Discriminatory housing, zoning, and other policy choices are driving the dramatic rise of racialized poverty and segregation across the United States, with the number of people residing in low-income “ghettos, barrios, and slums” nearly doubling in the 21st century alone, a new report finds. Architecture of Segregation, authored by the Century Foundation fellow Paul Jargowsky, concludes that midsized cities of …
Nathan Collins – Three in Five Americans Have Experienced Poverty-Level Incomes
Income inequality is growing in the United States. The poor are getting poorer, and the rich, richer. But that’s only part of the story: A new study shows that three out of every five Americans will spend at least one of their prime working years in poverty. “There’s a great deal of fluidity in the income distribution,” says study co-author Thomas Hirschl, a professor of development sociology …
What Recovery? Report Reveals Rising Poverty for Children in America – Sarah Lazare
There are roughly three million more U.S. children living in poverty today than during the outbreak of the Great Recession in 2008, and the so-called economic recovery has bypassed children of color altogether, a harrowing new report reveals. The 2015 Data Book, released Tuesday by the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, evaluates information from numerous federal agencies from 2008 to …
Turning Point – 07.20.15
Pilgrimage.
71% of the World’s Population Survives on Less Than $10 a Day
Global poverty has halved over the last decade, but a staggering 71% of the world’s population remains low-income or poor, living off $10 or less a day. These are among the findings of a new Pew Research Center reportthat looked at changes in income for 111 countries between 2001 and 2011. The report, “A Global Middle Class Is More Promise Than …
Towards a Better Food System – Nora McKeon
How we have landed ourselves with a global food system that generates hunger alongside of obesity, and what can we do about it? The universal EXPO 2015 that opened in Milan on May 1 with the theme of “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” is placing its bets on “best technologies” and “free trade” to do the job. The US …
Life Amidst Poverty – Andrea Fuller
I have lived in poverty both as a child and as an adult, and I can say with full confidence that it is a life-crushing force. I hated it. “Poverty” is also one of the most misunderstood labels that gets slapped onto individuals without their approval—cast upon them simultaneously by both unseen and more visible forces of society. Poverty is …
Urban Slums: A Death Trap For Poor Children – Valentina Ieri
It’s called the urban survival gap – fuelled by the growing inequality between rich and poor in both developing and developed countries – and it literally determines whether millions of infants will live or die before their fifth birthday. Save the Children’s annual report on the State of the World’s Mothers 2015 ranks 179 countries and concludes that that “for babies born …
Better breakfast, better grades
A new study from the University of Iowa reinforces the connection between good nutrition and good grades, finding that free school breakfasts help students from low-income families perform better academically. The study finds students who attend schools that participate in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s School Breakfast Program (SBP) have higher achievement scores in math, science, and reading than students …
Civil Society Denounces World Bank’s Conference on Land & Poverty
Oakland, CA — Every spring for the last fifteen years, the World Bank has organized the “Conference on Land and Poverty,” which brings together corporations, governments and civil society groups. The aim is ostensibly to discuss how to “improve land governance.” Whereas the 16th conference will take place in Washington D.C. from March 23 to 27, hundreds of civil society organizations are …