The Poverty Trap

Income and wealth inequality is a “thing” now. Most people know how obscenely rich the rich have gotten, how the middle class is nearly eliminated and the working poor have increased threefold in the last few decades. I’ve also written about income and wealth inequality a few times before on Crime and Punishment because it’s a trend we have to question and understand in order to fix. It is not a good thing.

“President Biden’s fiscal year 2023 budget builds upon the administration’s previous historic investments in the arts and recognizes the critical role of the National Endowment for the Arts in supporting American communities,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD.

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) statement on this administration’s 2023 budget , proposing $203.55 million for the continued support of the NEA

I’m veering slightly off topic for today’s post…maybe. But if you are a talented artist (this means you, writers!) but struggling financially, or even doing well, but want to take your career to the next level… or you are a prospective college student without a trust fund and trying to piece together a financial aid package, you should explore the many grant options available.

While it is not totally “free money”—you have to work to get it, work to use it in the case of art grants or maintain a certain grade point for student grants. And most of the time for arts grants you must document how you have used the money, and the contribution your grants-funded project has made to the community. And if you think about each of these requirements, it’s only fair that grant recipients demonstrate they are worthy of the money, and how their use of the money has contributed to the greater community. And that’s what artists (and hopefully college grads) do—contribute to and enrich their local and greater communities.

When it comes time for government, philanthropic and business support of the arts, the funding must be generous. We know that in general, the arts enrich us as individuals and communities beyond measure. What is the value of a robust arts education and music programs in the public schools? Unfortunately, schools in poorer neighborhoods often don’t have the money for arts programs, or it is the first area that is cut when budgeting for the school year. That’s just one way the poor and marginalized communities are shortchanged, and it has a lasting impact.

Thankfully, President Biden just issued a proclamation establishing the month of October 2022, as The National Arts and Humanities Month, and jointly issued an Executive Order on “Promoting the Arts, the Humanities, and Museum and Library Services” —a first for our Executive Branch:

Under my Administration, the arts, the humanities, and museum and library services will be integrated into strategies, policies, and programs that advance the economic development, well-being, and resilience of all communities, especially those that have historically been underserved. 

Given this renewed emphasis and funding for the arts, this might be the prime time to apply for grants. For close to five years, I co-wrote grants for a small arts organization in Columbus, Ohio, which continues to bring acoustic singer-songwriters from across the country for Central Ohio Audiences to enjoy. I’m on my 27th year volunteering for this organization, and I learned so much about grant writing from my experience, I thought it would be helpful to share with you a few of the application and grant writing tips I’ve compiled.

But first, I’ll list some national arts organizations, and the government’s Pell Grant website that provide grants to artists and prospective college students for your review and possible application. (Note that Pell Grants, too, received a recent influx of funding!). And don’t forget to check your community for local arts organizations that make grants available for individual artists and groups. It might be best to start local, particularly for artist funding.

“The Arts . . . belong to all the people of the United States.”

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is the only arts funder in the United States—public or private—that provides access to the arts in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. jurisdictions. Each year, we award thousands of grants to provide everyone in the United States with diverse opportunities for arts participation.

See the NEA’s Grants page here: https://www.arts.gov/grants

* Arts Bridges doesn’t fund individual artists, but instead supports partners and projects to bring American art to a wider audience. Their site helps you learn how a different type of art funding works:

https://artbridgesfoundation.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvq2BiMjC-gIVGcmUCR3LQwUbEAAYASAAEgK_FfD_BwE

* At the top of this Google Search page is a list of national foundations that provide artist grant funding. Why not explore these opportunities?

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Art+funding+organizations&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOOQMZJMLCpRSCvNS8nMS1fIL0pPzMusSizJzM8rjjLzAzMScxQci0qKUSUVSjISSxQKivLLMlNSFYBmZBaXKKQXJeaVFJ9i5NLP1TcwMTCuzDU7xcgJ4pimpVTkQNmGBYVVRVBFRZVlyQUGUIn0lILiglOMvPrp-oaGGWkVZVWWFhVQOYssY8NiKDvDJLesCspOSSnPs4SyjcyTMkx_MUo64vJRAwvjIlbc0rfYJBlMP7YycRTfVVL_0eQ2xTkpS-3VjSoraXENAMVJRc0qAQAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi5tf2jysL6AhUyjYkEHRTACAAQ4qYDegQISRAI&biw=1920&bih=930&dpr=1

* Just one example of grants and fellowships specific to writers from Poets and Writers Magazine:

https://www.pw.org/tags/markets/grants

5. Pell Grants: https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/grants/pell

If you are an individual artist, it’s important to look at the big picture of your career and how it might be boosted if you receive a grant. Applying for and hopefully receiving a grant, no matter the size of the monetary award, could jump start your career. Any type of award provides you with funds to implement a new project you envision and/or resources to buy much needed equipment for your work. For example, I plan to apply for a grant from a local arts funding source to expand this newsletter. The award is fairly small, up to $1,200, but it would be enough to buy the equipment I need to expand my podcast and perhaps give me a bit of breathing room as I concentrate on research for this newsletter.

I was surprised to learn that the more you apply for and receive grants, the greater your chances for larger awards from the same organization, or fellowships and internships with other institutions and organizations awarding funds. If you work is good enough for one or more grants, you are then a more attractive candidate to get additional funds.

And finally, here are a few grant writing tips that I put together to help you fill out these sometimes daunting applications:

                                           TOP TEN (PLUS) GRANT WRITING TIPS

1. Know Your Funding Source

__ You must thoroughly research the grantor and where it gets the funds it distributes. The more you know about the grantor, the easier it is for you to demonstrate in your answers that you understand their organization and its needs. It really isn't about you!

__One way to conduct this research is by reading as much of the material on the grantor's entire website, in addition to the grant application and its instructions. This includes the grantor’s press releases if available, and recent articles written about their organization. Publicly funded organizations often go into great detail defining the terms used in their applications, and having a thorough understanding of these terms will help you better understand how to answer their questions.

Note: When money for grants is often reduced drastically in hard times, funding organizations often make changes to their grants and grant schedules to continue to function with reduced funds. These organizations may eliminate some grants and/or decrease or change the yearly grant cycles to reduce overall funding. And these things change at a moment's notice, so as you're researching and writing the application, check back frequently with the funder's website. (Once you have registered online for an application, you will usually receive notice of changes or updates by e-mail).

2. Pay Special Attention To The Organization's Mission Statement

__ It will help your chances if your answers directly address (within the framework of the questions) those ideas and principles that the organization cares about most.…

“We are all just walking each other home.” Ram Das

I can’t tell you (but I’m going to try), how thrilled I am to have found Substack, a unique and welcoming platform for writers, and that I decided to create Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor in America and publish my first post one year ago yesterday. I have been incredibly grateful for your interest and support over this last year—thank you!

See the multiple book giveaway for new paid subscribers at the end of this post!

I’ve explored a variety of topics through about 80 posts this past year, all relating in some fashion, to the issue of poverty, and why it remains pervasive in the United States, supposedly the richest nation on Earth. Although I am embarrassed to admit this, I have spent way too long navigating in and out of the poverty trap myself, since I left my full-time job as a state attorney. I guess I had a mid-life crisis, of sorts, and wanted to pursue freelance writing and generally, more creative endeavors. I realized when I turned 40, that I don’t have the “personality type” to be locked in an office for 45-plus hours a week for a paycheck, and 30 plus years for retirement. I gave it fifteen years, and for at least the last 10 of those years, I was miserable.

Fortunately, I have been able to pull off multiple creative projects in the last couple of decades, and this newsletter is my most recent and favorite — the research, analysis and writing I do to produce this newsletter is exactly what I am supposed to be doing and at exactly the right time. I am particularly excited about the deeper, broader research I will produce in the near future on a number of issues that directly impact you and your families. Whether you are always short of money, comfortable, with a steady income or comfortably wealthy, I guarantee that the unfairness in our society impacts you directly. My goal for this newsletter is for you to better understand how a few created this unfairness and to urge you to question the underlying assumptions that keep the status quo in place.

I’m glad I learned firsthand, a few hard truths about our system because now I can write about it! Here are just two of the injustices that continue to embed poverty in our economy and culture:

— The three-digit numbers that rule our lives, credit scores, are only lightly regulated (the three major credit score companies are for-profit) and their calculations lack the transparency necessary for consumers to understand them in any meaningful way. Despite the endless “tips” for improving your score and the costly charges to say, report your on-time rent payments to the credit reporting agencies, it seems to be a matter of whimsy whether your score rises or plummets. Although I have already written about this topic, I am planning a more deeply researched piece by the end of the year.

— Usury interest rates with no federal law to regulate their stratospheric climb. I wrote about this issue in my first few months writing this newsletter, and it’s only gotten worse as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates in an attempt to dampen inflation. Although high interest rates are an annoyance for the wealthy, it devastates the working class and those living at or below the poverty level. Should anyone pay 300 percent interest for a short term loan because they are desperate for cash? I’ll write about this issue again after gathering original sources from Congress on why usury rates continue to be legal and what changes are necessary to stop this outright theft.

Here are a few additional topics I plan to cover in upcoming posts and podcasts…plus much more:

— a personal story of a long ago acquaintance’s recent Covid death, and why universal health care is a necessity and a right;

— The legacy of HAMP , the Making Home Affordable Program, and its disappearing pledge to help underwater mortgage holders with principle reduction;

— How and why lending institutions find it so easy to violate the law, settle the ensuing lawsuits for almost nothing and then go right back to violating the law. It’s an abusive pattern that keeps on taking…

Buy the way, I think that our society should allow us the freedom to pursue our dreams without punishing an out-of-the-mainstream choice, like switching to a lower paying career or simply wanting to work less. And I’m not alone in this thinking. The late Barbara Ehrenreich was, and will remain one of the most prominent voices for the working class, through her writing, speaking and founding of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project (EHRP). Her writings have influenced my thinking tremendously, particularly her best selling book, “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America”. It’s a tour de force of her undercover work as a maid, waitress and Walmart worker, as she tries to survive on minimum wage jobs. She can’t, and she explains exactly why with empathy and incredible wit. See how you can win a copy of this book, below!

Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration and professor at the University of California, Berkley, has a phenomenal Substack newsletter and dozens of well-researched books to help you understand the great divide between the have and have nots, the power structure that creates and props up this divide, and what we must do to reverse course. I consider myself lucky that Mr. Reich is one of my subscribers (flabbergasted, really), and especially appreciate his support because I learn so much from him. One of his books that I recommend on my home page under “Resources” is, “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It”. It exposes the hypocrisy in our system and names the names behind it. See how you can win a copy of this book, below!

And the last of this trio, but certainly far from least, is the brilliant writer, Sherman Alexie, whose work has inspired me for decades. He writes a magical Substack newsletter, Sherman Alexie, where he publishes poetry, essays, short stories and whatever creative musings his brain and pen put out that day. I’m also super lucky to count Mr. Alexie as a subscriber to my newsletter along with his official recommendation of Crime and Punishment (I’m both flabbergasted and flummoxed) by his support! Learn how you can win a copy of “Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories” below!

I am grateful that you have given me the opportunity to research and write about what I think is one of the most important issues our country faces: the widening gap in income and wealth inequality, what has caused it and what we can collectively do to significantly narrow that gap and guide our country to a better and more just place. Your support through both free and paid subscriptions, and engagement through your thoughtful comments are what keep me going. In that vein, I’d like to give a special shout-out to three additional and incredible Substack writers: Jan Peppler from Finding Home, Audrey Hood, author of The Civic Librarian and Marlon Weems, writer of The Journeyman. I special thanks to each of you for your early and continued support of Crime and Punishment!

The first three, new paid subscribers (either a yearly, $50) subscription or a Founding Member ($100 subscription) will win their choice of one of the three books listed above. Note: you can upgrade from free to paid to win!

I’d love for you to share your thoughts in the Comment Section below. What topics have I written about that you thought were important? What topics would you like me to cover in the coming year? Please do tell…

And as always, I’d love to have you and your friends as members of our community. There’s no time like the present to sign up—thanks!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my wor…

“The Transportation Department is embarking on a national strategy to tackle rising traffic fatalities using new funding in the $1 trillion infrastructure law, addressing issues ranging from speed limits and street lighting to emergency medical care.”

The New York Times, January 2022

It’s not just automobile accidents that have risen, particularly in the last few years, it’s fatalities that have soared, too. The Department of Transportation has recognized this trend and has implemented a plan to begin addressing the various underlying causes…whatever those might be. It seems that it’s pure speculation at this point— data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show an across the board increase of auto accidents and fatalities, but not what is causing the unfortunate upward trend.

There’s a good hunk of money allocated to overall transportation safety and the funding comes from the (partially) bi-partisan infrastructure bill signed last year. You can review exactly how much money is earmarked for which projects in this U.S.DOT Fact Sheet. Fortunately, it looks like the DOT is taking a holistic approach to transportation safety, from funding for new bridges, to designing ways for states to track drivers with poor safety records and rolling out public safety advertising campaigns.

Some would characterize these programs as wasteful, big government spending, but I believe it’s a sound investment in out country’s future, and so do the majority of Americans..

It’s startling enough that auto accidents and fatalities have risen fairly dramatically in the last several years and we don’t know why, but the statistics also demonstrate that our poor and minorities have born the greatest losses. Is it because the poorest and people of color always pay the highest price when the economy tanks, a pandemic sweeps the world and/or inflation cripples our buying power?

David Leonhardt, a writer for The New York Times who often contemplates the issues surrounding poverty in our country, has written several times about the strange increase in traffic accidents and automobile fatalities, including an increase in pedestrian deaths, during the pandemic through today. His most recent article, published just a few days ago, takes on the disparity of traffic deaths among race and class. According to his research, one of the likely causes of the general uptick in auto fatalities , which started a few years pre-pandemic, is distracted driving—likely talking and/or texting on our favorite device: the cell phone. Then came the Covid shutdown and apparently many people saw less traffic on the roads as a license to speed. But the upward trend in fatalities continues, even after near normal traffic patterns have resumed and there’s plenty of cars on the road. The theories now include pent-up pandemic anger, increased drug and alcohol use, and even depression that cause drivers to take risks like not wearing seatbelts, disregarding traffic signs or driving while impaired or fatigued.

But what about the disparate impact of the rise in traffic injuries and fatalities on low income folks and people of color?

Lower-income people are much more likely to die in crashes, academic research shows. The racial gaps are also huge — even bigger on a percentage basis than the racial gaps on cancer, according to the C.D.C. David Leonhardt, 8/22/22 NewYork Times.

There’s not a good answer for these statistics either, other than to note that the poor typically drive less reliable and safe cars, have less money for needed car repairs and maybe do more driving, especially for work. And let me add some anecdotal evidence from my own experience: when you do not have enough money, you are constantly worrying about, well, not having enough money. Add the stressors of everyday life and maybe a few unexpected slap downs and you have the recipe for distracted driving, no cell phone use needed. Stress caused by poverty and hardship can cause accidents and injuries of all kinds, as I wrote in a previous post, and of course, getting behind the wheel of a car adds exponentially to the risks—not just for you, but for everyone else on the road with you.

I’ love to hear your thoughts on this cheery topic the weekend before Labor Day. What do you think are the causes of the spike in car crashes and fatalities these last few years? And am I, the U.S.DOT and other writers going in the right direction about why the poor and minorities are once again bearing the brunt?

All comments are welcome!

And as always…

I ask you to join me on our journey to understand the “why” behind the facts, so together we can help find solutions to our most pressing economic, racial and environmental issues and push to right the wrongs of our system. Each of us can thrive in this country, if we don’t allow ourselves to be beaten down by the very system we’re trying to make good in. One of the best ways to do this is to become an active member of your community and a participating citizen in our larger community.

And speaking of communities, you can also become a participating member of the Crime and Punishment community by signing up right now for a free or paid subscription. Thanks in advance for your support!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

One of the first New Deal programs President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law in the spring of 1933 was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). This voluntary federal program was designed to put young men back to work during the depression, and at the same time, contribute to forest management, flood control, various conservation projects and the development of state and national parks, forests and historic sites. The CCC put over three million men, typically ages 18-25, to work over the course of its nine year run.

It brought young men (and only men at the time), from all over our country together to work for a common goal: to better understand and then improve our environmental infrastructure. By its very nature, the CCC allowed our country’s youth to see what tangible good could be achieved when we worked together to protect and improve our natural resources. In short, it was one of the most successful government programs ever implemented and is a case study for future programs of that ilk.

Although much has been written about the CCC, the historian, Neil Maher, wrote a book about the program: Nature's New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement. His book places the CCC at the start of our country’s environmental awakening.

Spend a few minutes listening to Dr. Maher’s interview with the PBS American Experience program via the link directly below, and check out the additional information provided about the CCC. His discussion is fascinating.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/author-interview-neil-maher/

Today, we have a chance to reimagine the Civilian Conservation Corps. President Biden issued an Executive Order proposing the creation of the Civilian Climate Corps within a week after taking office, and a few progressive thinkers in Congress have introduced bills to create and fund this new government program. It was also slipped into the President’s Build Back Better Plan. This updated CCC calls for the nation to come together to help mitigate the ravages of climate change. According to The Sunrise Movement, a non-profit dedicated to reversing climate change:

The Civilian Climate Corps is a visionary policy that would create a government jobs program putting a new generation of Americans to work combatting the climate crisis… More specifically, it’s a program organized through the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture and aims to “conserve and restore public lands and waters, bolster community resilience, increase reforestation, increase carbon sequestration in the agricultural sector, protect biodiversity, improve access to recreation, and address the changing climate.” 

All laudable goals, and ones that are crucial to begin working on immediately, but the creation and funding for this generation’s CCC was cut from the climate bill, renamed the Inflation Reduction Act, recently signed into law by President Biden. Nevertheless, the President has moved forward with a plan to plant one billion new trees to help defray the loss of forests from the recent mega-fires ravaging the western U.S.

It’s interesting that those who study history and thus respect its power, most clearly see the need to resurrect and reimagine the successful government programs of the past, particularly one of the most successful, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and adapt it to our current needs. It turns out that Dr. Neil Maher, whose book and talk are mentioned above, advocates for the Civilian Climate Corps to move forward.

But it’s not just creating millions of jobs that pay a living wage, providing full health insurance and directly working to reverse climate change that makes the creation of the Climate Corps essential, it is the sense of community it will foster when people from diverse backgrounds come together to work toward a single goal, particularly when that goal is not a military one. We might realize how vital it is that we come together as a country to achieve a common good, that we should stand together rather than fall, bitterly divided. I’ve discussed in previous posts the need for a national public service campaign of some sort to help unify our country, and I’m far from the only one who feels this way.

Last year when President Biden first proposed the Civilian Climate Corps, a New Yorker piece said it was an idea the entire country could get behind.

But the potential of this idea, if the record of the original C.C.C. is any guide, goes far beyond the advertised purposes. A modern-day C.C.C. could be an attention-getting reminder of something that a great many Americans seem to have forgotten: the capacity of government to be an instrument of the common good.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this proposed new government program, the Civilian Climate Corps. Please leave your ideas in the comment section below. Let ‘er rip!

And speaking of communities, you can also become a participating member of the Crime and Punishment community by signing up right now for a free or paid subscription. Thanks in advance for your support!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

“Misclassification of workers as independent contractors is a pervasive and extensive problem in the United States. According to a report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor, as many as 30% of employers, and perhaps more, have misclassified some workers, affecting millions of workers, disproportionately workers of color.” Economic Policy Institute, 2021.

The term “misclassification” sounds too much like a euphemism considering what happens to workers when they are wrongly classified as independent contractors, or something less than a full-time or part-time employee. And the word seems to imply that the choice to misclassify is a mistake, when in fact, it is often a purposeful decision made by a company or educational institution to save money.

The Department of Labor (USDOL) estimates about 36% of all workers in 2020 were independent contractors or “gig” workers, totaling approximately 59 million Americans. These numbers have increased since then, and are expected to increase even further in the next few years. However, a good percentage of these workers have been misclassified and should be correctly designated as employees.

The Department of Labor defines two types of worker classifications: employee (full-time and part-time) and independent contractor, and from their respective descriptions, it appears at first glance to be a stark contrast. But it’s difficult to tell the difference in practice because there are no straight forward definitions for each classification, it is rather a list of likely “attributes” for one classification versus the other. Here’s a handy chart provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, that lists these attributes for each category.

It’s important to understand that the differences between the classifications are substantive, like how much control an employer has over how and where you work. An employer can slap any label it wants on its business operations, but it’s the substance that matters. I’ll share an example from my lawyer days at the Ohio EPA: some employees would stamp agency documents with the word “Confidential”, in bright red, no less, thinking (or at least hoping) that the label would actually make those documents confidential, and I would not disclose them with a public information request. Of course, it is the substantive content of the document that makes it confidential or a public record.

The Economic Policy Institute and the USDOL decry the impacts of misclassification:

Misclassification denies employees access to critical benefits and protections they are entitled to – overtime, the minimum wage, family and medical leave and, in some cases, safe workplaces. It generates substantial losses to the U.S. Treasury and the Social Security and Medicare funds, as well as to state unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation funds. It cheats every taxpayer. It undermines the entire economy.

In other words, employers who classify all or some of its’ workers as independent contractors, whether mistakenly or purposefully, cheat the worker out of much-needed benefits (including pay raises and bonuses), job protections required for employees, and cheats the government out of money by failing to pay the treasury Medicare, Social Security and unemployment benefits on behalf of those workers. The only one who “wins” in this situation are the employers because they’re saving money, at least in the short term. But if you care about current and retired workers and our economy as a whole, you’ll believe, like I do, there are no winners under this misclassification scheme.

Until Covid and the Cares Act, Independent Contractors also did not qualify to receive unemployment benefits. Thankfully, when our economy almost completely shut down, Congress recognized the large number of gig workers would need unemployment benefits too, and the Cares Act extended that crucial benefit to millions of Independent Contractors, albeit temporarily — the Cares Act expired in September 2021.

Unfortunately, it gets more complicated than just two, USDOL worker classifications. The college where I have worked as a part-time writing tutor since 2016, for example, classifies its tutors as “part-time casual employees”, which is an unofficial designation used fairly often by educational institutions. The difference here is between the terms “part-time” and “part-time casual”, not between employee or independent contractor.

The definition of “casual” labor, according to Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute, is not found in any state statutes, but rather gleaned from court cases that have ruled on the issue:

…a term of art used to refer to work that does not further the business of the employer, typically done on a one-time or very sporadic basis… employment may be considered casual in character if the person is employed only occasionally, at comparatively long and irregular intervals, for limited and temporary purposes, or if the hiring in each instance is a matter of special engagement.

The tutoring where I work is in no way sporadic—I am assigned specific hours every semester, and helping the college’s students with their course work certainly furthers the business of the college. Other than during Covid, I use the college’s facilities and tools to tutor, I am paid hourly, and the college deducts all taxes, including Medicare and retirement from my pay. It was only in 2021, after I had worked there 5 years, that the school gave the tutors a small raise, and inexplicably, sick leave, which alone, negates the “casual” designation. If we have been misclassified, I and my fellow tutors have missed out on years of raises, periodic bonuses, paid holidays and other paid time off.

And what do you do to address a situation like this, particularly if you are not a member of a union, without risking some form of retaliation?

One way is to report your situation to your state’s department of labor. Here’s the state lookup tool with contact information: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/contacts

Do you think misclassification is a big issue for today’s individual workers, retired workers and our economy as a whole? Please share your thoughts in the Comment Section below.

And…

I ask you to join me on our journey to understand the “why” behind the facts, so together we can help find solutions to our most pressing economic, racial and environmental issues and push to right the wrongs of our system. Each of us can thrive in this country, if we don’t allow ourselves to be beaten down by the very system we’re trying to make good in. One of the best ways to do this is to become an active member of your community and a participating citizen in our larger community.

And speaking of communities, you can also become a participating member of the Crime and Punishment community by signing up right now for a free or paid subscription. Thanks in advance for your support!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

What’s the holdup, then? According to statistics from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2021, “…renewable energy sources accounted for about 12.2% of total U.S. energy consumption and about 20.1% of electricity generation.”

Although these numbers for our use of renewable energy sources are expected to increase slightly in the next few years, and in the coming decades we are committed to global agreements to reduce our carbon emissions, we’re still way behind most other industrialized countries in our use of renewable resources, like wind, solar and hydro generated power as our sources of energy.

(See links at the end of the post to EIA charts that show overall U.S. energy consumption by source and sector and a chart that shows U.S. renewable energy consumption, also broken down by source and sector. If you can figure out where all those lines go, I’ll want to talk with you.)

Substack’s own Bill McKibben, prolific author and guru of all things climate change, wrote in a recent post that the cost of renewable energy is plummeting across the globe. Using wind energy as an example, he noted that China installed a whopping “80% of all new off shore wind capacity” in 2021. Europe came in a distant second, and it appears the U.S. is lumped in with the final category, “the rest of the world” which didn’t make much of a showing by comparison.

Yet a few members of Congress, by their fossil-fuel greed and inept negotiating strategies have stalled any real action our government could take on climate change.

This CNN article from less than two weeks ago examines how negotiations broke down on the latest climate bill:

As negotiations came to a head mid-week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made a number of deep concessions to try to woo Manchin, offering to significantly reshape the bill to fit Manchin's wishlist, according to a Democratic source briefed on the negotiations -- channeling the revenue to tax reform; striking electric vehicle tax credits; adding additional measures to encourage more oil and gas drilling.

Schumer made "concession after concession to at least get the best we could get," Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota told CNN. "To have Sen. Manchin walk away from that good-faith negotiation was stunning to me."

Wait. “Stunning”? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, that Senator Joe Manchin, coal baron bought by the fossil fuel industry, would walk away from the Democrats’ good faith efforts to, well, give him everything he wants.

Here’s a quick glance back at how the “negotiations” unraveled with Senator Manchin on what would have been president Biden’s signature piece of legislation, the Build Back Better Act.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., certainly drives a hard bargain. After months of negotiations on the Build Back Better Act, he’s rejected every iteration his fellow Democrats have put forward. Now Manchin is reportedly rejecting the plan he himself presented to President Joe Biden last month. MSNBC, January 11, 2022

Do you see a pattern here?

It is important to digress about the dead-in-the-water Build Back Better Plan and Climate Bill because this inaction is in direct opposition to our immediate need to confront climate change—the world is currently besieged with droughts, wildfires, deadly heat waves and regular and massive weather events that over the last dozen years: “…have cost the US more than $100 billion per year on average during that time -- almost double what they averaged in the decade before.” And some members of Congress are still claiming that the cost to combat climate change is too expensive?

It’s also important to consider the full picture, because the potential for green energy jobs is huge and can transform both our entire job market and individual communities that were built around the fossil fuel industry. This Brookings Institution report from 2021 is a great resource for understanding the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources and what it means for our jobs picture and our communities.

The shred of good news, here, is the U.S. is already experiencing decent job growth in clean energy technology:

Other energy industries, such as the electric vehicle and renewable energy sectors, also experienced significant job growth in the last few years:

* Electric vehicles jobs increased by 26.2%, adding 21,961 new jobs.

* Hybrid electric vehicle jobs increased by 19.7%, adding 23,5777 new jobs.

* Solar energy jobs increased by 5.4%, adding 17,212 new jobs.

* Wind energy jobs increased by 2.9%, adding 3,347 new jobs.

* Transmission, distribution and storage jobs increased by 1.9%, adding 22,779 new jobs.

From the 2022 U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) Statistics from 2021

Let me ask again—what’s the holdup on our transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources? Why isn’t the United States a leader in the race to save our planet? Do we lack the intelligence, the political will, the creativity?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the Comment Section below.

And speaking of communities, you can also become a participating member of the Crime and Punishment community by signing up right now for a free or paid subscription. Thanks in advance for your support!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

“Inflation has reached 40-year highs just as many vulnerable families are readjusting to life without a boost from government stimulus or protections to keep them from being evicted.”

The Washington Post, July 3, 2022

I’ve written twice previously about inflation and its impact on the poor for Crime and Punishment: How Will Americans Keep a Roof Over Their Heads; and a Crash Course on Inflation. And I’ve probably mentioned it a few more times in other posts because inflation has an outsized impact on those living near the poverty level or pay-check-to paycheck. Not surprisingly, the latest statistics show that inflation also is having an even greater impact on fixed income seniors. According to a recent CNN Business report, seniors are depleting their retirement accounts, returning to part time work and even skipping meals to stretch their social security check each month in an attempt to cover the rising costs of goods and services.

For those of all ages who don’t own their home outright, rising housing costs, which “…accounted for 40% of the price hikes in the latest [May 2022] core inflation numbers.” have made losing that roof over their heads a constant threat. As reported in The Washington Post, “Every $100 increase in median rent is associated with a 9 percent increase in the estimated homelessness rate, according to a 2020 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.” And that’s before rent prices soared nearly 18% on average in the last two years. The small pandemic and post-pandemic wage increases are not keeping up with inflation, and in fact, our current inflation rate has erased most wage earner gains, and then some.

PBS segment describing the impact of soaring rental prices in nearly every state.

It’s interesting that rising rental rates did not start post-pandemic and did not start in an economy bursting with inflation. Monthly rents were reportedly rising in the spring of 2015, according to an article by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIH) titled: “Rental Inflation Drives Homelessness and Housing Instability For the Poor”. At the time of this article’s publication on May 1, 2015, inflation was extremely low—the “price index for personal consumption expenditures” rose just 0.3% from the previous year, yet in that same timeframe, rents averaged a 3.5% rise.

Despite downward pressures on prices in the rest of the economy, the cost of rental housing continues to rise. Rental price increases are a direct result of the mismatch between supply and demand. NLIHC, 2015

This article takes us back to the Great Recession to explain how demand crashed and then rose again as the housing market and overall economy climbed out of the recession. We know that millions of Americans were forced out of their homes during the housing market crash through foreclosure, and most hit the rental market if they were able. And builders were just not able to keep up with the extra demand.

As usual, the poor were hit the hardest: “Nationally [in 2015] there are 10.3 million extremely low income renter households, but only 3.2 million rental homes that are available and affordable to them.”

Now, in an economy with low unemployment and raging inflation, there is once again a shortage of housing, particularly affordable housing necessary for these same groups of people— low wage earner families, seniors, the disabled and veterans. And demand for rental housing will only continue to increase as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to curb inflation, pricing out first-time homebuyers.

Meanwhile, back in the nation’s capital…

The measures the Biden administration has proposed to build the affordable housing our lower income citizens so desperately need to keep them off the streets, awaits in the Build Back Better Plan, now buried in the bowels of the Senate. The Plan allocates $150 billion to “create and refurbish millions of affordable homes”, but it continues to languish.

President Biden recently proposed a five year plan to close the housing gap through a combination of administrative and legislative actions. Once again, though, it primarily pushes incentives to businesses to develop low income housing, rather than supplying funds directly to low income people. The plan does contain other provisions, vaguely stated, that intend to curb corporate ownership of apartment and single family home rentals. It is not clear whether any progress has been made on this plan since it was issued in mid-May of this year.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these issues in the Comment Section below. Is our government doing enough to help those teetering on the brink of homelessness through no fault of their own? Do landlords, including the mega investment firms that are gobbling up single family homes and renting them at exorbitant prices, have an obligation to cut back on their rent hikes just a tad, so seniors aren’t thrown out into the street?

And please have a read…

I ask you to join me on our journey to understand the “why” behind the facts, so together we can help find solutions to our most pressing economic issues and push to right the wrongs of our system. Each of us can thrive in this country, if we don’t allow ourselves to be beaten down by the very system we’re trying to make good in. One of the best ways to do this is to become an active member of your community and a participating citizen in our larger community.

And speaking of communities, you can also become a participating member of the Crime and Punishment community by signing up right now for a free or paid subscription. Thanks in advance for your support!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

“Once you request service from a new company, your old company cannot refuse to port your number, even if you owe money for an outstanding balance or termination fee.” Federal Communications Commission

A huge thank-you to Audrey Hood, Substack’s own reference librarian, for allowing me to guest post on her wonderful newsletter: The Civic Librarian. This post went live on her Substack just a few days ago, and it received such a positive reaction, I thought I’d repost it here.

I am thrilled that someone with Audrey’s expertise takes the considerable time and effort to focus and distill the voluminous amount of government resources for her readers, like me, to help us become better informed and engaged citizens.

For this guest post, I thought I’d mesh my passion for consumer protection, Audrey’s focus on government information and everyone’s attachment to that ubiquitous device: the cell phone.

Last week, a friend of mine attempted to switch cell phone carriers and at the same time keep his current phone number. Unfortunately, he was literally given the “runaround” and days of in-person, online and telephone discussions ensued. He initially went in person to his new carrier’s store, and his current wireless service store happened to be directly across the street. This unfortunate scenario had him running back and forth between his current provider and his proposed new carrier to retrieve the growing list of information supposedly necessary to make the switch.

This is not how changing wireless carriers is supposed to work.

Most of us have the general idea that we can keep our telephone number if we want to change wireless carriers (provided we are not moving from our geographical area). And with rising rates for every service, consumers today make the effort to switch to get a better rate and/or a better plan, so changing wireless service providers has become commonplace.

The reason we know we can keep our phone number when we switch to another service provider is because most wireless service companies advertise that service on its websites, almost as if it were a perk that comes with doing business with them. But in fact, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires by rule that when you switch carriers, your current wireless number must be “ported” to your new carrier.

(Note: I scoured numerous (but not all) wireless carrier websites, and Verizon’s website is the only one of those I reviewed that directly states the FCC requires portability of your existing number).

In 1996, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act which, in part, “imposed the duty to offer telephone number portability on all telecommunication owners.” In other words, you almost always get to keep your phone number when you change carriers within the same zip code. Congress realized that not being able to keep your number stifled competition among the few existing telecommunications companies at the time, and discouraged new companies from entering the bourgeoning market.

Additionally, consumer groups correctly pointed out that increased competition among more companies would likely lower rates, which added to the laws’ public approval. But quick government action was not to be—telephone companies fought the law in court, and the FCC pushed back the final implementation date of the law for over eight years.

In the late 1990’s cell phone use was in its infancy, and by 2004, when the 1996 Act finally went into effect, “only 2% of Americans had gone fully wireless with their phone service. In 2021, nearly 63% of us have cut the cord and rely only on wireless phones.

One of the nifty consumer resources provided by government agencies are its guides, which lay out the practical application of agency rules or policies and are written in plain spoken language rather than industry jargon. The FCC, for example, has both a guide and information sheet for its phone number portability rule so you can easily understand how the transfer is supposed to work in practice, and exactly what you need to do and what information you need to provide to get your current phone number transferred to your new wireless carrier. It’s clear that arming yourself with knowledge is the best way to prevent companies from giving you the run-around.

And finally, while we’re speaking of cell phone numbers, it’s apparently not smart to give them out as frequently as most of us do. Because our cell phones rarely leave our hands and because we almost never change our phone numbers thanks to their portability, our numbers have become one of our most important identifiers.

Brian X. Chen, the lead personal tech reporter for The New York Times, allowed a mobile security company to see what personal information could be gleaned from his cell phone number alone. The answer is a lot, including full names of parents and other relatives, current and past addresses and phone numbers and criminal record (or lack thereof). And that information is just what is legally accessible—hackers could use that information and more to do a lot of damage. According to Mr. Chen, “…your phone number may have now become an even stronger identifier than your full name.”

The upshot, then, is to take your phone number with you when you switch wireless carriers, but divulge it to as few entities as possible.

And here’s another reminder to visit The Civic Librarian and sign up for a subscription immediately! You don’t want to miss a single issue of this fantastic newsletter!

I’d love to hear what you think about these issues. Have you changed mobile carriers and requested to keep you phone number? Any glitches with the transfer? How often do you give out your telephone number, and do you ever think, “Maybe I shouldn’t?”

Let me know in the comment section below.

And please have a read…

I ask you to join me on our journey to understand the “why” behind the facts, so together we can help find solutions to our most pressing economic issues and push to right the wrongs of our system. Each of us can thrive in this country, if we don’t allow ourselves to be beaten down by the very system we’re trying to make good in. One of the best ways to do this is to become an active member of your community and a participating citizen in our larger community.

And speaking of communities, you can also become a participating member of the Crime and Punishment community by signing up right now for a free or paid subscription. Thanks in advance for your support!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

“I have frequently amused myself both in public and private companies, with silently remarking the spacious errors of those who speak without reflecting.” Thomas Paine from Common Sense

My guess is Thomas Paine is spinning in his grave as he reads social media and the myriad other sources where we get our information these days, and recognizes the millions of Americans who continue to “speak without reflecting”. I’m starting to feel sorry for him.

As we attempt to “celebrate” our independence from Britain today, in the midst of our current political turmoil, I hope you’ll enjoy (at least a bit) doing some of your own reflecting by reading the pieces I’ve selected below. Some are quite traditional and a few others veer from our current dialogue about patriotism and the like. As Robert Reich so eloquently describes in his recent Substack post, and I’m paraphrasing, there are deeper and more meaningful forms of patriotism than standing for the National Anthem and saluting the flag.

It takes substantive work to be patriotic in a participatory democracy, and that work includes at least having a basic knowledge of American and World history and how our government is supposed to function, at least in theory.

— First up for today is Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which in January 1776, urged the colonists to make a clean break from Britain, and the sooner the better.

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/paine-common.asp

— The Declaration of Independence.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

— Seventy -six years after the ratification of the Declaration of Independence, on July 5, 1852, Fredrick Douglas was invited to speak at a public gathering in his hometown of Rochester, New York. Don’t miss reading the full text of his speech.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927t.html

— Chief Joseph’s surrender to General Nelson A. Miles, October 5, 1877 in Montana, just 40 miles short of the Canadian border, where his tribe, the Nez Perce, were attempting to flee. What could possibly make up for this cruelty?

I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed; Looking-glass is dead. Too-hul-hul-suit is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men, now, who say ’yes’ or ’no’[that is, vote in council]. He who led on the young men [Joseph’s brother, Ollicut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people–some of them–have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find; maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever!

https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/october-05/

And now for what I believe is true bravery and patriotism: Taking a moral position against your own self-interest and testifying under oath and in public.

From Oval Office dining room to the backstage area at the White House Ellipse, she [Cassidy Hutchinson] explained how Trump and the people around him reacted to key moments leading up to the pro-Trump riot, quoting extensively from her interactions with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows as well as from discussions she overheard involving the president. The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2022/cassidy-hutchinson-jan-6-hearing-testimony-illustrated/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_politics

And finally for today (Are you ready to barbecue yet?), is a piece on critical thinking by Patrick Mattimore and published in Psychological Science, titled “Fighting Truthiness with Critical Thinking”. I used this handout as an initial basis of discussion in my writing classes. A fellow adjunct instructor, whose name I am unsure of, gave me this piece, and I remain grateful for her/his generosity.

What stands out in this brief discussion of a critical thinker is the word “attitude”. Mattimore uses the outline of psychologist David Levy, professor at Pepperdine University to expand on what he believes are the attitudes of a critical thinker. In other words, it is your perspective, the way you view information that makes you a critical thinker…or not.

Levy identifies a variety of attitudes that characterize critical thinkers, including questioning assumptions, discerning hidden biases, avoiding overgeneralizations, developing tolerance for ambiguity, and exploring alternative perspectives.

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/fighting-truthiness-with-critical-thinking

I’d love to hear your ideas about celebrating July 4th, and the issues I raised here. What matters to you? Let me know in the Comment Section below.

And as always, if you are not already a free or paid subscriber, right now is the time to lend your voice to our community. Thanks!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.