Poverty

Chinese Factory Workers for Ivanka Trump’s Brand Make About $1 Per Hour
Here’s hoping there's rent control in China: Employees at a factory that manufactures apparel for Ivanka Trump’s clothing business earn just $62 each week, for 60 hours of work, it has been revealed. There are 80 workers at the plant, which produces clothing for Ivanka Trump’s eponymous brand as well as for Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, The Washington Post reported. [...]
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GOP’s Planned Cuts to Medicaid Will Impoverish and Imperil Millions of Aging Baby Boomers and Seniors
One-fifth of Medicare recipients are covered through Medicaid, including nursing homes and long-term care. The House Republican leadership’s Obamacare repeal bill will not only cause upwards of 24 million people to lose their health care coverage over the next decade, as the Congressional Budget Office has said, but it will also push millions of seniors already on the financial edge into deep an [...]
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Child poverty in the U.S. is among the worst in the developed world
One in three American kids live in poverty, according to UNICEF. With 32.2 percent of children living below this line, the U.S. ranks 36th out of the 41 wealthy countries included in the UNICEF report. The United States ranks near the bottom of the pack of wealthy nations on a measure of child poverty. Nearly one third of U.S. children live in households with an income below 60 percent of the nati [...]
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On Contact: The Plight of the Underclass with Linh Dinh
On this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges is joined by Linh Dinh, author of “Postcards from the End of America”. Dinh traveled across the US lift up the voices of those who have been disappeared by our corporate state. RT Correspondent Anya Parampil reveals the stark statistics of those living in poverty in America. The Plight of the Underclass with Linh Dinh [...]
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America is Tired
The major takeaway from the US Presidential election, and from the events which have shaped the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s Presidency - both his actions and the reactions of his opponents - is that America is tired. It is not difficult to see why since the US has for decades been behaving in a way that was guaranteed eventually to exhaust it. [...]
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Shock: Americans’ Wages Dropping Fast in 2016
Federal data released Aug. 9 shows that Americans’ wages are dropping again, seven years after President Barack Obama declared the economy had recovered from the property-bubble — and three months before the 2016 election. [...]
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Stop eroding faith in gov’t: DOJ warns courts about fining & jailing poor people
The US Justice Department cautioned local courts that it is unconstitutional to jail someone for not paying fines without determining whether they are able to pay, and warned against using court fees to generate revenue for cities. The warnings came as part of an effort to reform court practices that “perpetuate poverty and result in unnecessary deprivations of liberty,” the Justice Depar [...]
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Betting on the Wall Street Crash
The 2008 Wall Street crash resulted from a combination of unrestrained greed and political contempt for government regulators who might have prevented the devastation. In The Big Short, the tale is told from the perspective of a few players who saw the inevitable and made money on the crash, writes James DiEugenio. If you read Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short or see the movie by the same na [...]
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To Create ‘Better World Than This,’ New Alliance Targets Destructive Inequality
The goal? A total revamp of the economic system that sidelines the interests of the majority. The time? Now. And the stakes couldn't be higher. At issue is the global inequality crisis that is "spiraling out of control," an alliance of nine groups including Amnesty International, Association for Women's Rights in Development, Greenpeace, International Trade Union Confederation, and Oxfam says, [...]
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American nightmare: Rich, poor and middle-class no more
The US economy is generating breathtaking wealth for an elite minority of the population at the expense of millions of people now tumbling through the gaping cracks of the system. So why do we continue to watch the painful spectacle year after year? America’s once-glorified middle-class is on its way to being relegated to the history books; an artifact of a bygone era when good-paying jobs, c [...]
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“Future Economic Historians” Will Probably Call the Period That Began In 2007 “the L-O-N-G-E-S-T DEPRESSION”
Sure, last year was the first pre-election year stock market loss since the Great Depression. And admittedly, last week was the worst opening week of any year … EVER. But that’s not the big news. The bigger news is that the Baltic Dry Index has crashed. [...]
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How Debt Conquered America | Consortiumnews
America presents itself to the world as “the land of the free” but – for the vast majority – it is a place of enslaving indebtedness, a reality for much of “the 99%” that has deep historical roots hidden or “lost” from our history, as Jada Thacker explains. Since its center-stage debut during the Occupy Wall Street movement, “the 99%” – a term emblematic of extreme economi [...]
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US Stocks Suffer Biggest Slump in 119 Years
US stocks tumbled after China's stock market crashed seven percent overnight on Thursday and crude fell to the lowest level in more than 12 years. In the recent four days, the Dow Jones index has plummeted 911 points, or more than five percent so far in 2016, making it the worst four-day percentage loss to start a year on record since 1897. [...]
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Is a $15 an Hour Minimum Wage Adequate?
Social movements calling for raising the minimum wage to $15/ hour with yearly adjustments for increases in the cost of living deserve support. However, earning $15/ hour will not guarantee a decent standard of living. An individual working forty hours a week at $15/ hour for an entire year earns $31,200, an income that is more than two and a half times the 2014 official poverty threshold of $1 [...]
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Ecological Meltdown And Nuclear Conflict: The Relevance Of Gandhi In The Modern World
A few months ago, entrepreneur Charles Devenish contacted me to tell me about his plans to develop various mining enterprises across India. He spoke about the massive amounts of untapped mineral resources lying beneath India that is just lying there and has been for a long time. [...]
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Pig’s funeral: Coffin brought to Ukraine parliament as hundreds protest new budget (VIDEO)
Activists who think that Ukraine’s 2016 budget screams death to the agricultural sector have brought a dead pig in a coffin to the Verkhovna Rada building in Kiev and held a mock funeral ceremony. The angry protesting farmers and their supporters demand to keep a simplified tax system and special VAT rules for the agricultural sector in 2016, something the announced budget lacks as Ukraine ha [...]
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Unemployed man ‘living the dream’ in converted school bus (PHOTOS)
Patrick Schmidt was unemployed and living in California when he bought an old school bus for $4,500 in March. He drove it to Vegas where he and his father renovated it into a home on wheels. They spent $9,000 to turn the bus into a house, before Patrick took it for a spin all the way to Florida, traveling through 30 states. [...]
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To Lift Quality of Life and Economy, Finland Champions Universal Basic Income
As a way to improve living standards and boosts its economy, the nation of Finland is moving closer towards offering all of its adult citizens a basic permanent income of approximately 800 euros per month. The monthly allotment would replace other existing social benefits, but is an idea long advocated for by progressive-minded social scientists and economists as a solution—counter-intuitive [...]
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500k+ homeless in US, numbers rise in New York, other big cities
About 565,000 people were homeless in the United States, according to a one-night federal survey. While this is a two percent drop from 2014, major cities like New York, Seattle and Los Angeles continue to battle rising homelessness. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2015 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress found that of the 565,000 homeless counted during a point [...]
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Los Angeles declares ‘shelter crisis’ to aid homeless
Overwhelmed by the city’s growing homeless population, which has increased by 12 percent in just two years, and facing an increase in complaints from neighborhoods about encampments, the Los Angeles City Council has declared a “shelter crisis.” The measure was adopted by the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday in a 14-0 vote. [...]
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Spiritually Rudderless
Another deep cry, followed by a shrug. The world is at war, at war, at war. But it only hurts them, the helpless ones, the anonymous poor, who absorb the bombs and bullets, who bury their children, who flee their broken countries. Sixty million people have been displaced by the current wars, the highest number of uprooted since World War II. But who cares? [...]
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Govts & media are falling under control of the richest 1% – Development economist
Plagued by wars and terrorism, the world is facing another scourge – one that concerns everyone. The wealth inequality in society has reached staggering heights, with scholars predicting that by next year, half of the world’s riches will be in the possession of just one percent! Is there a chance to turn this trend back? Why has this issue become so pressing? And finally, what is there for [...]
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