The New York Times features a new economic risk calculator that tells me my white, educated family has only an 8.4% chance of falling into poverty over the next 15 years. That’s a relief, especially as I prepare my tax return (oh, the tax joys of clergy income).
But poverty is still a strong risk for too many Americans:
If we project across a longer span of adulthood, it appears that a clear majority of Americans will experience poverty. For example, in earlier research we estimated that between the ages of 20 and 75, nearly 60 percent of Americans will spend at least one year below the official poverty line, and three-quarters will experience a year below 150 percent of the poverty line [Mark R. Rank and Thomas A. Hirschl, “Calculate Your Economic Risk,” New York Times, 2016.03.18].
The creators of this economic risk calculator say their figures are a call to action against inequality in economic opportunity:
The gap between the haves and have-nots in the United States is now greater than it has been in decades. Our economic risk projections illustrate just how profound these demographic fault lines are likely to be in the future. As the country becomes increasingly nonwhite in the years ahead, with millions of young Americans priced out of higher education and less likely to marry, the percentage of the population experiencing poverty is certain to grow. The “opportunity structure,” in particular the labor market, has been stacked against these groups for some time. Furthermore, our social policies, such as health care, housing and educational reforms, have done little to address the systemic disadvantages embedded in American society.
We are in danger of becoming an economically polarized society in which a small percentage of the population is free from economic risk, while a vast majority of Americans will encounter poverty as a normal part of life [Rank and Hirschl, 2016.03.18].
Poverty isn’t just someone else’s problem; it’s a majority problem. And Americans have a notably larger chance of falling into poverty than they do of becoming millionaires, especially if they are black or Hispanic (and, I’m willing to bet, American Indian):
We could argue that life must have some risk, that we wouldn’t play as hard if we didn’t have a chance of losing. But our social policy should at least recognize that a lot more of us stand a chance of losing than winning, that losers in our current system outnumber winners, and that, almost by definition, the winners don’t need help getting to the top. We should focus our common efforts on helping each other up from the bottom.
Once upon a time (about 40 years or so ago), America had this big wash basin into which all the money from businesses flowed in one side and an income drain on the bottom to distribute money to workers. Over time,there developed clog in the drain ( collaboration between big business and congress) that slowed income release to a minute trickle. Business owners were afraid workers were gonna drown from all that income flowing towards them they installed the clog themselves,with help from Congress.
When workers complained,it was decided to stopper the drain to fix the clog. Meanwhile all that money filled the basin and had to be skimmed off the top and sent offshore for safekeeping. (safe from taxes,that is) Congress has been unable to decide how to fix the problem. Dems want to use dynamite to open the clog and let some of that money go where it rightly deserves to be. Wingnuts and the wealthy would prefer to open a small gap and let the money trickle down again. In the meantime,and I do mean mean, the wealthy are still skimming the cream and stowing it away and the rest are still waiting for their just desserts.
Hopefully master plumber Elizabeth Warren and her handful of helpers can dismantle the clog and even out the inflow and outflow and we can all live happily ever after.
amen
meanwhile, on the Harney peak trail embedded in a line of maybe 500 I noticed 1000 shoes as I searched for solid footing. a thousand shoes on ice, snow, ankle turning rocks.
I noticed in the news somebody noticed dead man lavoy finicum’s, patriot terrorist, $200 new cabella’s boots. He took over Harney Lake’s trails as he huddled under a blue tarp in Oregon, his rifle on his lap waiting to stop the FBI. He left 11 kids and a struggling desert ranch but went out in-style.
yeah, poverty of Indians whose land we all treasure for ourselves.
Some Indians wore new boots, mostly elders or older adults climbing to welcome the thunder beings in ceremony so we will have water. but many of the hundreds of kids wore low top canvas shoes from Kmart and Sears. Kids from Solen ND, Mission SD, kids that all know the vital role the peak serves as one of the seven sacred locations in and around the hills that the annual seasons rotate thru, aligned with constellations they have imputed with great religious significance for countless generations.
poverty. back toward the bottom at Sylvan Lake, a CCC project that provided jobs for poor white people, somebody had organized and paid for a sunny dinner for everyone after the ceremony. bottled water, crackers, stew, cranberries, coffee, “poor man’s mochas” (swiss mix cocoa), Gen. Harney’s relative called it. it was cold up there. without thinsulate gloves for a few minutes in the wind…ouch. Every bite was eaten when I got down.
I was one of the last down the trail (I was sketching for an oil painting I swore to self i’d do after an inspirational hike there a few years ago when my mom died. my 1st trip to Harney had my dad carry me back).
I found a lost black glove and a crying boy behind his mom. He was struggling. “My feet hurt!” Someone had purchased many pairs of black fabric thinsulated gloves and handed them out to people in hoodie sweat shirts, jogging jackets, sweats, and blankets.
I wore fleece and wind breaking synthetics from head to toe for two hours standing at the top, in my sons boots from 1999 when he died by suicide. A tall gentleman, with eagle feathers in his extremely long hair, had great boots, but was also struggling severely and had hadn’t made it back when I drove my nice german car back to RC, “STAR O’ the WEST” nestled in “OUR BELOVED BLACK HILLS” (C)KOTA,…past many, many tribal license plates. proud, proud, humble people. we had a buffet dinner near Walmart with the very people Harney destroyed and captured wagon loads o their finest belongings in 1855. it is all cataloged and archived, still bloodied and now in the SMITHSONIAN, what was left after William harney and his “little chief” gouverour warren lived out their lives as celebrities and sanitized their reputations as peace lovers. Little Chief’s gatherings,
By James Austin Hanson
I wish I could share your optimism about income equality in America today. Unfortunately the numbers draw a more sobering picture. Perhaps you should join us 6:00PM Thursday, March 31 at Howler’s Bar & Grille for a screening of ‘Inequality for All’ featuring labor secretary Robert Reich.
Sounds like a timely film, Mark!
Thanks, Leslie, for the above from James Hanson! My hope is that more and more our country of immigrants will adopt the Native American’s respect expressed in the article for the natural world and refute the claims of corporate big business of their ability to control our futures if we only place them in control of it…
It is funny how whites always seem to get the blame for minority problems. Could it possibly be that whites have figured out at a greater percentage how to function successfully in society. Instead of blaming and trying to guilt whites, why not teach the minorities the way of the white man, which according to your statistics are doing better?
Stu, you once again gobsmack the commentariat with your white privilege and rationalized racism. Your statement boils down to, There’s more of us, and we’re richer, so we must be smarter and better than them darkies!
Gack. Gack gack gack!
Do you not understand the historical, social, and economic dynamics of 400 years of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and oppression?
You might just as easily say, “Golly, the Germans were in charge of most of Europe by the end of 1940, so they must have figured out at a greater precentage how to function successfully. We should invite the Germans to teach England, Russia, India, Africa, and the rest of the world their superior ways.”
Remind me, Stu: you’re voting for Trump, right?
You got it. Don’t do what is successful. Continue to do things your way and blame others when they don’t work! Good theory!! By the way, Trump is not my first choice.
No, Stu, you again fail to see past the walls of your white privilege. When you grow up in the controlling majority, you benefit from hundreds of years of built-in advantages. You aren’t rich and powerful because you are smarter and better. The only lesson folks not at the top of the economic heap would learn from you is, “Take over a continent by arms and deceit, fuel your economic development by importing slaves, and then use institutional racism to keep everything you’ve taken.”
To say that everyone else needs to learn the white man’s ways is so absurdly, archaically racist that I have to wonder if you are tuning in from 1881.
When a sports team is successful other coaches and teams emulate them to get better and compete. To continue to play as they do and fall further and further behind is not an option. Then blaming the other team because they are successful is absurd. Your theory is that white people who are successful are only that way because of things that happened hundreds of years ago is very insulting. Go ahead, continue to blame “white privilege” and this same conversation will be going on in 50 years, but the divide will be even greater. The theory if something works don’t fix it is lost in your theory of if something works it is because you had an advantage and you should stop doing what you are doing so that everyone is unsuccessful. I thought liberals were supposed to be progressive not regressive. Instead of making excuses make an effort. Maybe we shouldn’t of had the revolution is what you are saying? Minnesota and South Dakota had nothing to do with slaves being sold by blacks and sent to this country, so quit blaming us for that and institutional racism is a liberal cop out and attitudes like yours is what fuels the Donald Trump hysteria. I am sure glad I don’t have to continue to live in the past but have chosen to better myself and move forward, but I guess for many it is easier to be jealous, envious and blame others. There is nothing more racist than a white person telling minorities that they are no good because someone else did something bad to their possible ancestors hundreds of years ago. Pathetic!
6-7000 CONFEDERATE VETS SETTLED IN DAKOTA TERRITORY AFTER THE WAR.
U SAID: “South Dakota had nothing to do with slaves being sold by blacks and sent to this country”
THOSE DAMN BLACK PEOPLE
Are you telling me leslie that they slave trade wasn’t started by blacks selling blacks?? Why are you still dwelling on something 200 years old. There is not one person living at this time that was a slave at that time. The Irish had struggles when they arrived in this country how do they do now I wonder. If you want to continue to live 200 years ago then be satisfied with the results!