The typical household, now worth a third less, By Anna Bernasek, July 27, 2014, New York Times: “Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too. The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Those are the figures for a household at the median point in the wealth distribution — the level at which there are an equal number of households whose worth is higher and lower. But during the same period, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially. The Russell Sage study also examined net worth. . .”
Month: July 2014
Promise Zones
A new initiative from the Obama administration offers new hope to high poverty areas, By Amy McDonald, July 27, 2014, Deseret News: “Sara-Jane Smallwood had made her way to the top: a bachelor’s degree in Indian American studies, a master’s in public policy from Indiana University and a job on the Hill, working as a policy analyst for her U.S. senator. But Smallwood came from the bottom: a small town in Southeastern Oklahoma where more than 60 percent of the population lives below poverty. Her high school class of 35 people didn’t hold a 10-year reunion, because several class members had died, and many were in and out of prison. But even though hers was an anomalous story of success, she speaks of her hometown with love and pride. And in 2011, Smallwood — the descendant of a long line of influential Choctaw tribal leaders and the daughter of two school teachers — decided that of all the hard work she saw at the top, very little was reaching the bottom…”
EITC and Poverty Measurement
Everyone’s favorite anti-poverty program doesn’t reduce the poverty rate, By Dylan Matthews, July 29, 2014, Vox: “As we mentioned during the rollout of Paul Ryan’s poverty plan last week, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit is one of the few anti-poverty measures both parties can agree about (even if they can’t come to an agreement on how to fund it). But at the same time, the EITC does exactly nothing to reduce the official poverty rate. The reason has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the policy — the best evidence we have is that the EITC improves health, school achievement in children of recipient households, and those children’s wages once they grow up, among other things. It has to do entirely with what is and isn’t included in the official poverty numbers. . .”