US income inequality continues to grow

  • In 2015, the top 1 percent of families in the United States made more than 25 times what families in the bottom 99 percent did, according to a paper from the Economic Policy Institute.
  • This trend, which has picked up post Great Recession, is a reversal of what was seen during and after the Great Depression, where the gap between rich and poor narrowed.
  • “Rising inequality affects virtually every part of the country, not just large urban areas or financial centers,” said co-author Estelle Sommeiller.

Carmen Reinicke | @csreinicke

Published 4:22 PM ET Thu, 19 July 2018 Updated 5:06 PM ET Thu, 19 July 2018

CNBC.com

 

The Criminalization of Poverty - The Washington Post

“A few months ago I got a speeding ticket while driving through a southern state. (I’ll just leave it at that for now.) I was definitely speeding, so the stop didn’t bother me. Neither did the specific fine for speeding — $62. What I found appalling were the add-ons. There was a court fee, a processing fee, some sort of vague “assessment,” and a few others charges I don’t recall. In the end, the ticket cost me over $250. The extras amounted to several times the cost of the initial infraction. I hadn’t had a speeding ticket in over five years. But the last time I got one, I was only asked to pay the cost of the fine for the infraction itself. So this is a new thing.

A yearlong NPR investigation found that the costs of the criminal justice system in the United States are paid increasingly by the defendants and offenders. It’s a practice that causes the poor to face harsher treatment than others who commit identical crimes and can afford to pay. Some judges and politicians fear the trend has gone too far.

Failure to pay these fines results in — you guessed it — more fines, plus interest. If the debt is sent to a collection agency, those fees get tacked on, too. Ultimately, inability to pay the fines can land you in a jail cell. Which is why we’re now seeing what are effectively debtors’ prisons, even though the concept is technically illegal.”

This Is Why Poor People Can (And Should) Have Nice Things

February 2, 2016 by Carmen Rios

"The myth that poor people shouldn’t, and can’t, have “nice things” – and that having those things invalidates their experiences – is all around us. 

It’s deeply ingrained in us that there are only two very polarized ways to exist: to be comfortable or to have absolutely nothing. 

Having anything deemed a “luxury” disqualifies you from talking about poverty, or relying on social support, or asking for help – even if those so-called “luxuries” are necessities like kitchen appliances for making and preserving and storing food, mobile technologies that enable us to stay afloat in the modern world, and apparel that  about our situation.

And that’s bullshit.

The longer we force people to suffer as much as possible before we help them, the worse off we all are. 

And the longer we sit around pretending poverty only looks like one set of circumstances, the harder it’s going to be to really get down to business and end it once and for all.

When we deny things of poor people based in the idea that poor people “don’t deserve” those things, just by virtue of their financial situation, we’re perpetuating classism. Our income, our savings, our credit lines – those are not sums of our worth. 

When we refuse to empathize and trust in people’s stories, when we refuse to allow the poor to ask for help or call themselves as such, we perpetuate a status quo that makes the actual suffering of poor people invisible and worthless. 

And when we do that, we hurt everyone who isn’t swimming in pools full of hundred dollar bills. 

When we tell poor people they can’t be poor and own a cell phone, we invalidate the stories of thousands of low- and middle-class Americans who feel insecure about their finances. 

When we tell poor people they shouldn’t be buying healthy food, or nice clothes, or renting their own apartments, or anything along those lines, we buy into a false dichotomy between rich and poor that does nothing but make most of us poorer."