How the U.S. compares on income inequality and poverty, By Elizabeth Shell, June 19, 2014, PBS Newshour: “There’s new data on income inequality out from the OECD Thursday, so we thought we’d take a look to see how the U.S. compares against the group’s 33 other countries — and its upcoming World Cup matches (more on that in a bit). When we look at income, the U.S. has had a wider gap — meaning less equal distribution of income — than the OECD average for at least the past 30 years. The data also shows that lower-income households across the OECD were hit harder by the financial crisis — the poor either lost more during the crisis or benefited less from the recovery than did their higher-income neighbors. While real household income hasn’t changed much (stagnated) across the 34 member countries, young adults have been hit the hardest since the financial crisis. . .”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty