The Poverty Trap

Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to collectively make change.

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State Minimum Wages Play A Part: Millions of American Workers Are Not Earning Enough To Afford Any Kind Of Housing.

“Twenty states have a minimum hourly wage of $7.25, the federal rate that hasn't been changed since 2009. But lawmakers and voters in dozens of states have set higher minimum wages. Here are the current rates as of Jan. 1, 2025.” U.S. Department of Labor

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We know that homelessness stands adjacent to poverty, ever-present in the lives of at least 40 million Americans who live paycheck-to paycheck, primarily out of necessity rather than budgeting choices. This figure overlaps with those millions of Americans who live at or below the federal poverty line, estimated at the end of 2023 to be close to 37 million people, including those working part-time or who are unemployed. I’ve written about the homeless crisis in the United States several times, including over a year ago when the prevalence of folks living in their cars (euphemistically dubbed ‘vehicle residency”) began an uptick.

Jeremy Ney, author of American Inequality has written numerous times about the homeless crisis, most recently early this year when he published a post analyzing the 2024 HUD statistics that documented the recent rise in homelessness, the likely causes for the spike, and specific strategies to decrease the homeless population. These posts, their sources and statistics provide a solid background to better understand why homelessness is continuing to increase in the United States and the possible strategies to reverse this trend.

In 2018, the National Institute of Health (NIH) published as part of a larger study, a summary titled, “The History of Homelessness in the United States” that provides an interesting, chronological narrative of how our definitions and cultural notions of homelessness changed, from “tramps” and “hobos” in the late 1800’s through the HIV/AIDS epidemic and President Obama’s study and resulting written plan published in 2017, to end homelessness in the United States.

Adding to these statistics and analysis on homelessness, and perhaps more importantly, reframing them a bit, is an opinion piece recently published in The New York Times titled: “America Is Pushing Its Workers Into Homelessness”, by Brian Goldstone, who is also the author of the forthcoming book: “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless In America”.

Although his book is not out yet, Goldstone’s guest essay in The Times gives us a good idea of its theme: it is our system (and I’ll say “our system ‘rigged’ in favor of the wealthy and against the poor) that is literally pushing people into poverty and homelessness. What he says here is telling:

For decades, lawmakers have stood by while rents soared, while housing was turned into an asset class for the wealthy, while worker protections were shredded and wages failed to keep up. The NY Times Opinion piece, Brian Goldstone, March 1, 2025.

Housing as “an asset class for the wealthy”. That statement is as shocking as ‘the working homeless”. We’re not just allowing, but incentivizing big business and wealthy individuals to take over any affordable housing that already exists (think Blackstone buying hundreds of thousands of what used to be starter homes and apartment buildings, then renting them at jacked-up prices). Read all about Blackstone’s profits made on the backs of the poor in California and beyond, here.

Yes, there is a severe lack of affordable housing in the United States, but what does affordable mean when you are working 40 hours a week at $7.25 an hour ($15,080 a year, gross—poverty level), or at the highest minimum wage in the country in Washington state of $16.66 an hour ($34,654 a year, gross—still barely scraping by even for one person, but well above earning caps for government assistance).

According to a recent, National Low Income Housing Coalition report cited in Goldstone’s essay, there isn’t a single state, city or county in the country where working a full-time, minimum wage job will allow you to rent a mid-priced, two bedroom apartment. For that privilege, one would have to earn $32.11 an hour. By the way, the spike in rent prices far exceed any wage increases in the last four decades. In fact, according to testimony presented before Congress by Mathew Desmond, Pulitzer prize-winning author of Evicted and Poverty By America on behalf of the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, “rent prices have exceeded income gains by 325 percent” since 1985.

Do you see the number of studies and government and private sector reports on homelessness I’ve mentioned here —and these few are just the tip of the iceberg. Well-intentioned people are doing a lot of talking, surveying and report writing without generating much concrete action, it seems. Although some laws and policies have been implemented over the years, these apparently haven’t had much of an impact because the homeless population in the richest country on earth is growing.

And people are suffering. Just last month, two young children in Detroit died of carbon monoxide poisoning while their parents’ van was parked in a casino garage. The family was homeless, and according to the AP article: “The children’s mother had called the city on Nov. 25 to say their temporary housing was about to end, but no one followed up and she didn’t call back, [Detroit] Mayor Mike Duggan said.”

Goldstone’s essay also discusses, perhaps most significantly, what he believes contributes to the current misunderstanding of our homeless population, including the purposeful shaping of our national narrative about the homeless, starting with studies commissioned during the Reagan administration. A review of these studies decades later shows that the responsibility for the growing homeless population was shifted to the homeless themselves (they were mentally ill, abused alcohol and drugs, were just plain lazy), rather than the social structure designed by our elected officials, like the slashing of federal programs to help the poor, as just one example. As Goldstone says, the cruelty of cutting money to social programs is a lot easier to justify when it’s the recipients who are to blame. This is what I mean when I’ve repeatedly said that our culture surrounding poverty has to change. We need to “think different” about the poor and change our policies accordingly.

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Let me know what you think about our growing homeless population and what actions our elected officials, or others, should take to end this national embarrassment and suffering. Please leave your thoughts in the Comment Section below.

This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thank you! And a hearty “thank you” to my latest free and paid subscribers—I appreciate your support!

Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to collectively make change.

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“Republicans and Democrats don’t need to come together, they need to come to the rescue.” Scott Galloway, CNN February 26, 2025

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Still photo from CNN interview with fired USAID worker published February 27, 2025. She didn’t mention the loss of her job, but the loss to the world of the care USAID provided.

The barrage of disastrous news last month has me clinging to a a few bright spots peaking through the rubble, like fired federal workers embracing the greater good of their work, smart people (including a few elected officials), speaking out directly and forcefully against government tyranny…and those who quickly and kinda humorously call out the lies, particularly those oozing out of the Oval Office.

Here are several video interviews and links that have kept me (somewhat) hopeful during February…

— CNN often interviews Scott Galloway, an entrepreneur and marketing professor at NYU Stern School of Business, who has a knack for both in-depth-analysis of current issues and the ability to whittle these issues into creative soundbites. In this interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper a few days ago, Galloway discussed what appears to be our government’s growing kleptocracy in the context of mass government layoffs, and Republicans’ proposed slashing of social programs paired with large tax cuts for the rich. The ultra wealthy, like the tech CEO’s “paraded” at Trump’s Inauguration failed to realize that it was American values that gave them their wealth, Galloway said.

We don’t just need a separation of church and state, there needs to be a separation of state and business.

https://www.facebook.com/AC360/videos/i-believe-doge-and-all-the-outrage-over-it-is-essentially-a-weapon-of-mass-distr/1135824091542419/

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— This brief CNN interview with fired USAID employee, Juliane Alfen, is a testament to the importance of America’s foreign aid to help eradicate disease and poverty—and how former federal workers like Ms. Alfen embrace the importance of their work. She said it was “heartbreaking” to see the photos being taken down of all the projects she and her colleagues had worked on and the devastation to the millions of people around the world who had benefited from America’s help, provided through USAID programs. You can hear the tears in her voice:

Work like getting children vaccines or providing food aid, things that really matter, um, being treated as if they’re nothing. it’s really hard to see.

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— Here’s just one example of an elected official, Representative Seth Moultin, (D) Mass, speaking truth to power.

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— Finally for this first day of March, a collection of the 33 times President Zelensky thanked the United States government and its people for the aid it has received since Russia invaded its sovereign country on February 24, 2022. Despite his consistent expressions of gratitude, both President Trump and Vice President Vance berated President Zelensky in yesterday’s Oval Office debacle, for not being grateful enough. CNN fact checker Daniel Dale put the correct information together yesterday evening.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-33-times-zelensky-224333956.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGxTwhG_oexrsFa1FtB4UzxQ6Q6pbD0OtAacAJVWvLEdEz1ejtYwxA8VHdOjqf86dj9-osAYp226uVwhiZvRtfXiibbTYBXU8Ul3rQA1zw3WcX5OE2RJkN8-6WGbstcRy2H9c_S6Jql0OlGXd_LF-goZBqWiNLaglaWXzUofJGb

This is just one example of President Zelensky expressing his sincere gratitude to the United States:

Now, on this special Christmastime, I want to thank you, all of you. I thank every American family which cherishes the warmth of its home and wishes the same warmth to other people. I thank President Biden and both parties, at the Senate and the House, for your invaluable assistance. I thank your cities and your citizens who supported Ukraine this year, who hosted our Ukrainians, our people, who waved our national flags, who acted to help us. President Zelensy’s address to a joint session of Congress, December 21, 2022, address to US Congress.

Here is yet another correction of President Trump, noting the death toll of both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers killed in the war to date, and wildly overstating the number killed.

https://kyivindependent.com/a-very-bloody-war-what-is-the-death-toll-of-russias-war-in-ukraine/

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This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thank you! And a hearty “thank you” to my latest free and paid subscribers—I appreciate your support!

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I’d love to hear your thoughts on these events and others. Do you have any video clips and/or links you’d like to share that captured your attention? Please add them to your comments below.

“Elon Musk and his fellow oligarchs believe government and laws are simply an impediment to their interests and what they are entitled to…” Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent, Vermont 2/10/25

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

CFPB RIP

4:41 PM · Feb 7, 2025 49.6MViews

This is the communication a “special federal employee”, Elon Musk, used to let the world know he was going to unilaterally kill off a government agency created by Congress, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (see the above posting on X). How many of us think this is a professional way for an alleged federal employee to communicate with the people he serves? It’s more worthy of a grade schooler taunting a peer on the playground—and even then it is embarrassing. But that is who we have, along with his troop of teenage hackers, invading federal agencies and firing thousands of employees.

When asked this week if he could confirm whether it was his goal to completely eliminate the bureau, Trump said, “I would say yeah.“ “Because we’re trying to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse,” he said.

The NBC report also specifically noted that “the administration has not provided evidence to back up allegations of fraud at the agency”.

The irony is the CFPB has used the last 15 years to prevent waste and fraud caused by the financial industry’s practices and to protect the consumer from this industry’s scams to increase their profits. The Trump Administration, on the other hand, claims it is somehow preventing waste and fraud by eliminating this agency. It is the consumers who need protection from the financial industry, not the other way around.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts about the CFPB, it’s attempted “deletion” and what’s going on with the Trump/Musk invasion of our federal agencies and our privacy. Please leave your comments below:

The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thank you! And a hearty “thank you” to my latest free and paid subscribers—I appreciate your support!

Photo Credit: Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking in Cobol Hall, Detroit, June 23, 1963. Read and listen to the full speech, here.

“The price that this nation must pay for the continued oppression and exploitation of the Negro or any other minority group is the price of its own destruction. For the hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out, and we must act now before it is too late….” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., June 23, 1963.

Is the United States heading toward its “own destruction”? I originally planned to share my previous three posts published on MLK, Jr. Day with some additional current commentary, and closer to the actual date of Martin Luther King Day on January 20, 2025. But the timing this year coincided with President Trump’s inauguration and his flurry of shocking (but not unexpected) executive orders.

Given the statements of the current president on “DEI” and race made in just the last few days, I’m glad this tribute to Dr. King is published belatedly on February 1— a more auspicious day for Black history than I realized. According to a post published today by the historian, Heather Cox Richardson , President Gerald Ford officially proclaimed February 1, 1976, the first Black History Month:

“… asking the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

Also on this day in 2023, the family of Tyre Nichols buried their 29 year old son after he was severely beaten by police during a traffic stop.

Ms.Richardson closed her post with this alarming information:

In 2025 the U.S. government under President Donald Trump has revoked a 60-year-old executive order that protected equal opportunity in employment and has called for an end to all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. This February 1, neither the Pentagon nor the State Department will recognize Black History Month. [Emphasis added]

After ordering all federal agencies to immediately end their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) polices during the first few days of his presidency, Donald Trump held a press conference the day after the D.C. plane crash on January 29, and with out knowing what caused the tragic accident, blamed it on President Obama, President Biden and their “insistence” on hiring a diverse workforce, including women, people of color and the disabled, and singled out the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) for its supposed hiring of more diverse workers, thus making flying less safe:

Of the F.A.A. under Mr. Obama, Mr. Trump said: “They actually came out with a directive, too white.” At another point he quoted from the website of the F.A.A., which he said indicated that the agency was looking to hire people with disabilities, including “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism,” and said that they “all qualified for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country.”

The fact is that every applicant for any federal job must meet the standards and qualifications written for that position. President Trump didn’t just imply that non-white employees made flying less safe, he said so directly:

Asked directly how he came to the conclusion that diversity had something to do with the crash, Mr. Trump replied, "because I have common sense."

President Trump also is reversing the policies of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, “which was established by the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination against all people in the United States, with a focus on vulnerable groups”.

According to recent reporting by NBC news:

Former Justice Department officials and advocates told NBC News they expect the new administration to swiftly carry out sweeping reversals of most major Biden administration civil rights policies. Already, the Trump-run department has issued a memo freezing all action in civil rights cases, including filings and settlements, and withdrawn from multiple cases filed during the Biden administration.

These actions do not simply reflect a change in a different administration’s policies, but actually change the clear meaning and intent of the Civil Rights Act, itself.

And with that context, you may want to have a read or re-read of my past posts published to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

— Last year I focused on MLK, Jr. and poverty.

“ ‘There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will.’ MLK, Jr. in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture presented December 11, 1964, where he addresses the failure to end poverty.”

— In 2023, I discussed MLK Jr.’s focus on the importance of public service.

“I’m also not particularly thrilled to join the chorus of those who extoll his virtues on this one day in January, the approximate day of his birth, 94 years ago on January 15, 1929. And I can’t help but remember those many members of Congress who fought against marking the day of his birth with a national holiday and a day of service to our nation. It took nearly two decades of marches, petitions and Congressional wrangling for President Reagan to finally sign the bill into law in 1983, and the first MLK Day was not celebrated until the third Monday of January, 1986.”

— In 2022, I wrote about MLK, Jr.’s push for a universal basic income to eliminate poverty.

“In 1967, Dr. King wrote what was to be his final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, in which he laid out his plan for a guaranteed income for all citizens, and reiterated this idea later that year as part of his address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention.”

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Leave your thoughts on these previous posts, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and how his ideas contrast with our current administration’s new “policies” on race…or any other relevant ideas you like to share in the Comment Section below.

The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thank you! And a hearty “thank you” to my latest free and paid subscribers—I appreciate your support!

UAW workers strike for “a fair shot” — Dec. 10, 1945: In Detroit, striking UAW members, carrying windblown signs, hunch into their overcoats as they picket in front of the General Motors Building, which is decorated for Christmas. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University

I’ve not seen much substantive analysis written about former President Biden’s farewell address — most reporting and commentary noted his reference to President Eisenhower’s final address to the nation and its warning about the military-industrial complex, verus Biden’s “tech-industrial complex” admonitions and the potential dangers of unchecked AI.

But President Biden also issued a warning to the American people that evening, about growing inequality caused by the “concentration of power and wealth”. He warned that this stark disparity among our citizens can and will cause division, distrust and unrest. How a growing oligarchy can lead otherwise hardworking people to give up, to sink into complacency, because they see their chance at a “fair shot” disappearing. The playing field in front of them is no longer level, or there is no playing field at all.

…And in a democracy, there is another danger — that the concentration of power and wealth. It erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. It causes distrust and division. Participating in our democracy becomes exhausting and even disillusioning, and people don’t feel like they have a fair shot. We have to stay engaged in the process. I know it’s frustrating. A fair shot is what makes America America. Everyone is entitled to a fair shot, not a guarantee, just a fair shot, an even playing field. Going as far as your hard work and talent can take you..” President Joe Biden in his farewell address to the nation, January 15, 2025.

The idea of the American economy providing a “fair shot” for all of its people through its laws and policies, is central to the American Dream. And as Biden said last week:

“[the oligarchy] taking shape in our country, literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”

Our laws, policies and culture are supposed to keep the economic playing field level, so it’s at least possible for most people to dream of a better future, to get ahead of their expenses, have a higher standard of living than their parents and to feel that their hard work is paying off. It is fitting that President Biden highlighted the idea of a “fair shot” in his closing address to the American people, because that is what he’s worked for his entire presidency and in his decades of public service — to make sure we all play by the same rules and there is no undue advantage among the competition.

I wrote earlier this year about the four major pieces of legislation Biden and other (mostly) Democrats passed from 2021 through 2022 that helped working people keep up and feel included in the American Dream. These laws invested in regular Americans by extending the child tax credit and lifting millions of children out of poverty, repairing and replacing our transportation infrastructure while putting hundreds of thousands of people to work in renewable energy jobs, raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations and capping the prices on the most used prescription drugs for those eligible for Medicare.

It is not a level playing field when money buys better schools, teachers and entrance into elite colleges, better food, medical care and housing, and not everyone has the same access to money, for whatever reasons. Wealth distribution, of course, doesn’t have to be equal, but that’s not what giving as many Americans as possible “a fair shot” means. It could mean wages and benefit packages that allow the average worker to live comfortably on one job, with or without a college degree. That’s why former President Biden has always supported unions, because the higher wages and more complete benefit packages union organization can negotiate for their workers quite literally give people a fair shot at a safe, comfortable life — a security, and with it the hope, that they too can be included in America’s promise of success.

Former President Biden supporting striking UAW workers, November 2023 — the first president to walk a striking picket line.

But Biden wasn’t the first president to talk about and work towards a fair shot for the American people. Both Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt spoke about government working for the common good, and the peril of greedy companies grabbing more than their fair share. In late 2011, President Obama gave a major speech on economic inequality, in Osawatomie, Kansas, where he recalled that President Teddy Roosevelt had spoken there over 100 years before:

“We are all Americans,” Teddy Roosevelt told them that day. “Our common interests are as broad as the continent.” In the final years of his life, Roosevelt took that same message all across this country, from tiny Osawatomie to the heart of New York City, believing that no matter where he went, no matter who he was talking to, everybody would benefit from a country in which everyone gets a fair chance.

I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. These aren’t Democratic values or Republican values. These aren’t 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They’re American values. And we have to reclaim them…. Former President Barack Obama, from a December 6, 2011 speech in Osawatomie, Kansas.

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Let me know what you think about the idea of a “fair shot” for all Americans. Is it even possible today under the Trump administration? Can it be resurrected in four years, or will an ultra-rich oligarchy have taken over?

All comments are welcome below:

The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership for 2025. Thank you!

Credit: Unsplash

The Poverty Trap’s three most popular posts in 2024 have a common theme: By one method or another, America’s economic system is “rigged” in favor of the wealthy and against the poor and middle class. The “rigging” I’ve discussed on The Poverty Trap during the last three-plus years, and in these three posts specifically, includes the idea that generational wealth is really a form of affirmative action for the rich, the unfairness of the tax code, the increasing gap between CEO pay and worker pay, and that a good portion of elected officials (mostly Republicans) consistently vote against aid for the poor.

President-elect Trump also has consistently talked about our system being “rigged” and many of his supporters perhaps thought he meant the tax code and other substantive areas of the economic system that would directly affect them. But it’s clear that Mr. Trump was talking about himself. A recent Washington Post article laid out the President-elect’s history of claiming the system is rigged against him, from his failure to win an Emmy for “The Apprentice”, to the 2020 election, myriad indictments and felony convictions, election polls, economic numbers, and more:

Notice that all of this was this year. [all of Trump’s ‘rigged’ claims] And it excludes dozens of other examples, of him calling the COMING election rigged or polls that showed Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley performing well in the primary or the indictments he faces outside New York. Everything bad that he’s experienced of late? Rigged.

He even claimed that he was the first to use the word “rigged” to describe various decisions made by government officials or the system itself:

“I think the system is rigged,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And that was the word that I came up that now everyone is using. They picked up many of my wonderful words. You never heard the system is rigged before until I started it.”

Not exactly. Listen to this rousing speech by Elizabeth Warren at the 2012 Democratic Convention, shortly before she was elected to her first term in the U.S. Senate. It’s likely not the first time the word rigged was used to describe our economic system, but soon-to-be Senator Warren made a compelling case for how our economic system is substantively structured to favor the rich and keep the poor and middle class down.

The Poverty’s Trap’s most popular post of 2024 was inspired by Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National convention last August. She said : “Most of us will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth”.

No we won’t. And that one sentence struck a deep chord with a lot of people. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions a few years ago but legacy admissions remain at most elite universities. I explained why that still matters today:

“And a 2023 report demonstrates why these statistics are relevant right now— the report calls this phenomenon, ‘the amplification of privilege across generations.’ “

Leadership positions in the United States are held disproportionately by graduates of a small number of highly selective private colleges. Less than half of one percent of Americans attend Ivy-Plus colleges (the eight Ivy League colleges, Chicago, Duke, MIT, and Stanford). Yet these twelve colleges account for more than 10% of Fortune 500 CEOs, a quarter of U.S. Senators, half of all Rhodes scholars, and three-fourths of Supreme Court justices appointed in the last half-century (Figure 1).1 Ivy-Plus colleges also enroll a disproportionate share of students from high-income families: students from families in the top 1% of the income distribution are more than twice as likely to attend an Ivy-Plus college than students with comparable SAT or ACT scores from the middle class (Figure 2).

Legacy admissions help the rich and the white almost exclusively, and it is only the rich (and mostly white) who pass on substantive wealth to their children and grandchildren. So, it is the rich and the white who still get a boost into elite colleges and thus a major boost into our country’s most prestigious and highest paying jobs. And current law forbids giving a similar boost to the minorities and poor who actually need it.

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The Poverty Trap’s second most popular post last year was a re-post of an earlier 2024 post that directly questioned whether our system was rigged through tax law and other means to both benefit the wealthy and prevent the poor from escaping the cycle of poverty. The comments and suggestions to break this cycle are excellent and worth a read—I’d love to hear your thoughts now, particularly post-election.

I included a brief summary and video clip that does a great job of explaining exactly how the U. S. economy is indeed ‘rigged” and how this growing inequality affects all of us.

“Here’s a brief explanation about how the U.S. economy actually increases inequality, and the ramifications of these laws and policies from Nobel Laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz. The video was published in 2018 by Scientific American.”

The Poverty Trap’s third most popular post in 2024 discusses the decision of mostly Republican-led states to turn down extra federal funds to help feed poor children during the summer, when they can’t otherwise access at least a free school lunch, and the effects of these decisions on the least wealthy and least powerful parents and children who live in those states.

I quoted some of the reasons Republican state representatives gave for turning down free federal money, and thought this one from a Wyoming representative was particularly insulting and why:

Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder said she turned down the Summer EBT card funds because she wanted to prioritize the current summer meals programs, which require minimal state funding. “I generally prefer those meals getting directly to kids,” she told The Associated Press. “At the feeding sites, we know that’s happening.”

“The last reason for turning down summer food stamps for kids by the Wyoming spokesperson is particularly insulting and fits with the typical conservative thinking on helping the poor (or not) with government programs. Poor people are trying to scam the government at every opportunity and can’t be trusted with money, despite the fact this money is loaded onto a card and you can only use it for groceries. And despite the fact that in this case, the money is only $40 a month extra for each eligible child, and tops out at $120 per child for the summer EBT program.”

Again, it’s interesting to read the comments… and there is no better time than now to add your thoughts.

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Feel free to explore The Poverty Trap’s Archive and add your thoughts to previous posts. And I hope you give these three most popular posts of 2024 a first or second read and let me know your thoughts in the Comment Section, below.

The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa and A Happy Holiday Season All Around!

‘The name Scrooge has become a synonym for a misanthrope. He treats his employee terribly, disdains those less fortunate than him and turns away those collecting donations for the poor. His sole concern is his own material enrichment.” The New York Times, Opinion, Roger Rosenblatt, December 24, 2024.

Just imagine that Ebenezer Scrooge had as many employees as, say, Jeff Bezos, founder and largest shareholder of Amazon, and imagine that Bezos treated all of his employees just as badly as Scrooge treated Bob Cratchet. Oh, wait. Amazon is the second largest publicly held company in the United States (Walmart is number one), and employs approximately 1.5 million people worldwide and 1.1 million in the U.S. Yet, less than 1% of Amazon’s American workers are unionized, because the company fights union organization at every opportunity. It has violated federal labor law by refusing to recognize and engage with union representatives within its labor force, intimidates, harasses and fires employees trying to organize union membership, and doesn’t consider its 390,000 drivers to be Amazon employees, although they drive Amazon trucks, only deliver Amazon packages, wear Amazon branded uniforms, and work Amazon-controlled daily schedules.

For the 12 months ending September 30, 2024, Amazon’s gross profit was over $300 billion, which is a 17.7 % year-over-year increase, according to Macrotrends, . During this same year the average Amazon delivery driver made between $16—$20 an hour and salaried employees made between $29, 500—$40,000 with limited benefits and what union organizers and strikers describe as arduous, even hazardous working conditions. Here’s what one Amazon driver who went on strike earlier this year said about her work day:

She [Latrice Shadae Johnson, Amazon delivery driver making $20 per hour] recalled driving in a van reeking of stale urine because the back was strewn with piss bottles, a daily reminder that Amazon’s punishing delivery metrics leave little time to use the bathroom.

How many ghostly visits will it take till Bezos sees that he is hurting hundreds of thousands of people?

The New York Times published an Opinion piece right before Christmas about the impact A Christmas Carol has had on our collective values — year after year, for nearly two centuries, we root for Scrooge’s redemption and transformation, we want to see Tiny Tim get the medical care he needs to live a full life, we want everyone to be happy and healthy and fulfilled through doing good for others…don’t we? The author, Roger Rosenblatt, ties in the values espoused during the recent presidential election to help make his point. The campaigns were mostly about economics: Are you better off now than you were four years ago, do you want to expand opportunities for the middle class?

What the campaigns were not about, particularly, is what we as individuals and collectively can do to help others and our country. As noted by Rosenblatt, there were no rousing call to action like President Kennedy issued in his inaugural address:

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Would any of our citizens even be receptive to this “ask” from a president to become engaged with our country, to selflessly give to her, not only through military service but through volunteering and community service? Current statistics don’t look favorable. As of the first quarter of 2024, according to Statista:

U.S. wealth distribution Q2 2024

Published by Statista Research Department, Oct 29, 2024

In the first quarter of 2024, almost two-thirds percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth.

With this much wealth concentrated among just a few individuals (as of September 2024, there are 801 billionaires in the United States with a combined total wealth of $6.22 trillion) the odds aren’t great for a real leader asking us to serve our country and others, or a Scrooge-like redemption and transformation from those holding the most wealth. And the more people who are kept as low earners and nearly zero wealth accumulators, the less resistance there will be to increasing this wealth gap. It is exhausting to fight a system rigged against you, facing the daily grind with little to no help, but it seems it is what we need.

According to a recent information from Inequality.org

The top five billionaires and by individual wealth are:

* Elon Musk of Tesla/X and SpaceX with $252.5 billion

* Jeff Bezos of Amazon with $204.8 billion

* Larry Ellison of Oracle fame moving into number three spot with $197 billion, surpassing Marc Zuckerberg

* Mark Zuckerberg of Meta with $182 billion

* Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway with $141 billion.

There are now a total of 12 billionaires with more than $100 billion each. For context, the first person to cross the $100 billion personal wealth threshold — Jeff Bezos — only did so in 2018.

Emphasis added to the last sentence: “There are now a total of 12 billionaires with more than $100 billion each. For context, the first person to cross the $100 billion personal wealth threshold — Jeff Bezos — only did so in 2018.”

Can you see how quickly the inequality gap is growing? What must we do to stop it, to reverse it?

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I’d love to hear your thoughts on these issues—have at it in the Comment Section below.

Stay tuned: Before New Years Day, I’ll put together a compilation of The Poverty Trap’s most popular posts of 2024, then start off the New Year with a recap of a talk I recently attended by sociologist Mathew Desmond, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of “Evicted” and “Poverty, By America”; an analysis of the Fox News writing style; and a real-life story about how American Rescue Plan funds are being effectively used to house lower income folks right here in Ohio.

The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thank you!

Area on The National Mall and Memorial Parks, District of Columbia, late October 2024. Photo Credit: Joan DeMartin

“For more than 200 years, the National Mall has symbolized our nation and its democratic values, which have inspired the world. The National Mall - the great swath of green in the middle of our capital city and stretching from the foot of the United States Capitol to the Potomac River - is the premiere civic and symbolic space in our nation.” National Park Service

I recently visited the beautiful state of Maryland and had the pleasure to walk part of the National Mall in D.C.— I finally saw the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial and the Reflecting Pool, and read the words of President Lincoln with his presence towering over me. The Gettysburg Address and President Lincoln’s second inaugural address, carved into the stone walls on either side of his memorial, describe remarkable parallels to the great divides our country is facing today. Although almost anyone’s words will resonate through the ages if carved in stone…Lincoln’s second inaugural address speaks directly to Americans today—speaks to right and wrong, and what our country is willing to fight for to preserve its integrity. At the moment I read Lincoln’s words, I felt hopeful that our choices in the upcoming election would unite us again.

Now what confounds me, maybe even more than the outcome of the election, is how voters came to the decision to vote for former President Trump. According to post-election discussions with voters, a good number of those who voted for President Biden last time or had even voted for former President Obama, swung to Trump this election. Take this Pennsylvania woman, who graciously took the time to explain her reasoning to Gary Tuchman, a reporter for CNN who has been interviewing voters across battleground states for the last year:

Please click on the still below and it will take you to the video on Instagram. Video from Anderson Cooper 360, November 12, 2024

The only problem with her reasoning is that she had no reasoning based on facts, she just “felt” Trump would be better, she felt that “Trump is honest”, that she “trusts him”. When asked why she trusts him, her reply was: “It’s just a feeling I have.”

It’s great to go with your gut when you’re choosing the ripest August melon, for example, but even then you give it a good sniff and press on the ends to feel if there is any give. But choosing a president is an honor the Constitution grants its citizens only every four years. If you’re going to vote, why not gather some facts about each candidate and their positions on major issues. And while you’re at it, review the major party platforms to see where each party stands on the issues, knowing that it is unlikely that an official who has run and been elected with the help of his or her party will deviate from the party platform.

Besides, how could any one person vote for Joe Biden in one election and Donald Trump the next? Their specific policies and the way they view how our government should function are diametrically opposed. This begs the question: what difference would it have made if Vice President Harris had provided more detail about her policy proposals, as both democratic and republican pundits demanded, when many people vote not on the specifics of any policies, but on their gut feelings?

Trusting your gut is the opposite of critical thinking which is supposed to be incorporated throughout the K—12 curriculum in the United States. A couple of years ago, I wrote about the importance of critical thinking skills as part of our collective effort to make positive change:

A Forbes article written at the beginning of the Covid shutdown in April 2020, makes the case (and a good one), that the United States treats the teaching of critical thinking in schools as a “luxury good” — generally, it’s hard to come by and is often only taught in advanced placement classes where the majority of students come from wealthier, white households. [I also noted ] that Finland has directly incorporated critical thinking into its curriculum in an effort to teach children how to spot misinformation and propaganda. Their idea, as is ours, is to help students understand the difference between fact and fiction, fact and opinion and the importance of evidence-based journalism. But in Finland, “media literacy” is part of the national core curriculum starting in preschool.

Heather Cox Richardson wrote a brilliant post after the election, in which she likened our current political situation and the thinking of some of our voters and elected officials to the Civil War period and its economic aftermath. She also focused on the shocking lack of knowledge of voters about particular issues, like the effect of tariffs and mass deportation of immigrants, and where each of the candidates stood on these issues.

Social media has been flooded today with stories of Trump voters who are shocked to learn that tariffs will raise consumer prices as reporters are covering that information…There are also stories that voters who chose Trump to lower household expenses are unhappy to discover that their undocumented relatives are in danger of deportation…

In Salon today, Amanda Marcotte noted that in states all across the country where voters backed Trump, they also voted for abortion rights, higher minimum wage, paid sick and family leave, and even to ban employers from forcing their employees to sit through right-wing or anti-union meetings. She points out that 12% of voters in Missouri voted both for abortion rights and for Trump. [link to Salon article added for ease of reference].

It seems a good hunk of voters are completely unaware that the policy positions they favor, like reproductive freedom, lower prices and a more fair economy, as a few examples, are in fact the policies of Vice President Harris, not former president Trump.

Professor Richardson also points to a Washington Post survey of 8,019 U.S. registered voters conducted September 18 — October 3 and published on October 22, 2024, confirming that the vast majority of voters favored Vice President Harris’ policies over former president Trump’s policies when the participants were not told which candidate supported which policies:

The Washington Post survey showed before the election that voters overwhelmingly preferred Harris’s policies to Trump’s if they didn’t know which candidate proposed them.  An Ipsos/Reuters poll from October showed that voters who were misinformed about immigration, crime, and the economy tended to vote Republican, while those who knew the facts preferred Democrats.

Note: Professor Richardson provides citations for her summaries at the end of each post.

The focus of this newsletter has been from its beginning, to share information I’ve gathered over the last decade or so about poverty in America, and provide analysis of the data, laws, and policy choices made by our elected officials. I thought I might have a unique perspective because I both practiced law and lived through poverty for an extended period, so I have analyzed our government’s approach to poverty through both a legal lens and as a consumer of its philosophy and poverty programs. Let me say our government’s approach could be a lot better.

Now it looks like the the bigger, underlying issue is a failure of a good portion of the electorate to understand the basics of how our government works and to filter through the disinformation, at least enough to discern facts from lies. If we can’t muster this much, we will never be able to elect responsible government leaders who will work to solve the major issues our country faces, including poverty, inequality and climate change.

Here is a link to Secretary of Transpor…

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“For many Americans, the middle class is a matter of identity, aspiration and lifestyle as much as it is about wealth.” NPR, July 7, 2016.

I wrote this post just about a year ago because I was concerned about the erosion of our country’s middle-class households, and it remains a problem today as the financial inequality gap grows wider. As President Biden has said many times: “Wall Street didn’t build this country, the middle class did—and unions built the middle class.” And during the last four years, the Biden-Harris administration has enacted numerous policies and taken other actions to support both unions and the middle class, now broadly defined as those earning between $50,000 — $150,000 depending on the state and proximity to metropolitan centers.

According to a Reuters/IPSOS poll published on October 10, 2024, the Harris—Walz ticket leads by several points nationwide among two key constituencies: suburban and middle-class voters.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on which candidates you think will most benefit the middle-class and unions.

September 21, 2023

I don’t have foolproof answers to the questions posed in this post’s subtitle: “where has our middle-class gone and can we get it back”, but I will provide a bit of history and statistics to show you where the wealth that once belonged to the middle class, in homes, savings and good paying jobs, has been transferred. Unfortunately, it now mostly resides with the rich and super-rich. And most recently, millions of once middle-class folks have been thrown into poverty in 2022 and this year by the rising cost of living and the choice to end the child tax credit and other pandemic aid. So it’s gone in the other direction, too, leaving the once booming middle-class hollowed out from both ends.

But it isn’t just about enough money to pay the bills and the accumulation of some wealth, it’s about that thing called hope. I mentioned the idea of a better life for ourselves and our families in my last post—it is why union membership is so important for workers, and by extension, their families and broader communities. It gives them both the hope and the means for a better life.

What used to be known as middle-class life was an aspiration of millions of Americans after WW II, when the GI Bill provided money to veterans for a college education and a home. As I’ve mentioned here before, my parents, sister and I were able to live this dream because the federal government made the choice to help its veterans, to reward them for their considerable sacrifice. The GI Bill is the only way my father could be the first in his family to graduate from college in 1950 and later purchase a home for his family in 1959.

The fact that the middle class in this country saw its greatest expansion from the 1950’s to the early 1970’s was not only because of hard work on the part of returning war veterans and millions of others, it was because the federal government made policy choices to help its citizens—to invest taxpayer dollars for the common good. It gave millions of hard-working Americans the means to create a better life for themselves and their families.

Starting with the GI Bill signed by FDR in 1944, followed by expanded, full-time job creation by both government and private industry, an increased percentage of union membership, higher taxes on the wealthy along with expanded government safety net programs signed into law by President Johnson — all of these factors contributed to building a robust middle class.

The percentage of adults claiming a share of the middle class peaked at 61% in 1971 and unfortunately, has declined steadily in the last four decades.

Although inflation took its toll on lower income earners in the late 1970’s, the change in income distribution, primarily away from the middle class to the rich, and eventually the ultra-rich, was fueled by the conservative economic policies of the Reagan years: massive tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of business and slashing of social programs. This might be a simplified version of the factors contributing to the shift in wealth inequality in terms of economics, but recent studies strongly suggest these policies directly contributed to today’s startling income and wealth inequality.

In 1944-1945, a federal income tax for people making over $200,000 topped out at 94% and continued at high levels until shortly after 1981. Speaking of giving tax cuts to the rich, this chart, prepared by Forbes/Statista and using data from the Tax Policy Center, shows exactly when the marginal tax rate began its precipitous decline.

And let’s remember the economic impact of corporations not paying their fair share of federal taxes.

In 2017, former President Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Among other changes, TCJA lowered the top statutory corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, and it remains at 21% today. But according to a late 2022 report published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO):

…the average effective corporate tax rate —the percentage of income paid after tax breaks—among profitable large corporations fell from 16% in 2014 to 9% in 2018.

Meanwhile, profits of the largest corporations, compiled with data as of January 30, 2023, continued to soar to the highest levels in nearly 70 years.

Most recently, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, whose workers helped make the over-the-top-profits for the three largest U.S. auto companies has been forced to strike for a living wage and decent benefits, so they can earn their way back to the middle class and stay there. It would be funny if it weren’t such a cruel irony, that Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, received a pay check of about $29 million in 2022, which is “…362 times the median GM employee’s paycheck according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.”

And those record profits of the auto industry? According to an article by U.S. News and World Report published just days ago:

From 2013 to 2022, according to the Economic Policy Institute, profits at the Big Three leapt 92%, totalling $250 billion by last year. Meanwhile, CEO pay at the automakers went up by 40% during that same period. Forecasts for 2023 expect more than $32 billion in additional profits for the companies, EPI said.

If you only watch one news clip today, take a few minutes to listen to an interview from this morning’s Face the Nation. Shawn Fain, president of the UAW union spells out exactly why it’s members have authorized a targeted strike, and what this strike means to you, me and the shrinking middle class.

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Do you consider yourself part of the middle class? Should our country fight to expand it rather than let it disappear? And which of the candidates running for president do you think is more likely to help the middle class? Leave your thoughts in the Comment Section below.

The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and enjoy our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thanks in advance for your financial support of my work —it’s what allows me to keep researching and writing!

Graph courtesy of Gallup, from its article titled: “Far Fewer in U.S. Regard Childhood Vaccinations as Important: Decline occurs among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents”, August 7, 2024.

‘Tis the season! It’s both vaccination time and our once in four years’ opportunity to vote for our next president, a new Congress and many other elected officials down ballot. What’s the connection? It turns out that even before the pandemic, overall vaccine skepticism had increased and broken more sharply along partisan lines.

According to data gathered by Gallup: today, 31 percent of Republicans think “vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they are designed to prevent”, while less than 5 percent of Democrats agree with that statement. But until just about 2016, there was little to no difference between the political parties on the issue of vaccine efficacy, and less than five percent of people from either party believed that statement.

I chose that graph from several in the Gallup article because I think the question is strange at best. Really, who would think that vaccines developed by scientists over decades or longer, using scientific protocols with rigorous oversight and approval processes would be more dangerous than the deadly disease itself? A quick review of the history of vaccine development and use plus a simple Internet search for vaccine efficacy, would show that vaccines have proven astoundingly effective for at least the last century and a half. Vaccines have drastically reduced or eliminated diseases, that before widespread vaccination, killed millions of people, often before the age of five.

The partisan divide on vaccines (not just Covid-19, but the full range of available vaccines) isn’t only at the individual level, but extends to the states — generally, blue states with an elected Democratic governor have much higher vaccination rates than red states with an elected Republican governor. Unfortunately for the higher concentrations of unvaccinated populations in red states, their elected officials also don’t believe in extending Medicaid health care coverage for those in poverty.

A map from the Kaiser Family Foundation published in May of 2024 highlights the ten states which, to date, have not accepted Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Eight of ten of those states have Republican governors and nine of ten reliably vote Republican in presidential elections. Check out what’s going on in Wisconsin, the lone democratic state still not accepting Medicaid expansion. The expansion is favored by Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor but opposed by much of the state’s Republican legislature. According to reporting by the Wisconsin Examiner, that partisan refusal has cost the state $1.6 billion in lost federal health care funds and payments for the medical treatment of the uninsured.

Apparently, it’s not enough that many more Republicans have died of Covid than Democrats, greater numbers of vaccine skeptics of even the most routine vaccinations like measles, polio and whooping cough live in red states, or that several million people have died and/or have no health care because they choose to believe conspiracy theories or simply reside in red states… because there are more deadly games brewing in the race for president..

A CNN article published September 30, 2024, details former President Trump’s continued war on vaccines:

…on at least 17 occasions this year, Trump has promised to cut funding to schools that mandate vaccines. Campaign spokespeople have previously said that pledge would apply only to schools with covid mandates. But speeches reviewed by KFF Health News included no such distinction — raising the possibility Trump would also target vaccination rules for common, potentially lethal childhood diseases like polio and measles.

And a few state legislatures are pushing the boundaries of public health and sanity even further:

Boston University political scientist Matt Motta, who tracks public health policy, said preliminary data shows that states enacted at least 42 anti-vaccine bills in 2023 — nearly a ninefold surge since 2019…The 2024 Texas GOP platform…proposes a ban on mRNA technology, the innovation behind some covid-19 vaccines that scientists believe could have significant applications for cancer care. [And] Last month, Trump made an appeal to anti-vaccine voters by landing the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the nation’s most prominent vaccine skeptics — and appointing him to his transition team.

Meanwhile, back at the World Health Organization…it, along with other humanitarian organizations, just completed a successful campaign to administer oral Polio vaccinations to about 560, 000 children in the Gaza Strip, after discovering one case of Polio in a child this July. That is how dangerous and contagious Polio is and how effective the Polio vaccine, created and tested in the mid-1950’s by American physician, virologist and medical researcher, Dr. Jonas Salk, has proven over the last 70 years.

Former President Trump and many in the Republican party who support him, continue to spout lies about vaccines and science, and just about everything else, and call the press '“fake news” if it reports the truth about him. It turn, his supporters stop believing facts and stop trusting scientists, journalists and other reputable sources.

There has been a “doctored” quote by the German-American historian and political theorist, Hannah Arendt, who covered the Adolf Eichmann, trial, in 1961, recently circulating on social media.The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College felt compelled to correct it. The following is part of the corrected version:

The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.

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What do you make of the partisan divide on vaccination policies in particular, and science in general? Will “uninformed” opinions influence this election? Let’s talk this out in the Comment Section, below.

As always, thank you for reading and listening to The Poverty Trap !

The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.