Tag Archives: income inequality

There’s an International Soccer Tournament Where All the Players Are Homeless

by EdisonWJOkpkr Posted on October 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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“A homeless soccer team? What?“

That’s what Shane Bullock, 26, recalls thinking when a coach came by his San Francisco shelter last fall to recruit players. Now, a year later, he’s in Santiago, Chile, representing the United States against teams from 49 countries at the 12th-annual Homeless World Cup.

The Homeless World Cup—which is actually just what it sounds like—draws a total of 100,000 spectators to cheer on teams of homeless (or, like Bullock, recently homeless) men and women in highly competitive four-on-four soccer matches, which are played on a basketball-sized court with walls and mini-goals.

When he first heard of Street Soccer USA (the Homeless World Cup’s US affiliate), Bullock had recently fallen into homelessness. He had moved out of his brother’s Sacramento apartment to be closer to another brother in San Francisco, but he found himself on the street and then in a shelter. When he was first approached about joining the team, “I told them I’d take a rain check.”

“Finally I decided to go out,” he says, although he initially didn’t realize that it was a part of a league. “I thought we were just going to play pickup soccer in the alley around the corner. That caught me off guard, but it’s been pretty fun.”

Bullock was announced as a member of the World Cup men’s squad in August at the closing ceremony of the Homeless National Cup, which brought Street Soccer USA (SSUSA) teams from 16 cities to compete in San Francisco. Eight men and eight women were selected, based on off-field achievements, soccer ability, and leadership.

Shane Bullock (in sunglasses) and other members of the San Francisco SSUSA team Street Soccer USA

Regional partners like SSUSA fields (and funds) each team. At practice, SSUSA coaches help players set goals—such as creating a résumé, obtaining identification, earning a GED, or securing housing—and refer them to preexisting social-services agencies. Says SSUSA national director Rob Cann, “They know that when they come to the next practice, we’re going to say, ‘Hey, you said you were going to go to the DMV this weekend. Did you go?'”

Street Soccer USA meets some of its costs by operating coed, recreational soccer leagues, filled primarily with teams of young professionals. San Francisco’s league, I Play for SF, has 85 teams, including the one with homeless players. “It’s kind of cool to see our homeless folks assimilate with people from different strains of society,” says Bullock’s coach, Benjamin Anderson. SSUSA estimates 2,700 homeless participants have played on its teams since 2009.

Bullock says the World Cup trip isn’t the first time soccer has helped him off the field. “I’m not very outgoing, so it’s allowed me to open up a little,” he says. “And just getting out and moving. That has done wonders just for clearing my mind alone.”

Since joining the team, he’s been hired by I Play for SF to help set up for games twice a week, allowing him to move from the shelter to a single-room occupancy apartment.

“That’s the nice thing—to see it go full circle,” Anderson says. “A guy who was kind of lost and confused and lonely, not only became a part of a community that he contributes to, but has a job and has his own place.”

Cann says the goal of helping homeless people gain structure and meaningful relationships doesn’t necessarily have to be achieved via soccer. Although some aspects of the sport do work particularly well—it’s cheap to play and can be set up anywhere—what’s important is that “it’s a platform and a humanizing activity.”

Of course, only a tiny fraction of the world’s estimated 100-plus-million homeless population is competing this week in Chile, and critics may wonder whether flights across the globe are the best use of funds. (Cann says the trip is funded through designated donations, specifically for the HWC.) Still, the Homeless World Cup maintains one of its main goals is to “change people’s attitudes to homelessness.”

And even though Bullock’s US men’s team has struggled this week, starting out with a 2-4 record, there’s much more to the event than what’s happening on the pitch. During the trip, US players spend downtime in leadership training sessions, where Cann says participants like Bullock are encouraged to remain with the organization as mentors and role models for newer players.

“It’s always been a thing of mine, helping people,” says Bullock, who is considering staying on with Street Soccer USA. “Being with this program, it pushed me toward wanting to find ways that I can help people in whatever way I can.”

You can watch a live stream of the action at the Homeless World Cup website.

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There’s an International Soccer Tournament Where All the Players Are Homeless

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The Head of the Federal Reserve Just Gave a Rousing Speech on Inequality

by GudrunMcInnes Posted on October 17, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Friday, Janet Yellen presented a thorough speech outlining the inherent problems income inequality presents to the American ideology, proving once again she is committed to using her role as Federal Reserve chair to tackle widening income inequality rates.

“The extent of and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern me,” Yellen told the Federal Reserve of Boston. “The past several decades have seen the most sustained rise in inequality since the 19th century after more than 40 years of narrowing inequality following the Great Depression.”

“I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation’s history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity,” she added.

The speech, titled “Perspectives on Inequality and Opportunity from the Survey of Consumer Finances,” follows several notable instances in which Yellen has indicated she would be actively working towards reducing wealth inequality–a more pointed approach that distances her from her predecessors, former chairs Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. In Friday’s speech, Yellen also echoed Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) calls to fix the burden of rising higher education costs.

As continued evidence has shown, income inequality rates have soared over the last few decades, with the average income of the one percent rising more than 175 percent since 1980, while the bottom 90 percent hardly moved.

While Yellen’s speech on Friday made no mention of any specific policy changes the Federal Reserve may take on to combat inequality rates, it did signal a significant shift in how the Federal Reserve views inequality as a serious hindrance to the country’s economic health. To read Yellen’s speech in its entirety, click here.

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The Head of the Federal Reserve Just Gave a Rousing Speech on Inequality

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While You Procrastinate on Facebook, More Than Half the World Still Doesn’t Have Internet Access

by WaylonODowd Posted on October 13, 2014

Mother Jones

If you’re an American office worker who sleeps next to a smartphone and deals with an average of 120 work emails a day, life without the internet may seem like a quaint memory. But you’re actually in the minority: According to a new report, more than 60 percent of the world’s population hasn’t accessed the internet in the past 12 months. And those without access are disproportionately rural, low income, elderly, illiterate, and female.

Since 2004, 1.8 billion people have joined the online community, bringing total internet users to 2.7 billion. Even as new users continue to join the online ranks, however, the rate at which they join is slowing. The McKinsey & Company report projects that less than 1 million additional users will be added by 2017, leaving up to 4.2 billion people—more than half the forecasted world population—on the other side of the digital divide.

The share of the global population with access (defined as having used the internet in the preceding 12 months) grew sharply from 2004 to 2009, but less so from 2009 through 2011, and even less growth is projected from 2013 to 2017:

The specific trends that drove people online over the past decade (such as urbanization, cheaper smartphones, and the internet’s increased utility) likely won’t be enough to push the remaining population online, thanks to barriers like low incomes and lack of infrastructure.

“Those who do not or simply cannot go online increasingly suffer from constrained prospects for economic attainment, class mobility, education, and other areas related to quality of life,” the report notes. “The voices, ideas, and contributions of the offline population can’t be heard and often can’t be made until they’re connected.”

Those left offline miss out on opportunities to connect socially, access information on everything from health to the weather, and take advantage of online government services. The internet allows communities to participate in political movements like the Arab Spring and mobilize aid following natural disasters. Online access also increases government transparency, helps shoppers save time and money, lowers the barriers of entry for businesses, and of course, provides entertainment.

Beyond individuals, whole countries are left behind: An earlier McKinsey report found that from 2006 to 2011, the internet accounted for 21 percent of GDP growth in nations with stable populations and slowing economic growth. And global connectivity can lead to improvements in technology, education, democracy, and tourism.

The disadvantages of being left behind in a digital world fall disproportionately on certain communities: A full 74 percent of today’s offline population resides in just 20 countries. Even within these nations, those who lack internet access often fit similar profiles.

The report outlines four major barriers to internet access:

Incentives: Many people lack awareness of online capabilities: In 2011, 21 percent of those surveyed in Ethiopia’s capital did not know what the internet was. Even those who know of its existence might not find relevant local information or even material in their own language. The World Bank reports that 80 percent of all internet content is written in one of just 10 languages. There is also decreased incentive to use the internet in countries with limited online freedom or information security, like Iran or Nigeria.

Low incomes and affordability: Internet access is expensive in rural areas. In Ethiopia, a country with an annual per capita income of just $470, a smartphone retails for $377.

User capability: Many people throughout the world have never been educated on the internet and how to use it. Some are held back by the even more basic barrier of illiteracy.

Infrastructure: In parts of the world, there is simply no mobile internet coverage or network access. In fact, 24 percent of sub-Saharan Africans and 20 percent of Southeast Asians lack even basic electricity. The McKinsey report cites an initiative to extend broadband access to a shared community space in every village and city in Colombia over the next several years, but notes this type of project “requires substantial investment in infrastructure and is cost-prohibitive to build out in many developing markets.”

Although the United States scored high on incentives and user capability, a chunk of the population remains offline due to affordability and infrastructure. Only 77 percent of US adults with household incomes below $30,000 go online, and World Economic Forum ranked the US 35th in the world in regard to internet bandwidth. Of the 50 million offline Americans, 80 percent are low income, 54 percent are seniors, and a full 66 percent are female.

The authors report that over the past decade, growth in online population has been driven by mobile coverage expansion, urbanization, cheaper phones and data plans, a growing middle class, and the internet’s increasing utility. But they caution that the remaining offline population is unlikely to be swayed by these advantages, unless the four barriers above are addressed. “Without a significant change in technology, in income growth or in the economics of access, or in policies to spur internet adoption, the rate of growth of internet penetration will continue to slow.”

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While You Procrastinate on Facebook, More Than Half the World Still Doesn’t Have Internet Access

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Chart: The Typical White Family Is 20 Times Wealthier Than the Typical Black Family

by MurrayMeredith Posted on October 2, 2014

Mother Jones

We’re still posting a new chart on the current state of income inequality every day over the next week. Yesterday’s looked at how top tax rates dropped as top incomes rose.

Today, a closer look at how income inequality splits along racial lines. Whites’ average household income is 56 percent larger than that of African Americans and 39 percent larger than that of Hispanics. But the discrepancy is even greater when it comes to wealth: The median white family holds nearly 20 times more assets than he median black family and 74 times more assets than the median Hispanic family.

Source: Income by race: US Census; wealth by race: Edward N. Wolff

Illustrations and infographic design by Mattias Macklerâ&#128;&#139;

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Chart: The Typical White Family Is 20 Times Wealthier Than the Typical Black Family

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Chart: Happy Days Are Here Again—for the Superwealthy

by SherryLedesma Posted on September 23, 2014

Mother Jones

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With Washington paralyzed on bread-and-butter issues and the midterms ahead, we put together a primer on the state of America’s frozen paychecks. We’ll be posting a new chart every day for the next couple of weeks. Today’s chart: How the recovery left most Americans behind.

The Great Recession officially ended five years ago, but that’s news for millions of Americans: A stunning 95 percent of income growth since the recovery started has gone to the superwealthy. The top 1 percent has captured almost all post-recession income growth. Compare that with how they did during these historic booms:

Sources: Boom and recovery gains, 1% gains: Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty (Excel); average household income: Census Bureau.

Illustrations and infographic design by Mattias Macklerâ&#128;&#139;

Photos: Warner Bros; Peter Morgan/Reuters; Christoph Dernbach/DPA/ZumaPress; Steve Jennings/Wireimage/Getty Images; Bo Rader/Witchita Eagle/MCT/Getty Images; Kimberly White/Reuters

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Chart: Happy Days Are Here Again—for the Superwealthy

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Hillary Clinton Threads the Needle: Obama’s Done Okay But Economic Benefits Need to Be “Broadly Shared”

by NCJWillatrm Posted on September 18, 2014

Mother Jones

Hillary Clinton doesn’t think much of her old employer. “Congress increasingly…is living in an evidence free zone,” she said Thursday, “where what the reality is in the lives of Americans is so far from the minds of too many.” Speaking on a panel about women and economics hosted by the Center for American Progress (a liberal think tank run by Clinton’s ex-policy advisor Neera Tanden), Clinton gave a few hints of which domestic policy proposals could anchor her presumed 2016 presidential campaign.

Speaking in non-partisan terms, Clinton slammed Congress for its lack of action on raising the minimum wage, with the former secretary of state saying that a failure to boost the wages of the working poor is particularly damaging for women. She noted that two-thirds of minimum wage jobs are held by women. “The floor is collapsing—we talk about a glass ceiling, these women don’t even have a secure floor under them,” she said.

Boosting the minimum wage has become a standard Democratic talking point. But Clinton went beyond that standard fare and emphasized the plight of tipped workers, such as restaurant servers, bartenders, and hair stylists. “Women hold nearly three-quarters of the jobs that are reliant on tips,” she said. “And in fact, they don’t get the minimum wage with the tips on top of it.”

Although the federal minimum wage has been set at $7.25 per hour since 2009, there is an exemption carved out for workers who receive tips. Employers only have to pay those people $2.13 an hour (steady since 1991); the tips are presumed to make up for the difference. But often times the tips don’t suffice, and employers, who are supposed to fill the gap, don’t always do so.

These workers are “at the mercy not only of customers who can decide or not to tip,” Clinton said. “They’re at the mercy of their employers who may collect the tips and not turn them back.”

Clinton didn’t dive into the policy details on how to fix this problem. But the Center for American Progress released a report right after the event that suggested raising the tipped wage up to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage (which the report proposed bumping to $10.10 per hour).

The general tone of Clinton’s speech suggested how she’d thread the needle by supporting President Barack Obama’s record while crafting her own agenda when she hits the campaign trail. “The president came in—he deserves an enormous amount of credit for stanching the bleeding and preventing a further deterioration and getting us out of that ditch we were in,” she said. “But we know that unless we change our policies, a lot of the benefits are not going to be broadly shared, and that’s what we’re talking about here.”

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Hillary Clinton Threads the Needle: Obama’s Done Okay But Economic Benefits Need to Be “Broadly Shared”

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The Rich Are Eating Richer, the Poor Are Eating Poorer

by EmilyArcher Posted on September 11, 2014

Mother Jones

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Over the past decade, the number of farmers markets nationwide has approximately doubled, and the community-supported agriculture model of farming, where people buy shares in the harvest of a nearby farms, has probably grown even faster. Has this explosion of local produce consumption improved Americans’ diets ? A couple of new studies paint a disturbing picture.

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The Rich Are Eating Richer, the Poor Are Eating Poorer

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How Much It Costs to Raise a Kid, in 4 Charts

by WinfredBSB Posted on August 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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A middle-income family with a child born in 2013 can expect to spend about a quarter of a million dollars in child-rearing expenses over the next 18 years, according to a new report from the USDA.

Costs such as housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, child care, and education will amount to an expected $304,340 ($245,340 in 2013 dollars) for middle-income families, a 1.8 percent increase from last year’s report. For each income bracket, costs will increase as the child ages:

Although households with incomes in the lowest third will spend less than half as much on child-related costs as higher income families, their spending will amount to a far greater percent of total income.

Housing is the highest child-rearing expenditure, amounting to 30 percent of expenses for middle-income, husband-wife families with two children. Raising a child is costliest in the urban Northeast and least expensive in rural areas.

USDA

The report notes that child-rearing costs have grown 24 percent since 1960, when a middle-income family could have expected to spend $25,230 ($198,560 in 2013 dollars). The USDA has also released an interactive calculator to help families estimate child-rearing costs based on type of household, number of children, location, and income.

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How Much It Costs to Raise a Kid, in 4 Charts

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House Republicans Pass Bill to Lower Taxes on the Rich and Raise Taxes on the Poor

by Adam Stossel Posted on July 28, 2014

Mother Jones

So what are Republicans in the House of Representatives up to these days? According to Danny Vinik, they just passed a bill that would reduce taxes on the rich and raise them on the poor.

I know, I know: you’re shocked. But in a way, I think this whole episode is even worse than Vinik makes it sound.

Here’s the background: The child tax credit reduces your income tax by $1,000 for each child you have. It phases out for upper middle-income folks, but—and this is the key point—it phases out differently for singles and couples. The way the numbers sort out, it treats singles better than couples. This is the dreaded “marriage penalty,” which is bad because we want to encourage people to get married, not discourage them.

So what did House Republicans do? Naturally, they raised the phase-out threshold for married couples so that well-off couples would get a higher benefit. They didn’t have to do this, of course. They could have lowered the benefit for singles instead. Or they could have jiggled the numbers so that everyone got equal benefits but the overall result was revenue neutral.

But they didn’t. They chose the path that would increase the benefit—and thus lower taxes—for married couples making high incomes. The bill also indexes the credit to inflation, which helps only those with incomes high enough to claim the full credit. And it does nothing to make permanent a reduction in the earnings threshold that benefits poor working families. Here’s the net result:

If the House legislation became law, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that a couple making $160,000 a year would receive a new tax cut of $2,200. On the other hand, the expiring provisions of the CTC would cause a single mother with two kids making $14,500 to lose her full CTC, worth $1,725.

So inflation indexing, which is verboten when the subject is the minimum wage, is A-OK when it comes to high-income taxpayers. And eliminating the marriage penalty is also a good idea—but again, only for high-income couples. Which is crazy. I don’t really have a firm opinion on whether the government should be in the business of encouraging marriage, but if it is, surely it should focus its attention on the people who need encouragement in the first place. And that is very decidedly not the upper middle class, which continues to get married at the same rate as ever.

So we have a deficit-busting tax cut. It’s a cut only for the upper middle class. It’s indexed for inflation, even though we’re not allowed to index things like the minimum wage. And the poor are still scheduled for a tax increase in 2017 because this bill does nothing to stop it. It’s a real quad-fecta. I wonder what Paul Ryan thinks of all this?

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House Republicans Pass Bill to Lower Taxes on the Rich and Raise Taxes on the Poor

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Paul Ryan’s Anti-Poverty Plan Would Cost Billions to Implement. Will GOPers Go for That?

by CSNMindyihta Posted on July 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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When Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) laid out a new set of proposals to revamp the federal safety net during a speech on Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute, central to his vision was the idea of consolidating federal programs to create a “personalized, customized form of aid—one that recognizes both a person’s needs and their strengths—both the problem and the potential.”

The plan, wrapped in caring language about giving the poor individual attention, has earned plaudits from both the right and the left for avoiding partisanship and offering up a concrete idea that policy makers will have to take seriously. Liberals have given Ryan—an Ayn Rand devotee who on the campaign trail reduced American society to one of makers versus takers and whose budgets have proposed slashing millions in spending on the poor—credit for getting out of the office and spending some time with actual poor people during his year-long “listening tour,” whose genuine impact is evident in his proposal.

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Paul Ryan’s Anti-Poverty Plan Would Cost Billions to Implement. Will GOPers Go for That?

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