjusting for inflation, real wages decreased at over two-thirds of colleges and universities. The number of full-time faculty decreased at over half of institutions.

    This does not account for the thousands of higher education adjuncts (part-time faculty) and staff that lost their jobs permanently.

    In April 2021, the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities stated that, “millions of people are still without their pre-pandemic income sources and are borrowing to get by.” Specifically:

    • 54 million adults said they didn’t use regular income sources like those received before the pandemic to meet their spending needs in the last seven days.
    • 50 million used credit cards or loans to meet spending needs.
    • 20 million borrowed from friends or family. (These three groups overlap.)

    Also in April 2021, the Washington Post wrote:

    The pandemic’s disruption has created inescapable financial strain for many Americans. Nearly 2 of 5 of adults have postponed major financial decisions, from buying cars or houses to getting married or having children, due to the coronavirus crisis, according to a survey last week from Bankrate.com. Among younger adults, ages 18 to 34, some 59 percent said they had delayed a financial milestone. (emphasis added)

    According to Monthly Review:

    The U.S. economy has seen a long-term decline in capacity utilization in manufacturing, which has averaged 78 percent from 1972 to 2019—well below levels that stimulate net investment. (emphasis added, January 1, 2021).

    Capitalist firms will not invest in new ventures or projects when there is little or no profit to be made, which is why major owners of capital are engaged in even more stock market manipulation than ever before. “Casino capitalism” is intensifying. This, in turn, is giving rise to even larger stock market bubbles that will eventually burst and wreak even more havoc than previous stock market crashes. The inability to make profit through normal investment channels is also why major owners of capital are imposing more public-private “partnerships” (PPPs) on people and society through neoliberal state restructuring. Such pay-the-rich schemes further marginalize workers and exacerbate inequality, debt, and poverty. PPPs solve no problems and must be replaced by human-centered economic arrangements.

    The International Labor Organization estimates that the equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs have been lost globally as a result of government actions over the past 13-14 months.

    In March of this year, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations reported that, “Acute hunger is set to soar in over 20 countries in the coming months without urgent and scaled-up assistance.” The FAO says, “”The magnitude of suffering is alarming.”

    And according to Reuters, “Overall, global FDI [Foreign Direct Investment] had collapsed in 2020, falling by 42% to an estimated $859 billion, from $1.5 trillion in 2019, according to the UNCTAD report.” UNCTAD stands for United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

    The international organization Oxfam tells us that:

    The coronavirus pandemic has the potential to lead to an increase in inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began…. Billionaire fortunes returned to their pre-pandemic highs in just nine months, while recovery for the world’s poorest people could take over a decade. (emphasis added, January 25, 2021)

    According to the World Bank, “The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed about 120 million people into extreme poverty over the last year in mostly low- and middle-income countries.”  And despite the roll-out of vaccines in various countries:

    the economic implications of the pandemic are deep and far-reaching. It is ushering in a “new poor” profile that is more urban, better educated, and reliant on informal sector work such as construction, relative to the existing global poor (those living on less than $1.90/day) who are more rural and heavily reliant on agriculture. (emphasis added)

    Another source notes that:

    Pew Research Center, using World Bank data, has estimated that the number of poor in India (with income of $2 per day or less in purchasing power parity) has more than doubled from 60 million to 134 million in just a year due to the pandemic-induced recession. This means, India is back in a situation to be called a “country of mass poverty” after 45 years. (emphasis added)

    In Europe, there is no end in sight to the economic decline that keeps unfolding. The United Kingdom, for example, experienced its worst economy in literally 300 years:

    The economy in the U.K. contracted 9.9 percent in 2020, the worst year on record since 1709, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a report on Friday (Feb. 12). The overall economic drop in 2020 was more than double in 2009, when U.K. GDP declined 4.1 percent due to the worldwide financial crisis. Britain experienced the biggest annual decline among the G7 economies — France saw its economy decline 8.3 percent, Italy dropped 8.8 percent, Germany declined 5 percent and the U.S. contracted 3.5 percent. (emphasis added)

    Another source also notes that, “The Eurozone is being haunted by ‘ghost bankruptcies,’ with more than 200,000 firms across the European Union’s four biggest nations under threat when Covid financial lifelines stop.” In another sign of economic decline, this time in Asia, Argus Media reported in April 2021 that Japan’s 2020-21 crude steel output fell to a 52-year low.

    Taken alone, on a country-by-country basis, these are not minor economic downturns, but when viewed as a collective cumulative global phenomenon, the consequences are more serious. It is a big problem when numerous economies decline simultaneously. The world is more interdependent and interconnected than ever. What happens in one region necessarily affects other regions.

    One could easily go country by country and region by region and document many tragic economic developments that are still unfolding and worsening. Argentina, Lebanon, Colombia, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Jordan, South Africa, Nigeria, and dozens of other countries are all experiencing major economic setbacks and hardships that will take years to overcome and will negatively affect the economies of other countries in an increasingly interdependent world. And privatization schemes around the world are just making conditions worse for the majority of people. Far from solving any problems, neoliberalism has made everything worse for working people and society.

    It is too soon for capitalist ideologues to be euphoric about “miraculous economic growth and success.” There is no meaningful evidence to show that there is deep, significant, sustained economic growth on a broad scale. There is tremendous economic carnage and pain out there, and the scarring and consequences are going to linger for some time. No one believes that a big surge of well-paying jobs is right around the corner. Nor does anyone believe that more schemes to pay the rich under the banner of high ideals will improve things either.

    Relentless disinformation about the economy won’t solve any problems or convince people that they are not experiencing what they are experiencing. Growing poverty, hunger, homelessness, unemployment, under-employment, debt, inequality, anxiety, and insecurity are real and painful. They require real solutions put forward by working people, not major owners of capital concerned only with maximizing private profit as fast as possible.

    The economy cannot improve and serve a pro-social aim and direction so long as those who produce society’s wealth, workers, are disempowered and denied any control of the economy they run. Allowing major decisions to be made by a historically superfluous financial oligarchy is not the way forward. The rich and their representatives are unfit to rule and have no real solutions for the recurring crises caused by their outmoded system. They are focused mainly on depriving people of an outlook that opens the path of progress to society.

    There is no way for the massive wealth of society to be used to serve the general interests of society so long as the contradiction between the socialized nature of the economy and its continued domination by competing private interests remain unresolved. All we are left with are recurring economic crises that take a bigger and bigger toll on humanity. To add insult to injury, we are told that there is no alternative to this outdated system, and that the goal is to strive for “inclusive capitalism,” “ethical capitalism,” “responsible capitalism,” or some other oxymoron.

    But there is an alternative. Existing conditions do not have to be eternal or tolerated. History shows that conditions that favor the people can be established. The rich must be deprived of their ability to deprive the people of their rights, including the right to govern their own affairs and control the economy. The economy, government, nation-building, and society must be controlled and directed by the people themselves, free of the influence of narrow private interests determined to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone and everything else.

    The rich and their political and media representatives are under great pressure to distort social consciousness, undermine the human factor, and block progress. The necessity for change is for humanity to rise up and usher in a modern society that ensures prosperity, stability, and peace for all. It can be done and must be done.

    This article was posted on Friday, April 23rd, 2021 at 11:09pm and is filed under Bankruptcies, COVID-19, Debt, Economic Inequality, Economy/Economics, Federal Reserve, Food Security, Global Capitalism, Housing/Homelessness, Hunger, Joe Biden, Lies, Media, Minimum Wage, Neoliberalism, Opinion, Poverty, Ruling Elite, Student Loans, Unemployment.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Despite falling unemployment, America’s poverty rate just reached the highest level since the pandemic began

    The disconnect between poverty and unemployment is not surprising but as of last month, the U.S. poverty rate has been on an upward trajectory. It is a call for action around UBI.

    By: Quentin Fottrell

    Between February and March, the rate of poverty in the U.S. increased by 0.5 percentage points to 11.7%, resulting in the highest level since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, though the change wasn’t statistically significant. The second-highest rate of 11.6% was recorded in November 2020. These estimates were taken before the rollout of the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan.

    Since spring of 2020, real-time poverty data in the U.S. has been tracked every month by economists Bruce Meyer, from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, and James Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Economics and the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities.

    More than 100 million claims for unemployment insurance have been filed over the last year, the economists wrote with co-author Jeehoon Han of Zhejiang University in China, describing the government’s three stimulus packages.

    “While new UI claims fell sharply from April through July of last year, weekly claims have remained high since then at more than 1 million claims each week, about 5 times the pre-pandemic rate,” they added.

    ‘Many government benefits expired, unemployment insurance benefits are typically only about half of pre-job loss earnings, and nearly 5 million people have left the labor force since the start of the pandemic and, therefore, are not counted as unemployed.’

    Those who experienced the sharpest rise in poverty included children, white people, women, those with low education, and those in nearly half of U.S. states that have more restrictive unemployment-insurance payment policies. Last month marked the first time that poverty has been so acute for children, non-minorities and women, the report added.

    Under the American Rescue Plan, individuals making less than $75,000 a year in adjusted gross income received $1,400. The payments decreased for individuals earning $75,000 and up — and phased out completely for those making $80,000 or more and couples making $160,000 or more in adjusted gross income. It was the third such relief package over the last year.

    Unemployment fell to 6% in March 2021 from a seasonally adjusted 14.8% in April 2020, as poverty rose. Initial jobless claims filed traditionally through the states fell to a seasonally adjusted 576,000 from 769,000 in the prior week, the government said last week, marking the largest decline since August. Yet 16.9 million people are still reportedly collecting benefits.

    “This disconnect between poverty and unemployment is not surprising given that many government benefits expired, unemployment insurance benefits are typically only about half of pre-job loss earnings, and nearly 5 million people have left the labor force since the start of the pandemic and, therefore, are not counted as unemployed,” the economists added.

    In the last week of March, 20 million Americans getting by primarily due to the generosity of friends and family were more likely to be suffering from food insecurity, according to a separate analysis by Claire Zippel, a research analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank focused on the impact of budget and tax issues on inequality and poverty.

    The post Despite falling unemployment, America’s poverty rate just reached the highest level since the pandemic began appeared first on Basic Income Today.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Liberal Party overwhelmingly approves priority resolution for UBI in Canada

    With 8.7 per cent of Canadians living below the poverty line and thousands more struggling to make ends meet, backers of this policy say a UBI would “ensure that communities at risk are able to feel financially secure.”

    By: John Paul Tasker ·

    Liberal delegates to the party’s policy convention have overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution calling for the establishment of a universal basic income (UBI) in Canada, while also rejecting a call to hike the capital gains tax.

    By a vote of 77 per cent, Liberal members on hand for the policy plenary today backed a call to permanently implement an income program similar to the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB), which kept millions of people afloat with monthly cheques during the first wave of the pandemic.

    With 8.7 per cent of Canadians living below the poverty line and thousands more struggling to make ends meet, backers of this policy say a UBI would “ensure that communities at risk (including Indigenous peoples) are able to feel financially secure.”

    “Given the success of the CERB program, a UBI will assist seniors and low-income Canadians maintain an adequate standard of living, regardless of working status,” the resolution reads.

    Speaking to delegates assembled online, Alex Spears of the Young Liberals of Canada said a UBI would ensure the country’s “strong and robust social safety net is adapted to the 21st century,” adding that a program to send cheques to all families is “completely consistent with our values as a party.”

    He said the program would “put more cash in the hands of working Canadians and families” and could lift millions out of poverty.

    “UBI is not a silver bullet and it ought to be done in conjunction with many other progressive policies, but it is a critical step,” he said.

    Would a UBI work?

    The resolution does not say how such a costly program would be designed and implemented.

    Few jurisdictions around the world have successfully enacted programs that make regular payments to all citizens without means tests or work requirements.

    The parliamentary budget officer last week concluded that a universal basic income could almost halve Canada’s poverty rate in just one year, but at a steep cost: $85 billion in 2021-22, rising to $93 billion in 2025-26.

    While the resolutions are non-binding — the government ignored a 2018 convention vote to decriminalize all illicit drug use, for example — the policy endorsements could help inform future government spending and the Liberal Party’s election platform.

    The government has said it’s preparing to spend up to $100 billion this year to kick start the post-pandemic economy even after it reported a record-high deficit of $381 billion in the last fiscal year.

    While the idea of a UBI has gained traction in progressive circles — supporters maintain the massive price tag of such a program could be offset by dismantling existing provincial social welfare schemes — academics who study poverty reduction are split on its value.

    A 529-page report authored by researchers at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the University of Calgary concluded after a three-year investigation that a basic income for all is not the best way to address poverty and other social problems.

    Instead, the report said, governments should boost existing social support programs for vulnerable groups through improved disability assistance, dental care programs and more money to help the working poor pay rent. A more targeted approach to help the disadvantaged, as opposed to a universal program like UBI, would do more to lift people out of poverty, the report concluded.

    Conservative MP Ed Fast, the party’s finance critic, said pursuing a UBI would be a “risky and unknown experiment that will leave millions more Canadians behind.”

    He said the Liberal Party is trying to “reimagine” the Canadian economy while the country is still struggling with the pandemic.

    “The fact that UBI was supported at the convention this weekend is par for the course with Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. Instead of focusing on creating jobs, they are fixated on implementing risky, expensive and untested economic policies,” Fast said.

    Delegates endorse pharmacare, ‘green new deal’

    Liberal delegates also supported other progressive policies, such as the creation of a national pharmacare program and a “green new deal” to dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions.

    B.C. members backing the new green-friendly policies say Canada needs a “10-year national mobilization” plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 because “a changing climate threatens human life, healthy communities and critical infrastructure.”

    While this proposal is also light on specifics, its supporters are calling for an “urgent, transparent and inclusive consultation process” with workers, labour unions and businesses affected by the shift to cleaner fuel sources. Delegates agreed there should be a “just transition” for energy workers who will lose their jobs as a result of move to renewable energy.

    Inheritance tax, capital gains hike rejected

    At a time when all levels of government are searching for new revenue streams to offset the costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, Liberal delegates rejected a resolution from the party’s Ontario chapter to hike the capital gains tax.

    Currently, when an investment is sold — a stock, a mutual fund or any one of a number of other assets — 50 per cent of any increase in value is taxed as income.

    For example, if a person buys a share in a publicly traded company for $20 and sells it for $40 at a later date, then $10 will be added to a person’s income for tax purposes; the other $10 earned goes untaxed.

    This preferential tax treatment is designed to encourage people to make investments to drive economic growth and provide companies with easy access to capital. Critics maintain this unfairly benefits the rich.

    The Ontario chapter proposed reducing the capital gains tax exemption to zero — meaning all investment gains would be taxed as income.

    As part of the same proposal, the Ontario chapter pitched an “inheritance tax” on all assets over $2 million. That proposal did not specify the rate at which these assets should be taxed, or how and when such a system would take effect. Delegates rejected the idea along with the suggestion to increase the capital gains tax by a 62-38 margin.

    ‘Please make me pay more taxes’

    One delegate, Jake Landau, the president of the Don Valley West Young Liberals, said he considers himself “upper middle class” and he believes the current system is tilted toward the wealthy.

    “I am asking everyone, please make me pay more taxes. I want to pay my fair share,” he said.

    Another delegate named Linda — who also did not give her last name — said she worries that a change to the capital gains tax might open the door to the federal government taxing the sale of primary residences.

    In the last election, the Conservative Party warned that a Liberal government would look to cash in on rising home values by levying a capital gains tax on home sales to raise funds — a charge the Liberals have denied.

    Right now, sales of primary homes are exempt from capital gains taxes — meaning the owners don’t have to pay taxes on any increase in a home’s value when it’s sold. The same rules do not apply to secondary, seasonal or investment properties, which are taxed like other investments.

    “My concern with this is it is a blanket resolution,” said Linda. “There are many people relying on capital gains in their home in order to retire and not live in poverty.”

    ‘Long-term care can be a nightmare’

    Party members also overwhelmingly backed a policy proposal — with 97 per cent in favour — to reform the country’s long-term care home system, which has been hit hard with death and disease throughout this pandemic.

    “The pandemic has shown us that long-term care can be a nightmare,” said one unnamed Liberal delegate. “Seniors will do anything they can to stay out.”

    The policy calls on the federal government to introduce new legislation to set “enforceable” national standards to prevent a repeat of the COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care facilities that have claimed the lives of thousands.

    Kathleen Devlin of the Senior Liberals’ Commission said Canadians have been “horrified” by the conditions reported in long-term care homes throughout this health crisis.

    She said the Canadian Armed Forces report last summer from the pandemic front lines “embarrassed us all.” Soldiers reported that residents in some long-term care homes were bullied, drugged, improperly fed and in some cases left for hours and days in soiled bedding.

    “While it’s a provincial responsibility to deliver it, there needs to be federal leadership to give all Canadians equity when they’re at their most vulnerable,” Devlin said. “Sometimes we need a crisis to face what we already know.”

    According to the resolution, these new standards would address accommodation conditions, staffing levels, qualifications and compensation. The proposed legislation also would demand greater transparency in how homes are operated “and public accountability through random inspections and annual public reporting.”

    _____________________________________________________________________

    About the Author: John Paul (J.P.) Tasker is a reporter in the CBC’s Parliamentary bureau in Ottawa. He can be reached at john.tasker@cbc.ca. Follow J.P. on Twitter

    The post Liberal Party overwhelmingly approves priority resolution for UBI in Canada appeared first on Basic Income Today.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • 40 years on from the Brixton riots, the Police Bill could spark a summer of urban unrest

    On 10 April 1981, young Brixton residents rose up in response to police oppression, entrenched inequality, and marginalisation. The unrest soon spread to urban centres across the UK.

    The Scarman Report went some way to identifying the root causes of the rebellions. But successive governments have failed to deal with these issues, and have exacerbated them in many cases. 40 years of cuts and privatisation, an increasingly fascist state, and a devastating pandemic have resulted in a frustrated, volatile population with little to lose. If plans for the proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill go ahead, we could see history repeat itself.

    The battle for Brixton

    In 1981, the New Cross fire exacerbated community mistrust of the police. The arson attack – which killed 13 young Black people – was one of a series of racist attacks in the area and across Britain. Despite this, the police dismissed claims that the fire was an act of racial violence. After years of marginalisation, heavy-handed policing, and alienation, the community rose up on 2 March 1981, the Black People’s Day of Action. An estimated 20k people marched through London to demonstrate against Britain’s indifferent police, media, and government.

    Met Police’s ‘Operation Swamp ’81‘ further aggravated tensions in Brixton. The force used the ‘sus laws’ to harass young Black men in the area. These were laws which increased police powers to stop, search, and arrest anyone deemed ‘suspicious’. In early April 1981, plainclothes officers stopped and searched nearly 950 people in 5 days, often without reason. Following the stabbing of a young Black man, and increased police presence in the area on 10 April 1981, young people in Brixton rose up. The unrest in Brixton lasted for two days, but spread to urban centres across Britain. Namely Moss Side (Manchester), Toxteth (Liverpool), and St Paul’s (Bristol).

    “We’re just as powerless”

    Many of these uprisings were sparked by attempts to challenge arrests, raids, and assaults on young Black people. Hundreds were injured. The Runnymede Trust highlights that the Scarman Report – commissioned in response to the urban rebellions – “stressed the importance of tackling racial disadvantage and racial discrimination”. Black Past adds that the report “blamed the police for escalating the tensions”.

    Tony Cealy, who took part in the uprising as a 15-year-old, told the Voice:

    I suppose, looking back now it was an opportunity to tell the British state that we had had enough of being victimised by the police. It was an opportunity to fight back and let people know that enough was enough.

    Reflecting on the rebellion’s legacy, he added:

    We’re just as powerless as we were during the 1981 uprisings.

    Lessons learned

    Since the 1981 urban rebellions shook the nation, Britain has seen numerous major uprisings. These include the 1991 Handsworth uprising, the 2001 race riots in Bradford, and the 2011 Tottenham uprising following the police shooting of Mark Duggan. While varying in scale, location, and demographics, the causes of each violent uprising were essentially the same. Entrenched inequality, marginalisation, and unjust, heavy-handed policing.

    In the decade since 2011, privatisation and cuts have eroded our public services on an unprecedented scale. The government has created a hostile environment for immigrants and stoked the flames of Britain’s culture war. The nation has been ravaged by a deadly virus thanks to government incompetence. Unemployment is at a four-year high. We’re facing a child poverty crisis combined with dramatic cuts to youth support services. We’ve seen disproportionate heavy-handed policing of the pandemic and of peaceful protests. In other words, the nation is a tinderbox waiting to be set alight.

    And now the government plans to thrust the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill upon us. The draconian bill seeks to further increase police powers and criminalise vast swathes of the population. This includes children and young people, Traveller communities, rough sleepers, and anyone who dares to publicly protest against the encroaching police state. The breadth of the proposed bill’s impact is reflected in the diverse range of organisations that have come together to form a “massive coalition” to oppose it. Meanwhile, the police have met peaceful ‘Kill the Bill’ protesters with brutality, while the mainstream media has told a different story.

    If the government enshrines its draconian bill in law, rather than supporting communities and dealing with poverty, trauma, and unmet needs, it’s likely that we’ll see yet another long, hot summer of violent discontent.

    Featured image via john linden/YouTube

    By Sophia Purdy-Moore

    This post was originally published on The Canary.