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Rap som politisk aktivisime

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Lamont Carey (I Can't Read) HBO Def Jam Poetry

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In the United States, the income gap between the rich and everyone else has been growing markedly, by every major statistical measure, for more than 30 years.

Income Inequality

Income includes the revenue streams from wages, salaries, interest on a savings account, dividends from shares of stock, rent, and profits from selling something for more than you paid for it. Unlike wealth statistics, income figures do not include the value of homes, stock, or other possessions. Income inequality refers to the extent to which income is distributed in an uneven manner among a population.

Over the past four decades, the richest 1 percent of Americans have enjoyed by far the fastest income growth. The most rapid increase has occurred at the tippy top of the economic ladder. Between 1979 and 2019, the average income of the richest 0.01 percent of households, a group that today represents about 31,500 people, grew more than nine times as fast as the income of the bottom 20 percent of earners. These Congressional Budget Office figures include income from labor and investments. They do not account for taxes and means-tested public assistance, such as food stamps and Medicaid.

Income disparities are now so pronounced that America's richest 1 percent of households averaged more than 84 times as much income as the bottom 20 percent in 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office . Americans in the top 0.01 percent tower stunningly higher. With average household income of $43 million, they bring in 1,807 times more income than the bottom 20 percent.

The U.S. income divide has not always been as vast as it is today. In response to the staggering inequality of the Gilded Age in the early 1900s, social movements and progressive policymakers fought successfully to level down the top through fair taxation and level up the bottom through increased unionization and other reforms. But beginning in the 1970s, these levelers started to erode and the country returned to extreme levels of inequality. According to data analyzed by UC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, the ratio between the average income of the top 0.1 percent and the bottom 90 percent reached Gilded Age levels in the years preceding the 2008 financial crisis.

Over the past five decades, the top 1 percent of American earners have nearly doubled their share of national income, according to figures in the of people in the world's richest country who have to struggle to make ends meet. Federal pandemic relief legislation significantly reduced World Inequality Database . Meanwhile, the Census Bureau's "official" poverty rate for all U.S. families has merely inched up and down. In 2011, the Census Bureau began publishing a "supplemental" poverty measure that is more accurate but still likely understates the number child poverty rates, but those programs were temporary.

The nation's highest 0.01 percent and 0.1 percent of income-earners have seen their incomes rise much faster than the rest of the top 1 percent in recent decades. Both of these ultra-rich groups saw their incomes drop immediately after the financial crashes of 1929 and 2008, but they had a much swifter recovery after the more recent crisis. Income concentration today is as extreme as it was during the "Roaring Twenties."

Congressional Budget Office data show that taxes and means-tested public assistance narrow the income divide somewhat, but the gaps remain staggering. Between 1979 and 2019, the richest 0.01 percent of households had a cumulative income growth rate of 507 percent after accounting for taxes and aid transfers. That's more than five times the 94 percent growth rate for the bottom 20 percent of households. Tax cuts for the rich are a key driver of this rising inequality. The top U.S. marginal tax rate in 1979 was , compared to just 37 percent today.

The rich also benefit immensely from the tax code's preferential treatment of income from investments. Americans who are not among the ultra-rich get the vast majority of their income from wages and salaries. But the higher the U.S. income group, IRS data show, the larger the share of income derived from investment profits. The top tax rate for long-term capital gains is just 20 percent, compared to the top marginal tax rate on ordinary income of 37 percent.

Wage Inequality

Between 1979 and 2007, according to Economic Policy Institute research, paycheck income for those in the richest 1 percent and 0.1 percent exploded. The wage and salary income for these elite groups dipped after the 2008 financial crisis but recovered relatively quickly. Between 2009 and 2019, the bottom 90 percent had wage growth of just 8.7 percent, compared to 20.4 percent for the top 1 percent and 30.2 percent for the top 0.1 percent.

Productivity has increased at a relatively consistent rate since 1948. But the wages of American workers have not, since the 1970s, kept up with this rising productivity. Worker hourly compensation has essentially flat-lined, increasing just 17.3 percent from 1979 to 2021 (after adjusting for inflation). Over this same time period, worker productivity has increased 64.6 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute . In other words, productivity grew at a rate 3.7 times as fast as worker pay.

One factor in the widening income divide is the decline of U.S. labor unions. The share of the workforce represented by a union has declined to just 10.1 percent in 2022, down from over 30 percent in the 1940s and 1950s. Meanwhile, those at the top of the income scale have increased their power to rig economic rules in their favor, further increasing income inequality. In 2018, the richest 1% earned over 20 percent of all national income.

U.S. workers who are unionized continue to earn significantly higher wages than their non-unionized counterparts, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data , The gap is particularly wide among women. In 2022, median weekly wages for full-time unionized women amounted to $1,146 - $214 more than non-unionized women's earnings.

Men make up an overwhelming majority of top earners across the U.S. economy, even though women now represent almost half of the country's workforce. According to analysis by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, women comprise just 27 percent of the top 10 percent, and their share of higher income groups runs even smaller. Among the top 1 percent, women make up slightly less than 17 percent of workers, while at the top 0.1 percent level, they make up only 11 percent.

Since 1985, the average Wall Street bonus has increased 1,743 percent, from $13,970 to $257,500 in 2021 (not adjusted for inflation). According to Institute for Policy Studies analysis , if the minimum wage had increased at that rate, it would be worth $61.75 today, instead of $7.25. The total 2021 bonus pool for 180,000 New York City-based Wall Street employees was $45 billion - enough to pay for more than 1 million jobs paying $15 per hour for a year. Because the very rich can squirrel away much of their income, huge Wall Street bonuses don't have nearly the stimulus effect as raising pay for low-wage workers who have to spend nearly every dollar they make. The sharp rise in Wall Street bonuses has also contributed to race and gender inequality, as detailed in our facts sections on those issues.

Racial Income Inequality

In 2021, Fortune 500 CEOs, who earned $18.3 million on average, included just four Black and 17 Latino people - just 4 percent of the total. By contrast, these groups made up 43 percent of the U.S. workers who would benefit from a raise in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025, according to Institute for Policy Studies analysis of Economic Policy Institute data. Black and Latino people comprise 31 percent of the entire U.S. labor force.

One indicator of racial disparities at the top of the U.S. earnings scale is the threshold for entry into the top 10 percent. According to the Pew Research Center, for white families to make it into this tier of earners in their racial group, they need to have annual income of at least $117,986 - nearly twice as much as the threshold for Black families.

Racial discrimination in many forms, including in education, hiring, and pay practices, contributes to persistent earnings gaps. As of the third quarter of 2022, the median white worker made 25 percent more than the typical Black worker and around 28 percent more than the median Latino worker, according to BLS data.

The Black unemployment rate has persistently run about twice as high as for white workers. These rates only count those who are actively seeking work, leaving out those who have given up finding a job. While racial gaps have narrowed somewhat in recent years, the divides remain wide. In November 2022, Black unemployment stood at 5.7 percent, compared to 3.2 percent for white workers, according to BLS data.

CEO-Worker Pay Gaps

CEO pay has been a key driver of rising U.S. income inequality for decades, and the gap between CEO and worker pay has only widened during the pandemic.

In 2021, corporate CEOs were quick to blame worker wages for causing inflation. But an AFL-CIO analysis reveals that workers' real wages actually fell 2.4 percent in 2021 after adjusting for inflation. Meanwhile, S&P 500 companies increased their CEO pay by an average of 18.2 percent while enjoying record profits and spending a record $882 billion on stock buybacks.

An Institute for Policy Studies report on the 300 U.S. corporations with the lowest median worker wages in 2020 drew similar conclusions. At over a third of these firms, median worker pay failed to rise above the inflation rate in 2021. By contrast, CEO pay at these same low-wage firms soared 31 percent to an average of $10.6 million, for an average wage gap of 670 to 1. At 49 of the 300 firms, pay ratios topped 1,000 to 1, while just 27 had ratios under 100 to 1.

An Institute for Policy Studies analysis of the pandemic's first year found that while ordinary workers struggled in the face of Covid-19, many corporate boards fixated on shielding their CEOs' massive paychecks. More than half of the 100 S&P 500 companies with the lowest median worker pay moved bonus goalposts or otherwise rigged rules to inflate CEO pay in 2020. Among these rule-rigging corporations, CEO compensation averaged $15.3 million, up 29 percent from 2019. Median worker pay ran $28,187 on average, 2 percent lower than the 2019 worker pay rate. The ratio between CEO and median worker pay at these 51 firms averaged 830 to 1.

With U.S. unions playing a smaller economic role, the gap between worker and CEO pay has exploded since the early 1990s. In 1980, the average big company CEO earned just 42 times as much as the average U.S. worker. In 2021, the CEO-worker pay gap was nearly eight times larger than in 1980. According to the AFL-CIO, S&P 500 firm CEOs were paid 324 times as much as average U.S. workers in 2021. CEO pay averaged $18.3 million, compared to average worker pay of $58,260. During the 21st century, the annual gap between CEO pay and typical worker pay has averaged about 350 to 1.

The CEO pay explosion, as shown in AFL-CIO analysis , contrasts sharply with trends at the bottom end of the U.S. wage scale. Average CEO pay at S&P 500 corporations is up 642 percent since 1991, while Congress has not passed a minimum wage increase for more than a decade. The federal minimum wage for restaurant servers and other tipped workers has been frozen at just $2.13 per hour since 1991. According to the Labor Department , 27 states have raised their tipped minimum, while retaining this two-tier system. Seven states and the District of Columbia have eliminated or are phasing out the subminimum tipped wage altogether, while in Michigan the issue was tied up in the courts as of December 2022. In 6 states, the tipped minimum is still $2.13. While employers are technically supposed to make up the difference if workers don't earn enough in tips to reach the $7.25 federal minimum, this rule is largely unenforced.

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Inequality in earnings between America's most affluent and the rest of the country continue to grow year after year.

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Washington Post on Income Inequality in the US

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Washington Post on Income Inequality in the US

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"Why is there still inequality in America" (video)

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Mapping poverty in the US (video)

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statistik

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Are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer?
Our statistics can shed some light on this. A large number of factors have been identified as contributing to changes in inequality, the root causes are still not entirely understood

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Income inequality is the extent to which income is distributed unevenly among a population.

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THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much. Please, please have a seat. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Neera, for the wonderful introduction and sharing a story that resonated with me. There were a lot of parallels in my life and probably resonated with some of you.

Over the past 10 years, the Center for American Progress has done incredible work to shape the debate over expanding opportunity for all Americans. And I could not be more grateful to CAP not only for giving me a lot of good policy ideas, but also giving me a lot of staff. (Laughter.) My friend, John Podesta, ran my transition; my Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, did a stint at CAP. So you guys are obviously doing a good job training folks.

I also want to thank all the members of Congress and my administration who are here today for the wonderful work that they do. I want to thank Mayor Gray and everyone here at THEARC for having me. This center, which I've been to quite a bit, have had a chance to see some of the great work that's done here. And all the nonprofits that call THEARC home offer access to everything from education, to health care, to a safe shelter from the streets, which means that you're harnessing the power of community to expand opportunity for folks here in D.C. And your work reflects a tradition that runs through our history - a belief that we're greater together than we are on our own. And that's what I've come here to talk about today.

Over the last two months, Washington has been dominated by some pretty contentious debates - I think that's fair to say. And between a reckless shutdown by congressional Republicans in an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and admittedly poor execution on my administration's part in implementing the latest stage of the new law, nobody has acquitted themselves very well these past few months. So it's not surprising that the American people's frustrations with Washington are at an all-time high.

But we know that people's frustrations run deeper than these most recent political battles. Their frustration is rooted in their own daily battles - to make ends meet, to pay for college, buy a home, save for retirement. It's rooted in the nagging sense that no matter how hard they work, the deck is stacked against them. And it's rooted in the fear that their kids won't be better off than they were. They may not follow the constant back-and-forth in Washington or all the policy details, but they experience in a very personal way the relentless, decades-long trend that I want to spend some time talking about today. And that is a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that has jeopardized middle-class America's basic bargain - that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead.

I believe this is the defining challenge of our time: Making sure our economy works for every working American. It's why I ran for President. It was at the center of last year's campaign. It drives everything I do in this office. And I know I've raised this issue before, and some will ask why I raise the issue again right now. I do it because the outcomes of the debates we're having right now - whether it's health care, or the budget, or reforming our housing and financial systems - all these things will have real, practical implications for every American. And I am convinced that the decisions we make on these issues over the next few years will determine whether or not our children will grow up in an America where opportunity is real.

Now, the premise that we're all created equal is the opening line in the American story. And while we don't promise equal outcomes, we have strived to deliver equal opportunity - the idea that success doesn't depend on being born into wealth or privilege, it depends on effort and merit. And with every chapter we've added to that story, we've worked hard to put those words into practice.

It was Abraham Lincoln, a self-described "poor man's son," who started a system of land grant colleges all over this country so that any poor man's son could go learn something new.

When farms gave way to factories, a rich man's son named Teddy Roosevelt fought for an eight-hour workday, protections for workers, and busted monopolies that kept prices high and wages low.

When millions lived in poverty, FDR fought for Social Security, and insurance for the unemployed, and a minimum wage.

When millions died without health insurance, LBJ fought for Medicare and Medicaid.

Together, we forged a New Deal, declared a War on Poverty in a great society. We built a ladder of opportunity to climb, and stretched out a safety net beneath so that if we fell, it wouldn't be too far, and we could bounce back. And as a result, America built the largest middle class the world has ever known. And for the three decades after World War II, it was the engine of our prosperity.

Now, we can't look at the past through rose-colored glasses. The economy didn't always work for everyone. Racial discrimination locked millions out of poverty - or out of opportunity. Women were too often confined to a handful of often poorly paid professions. And it was only through painstaking struggle that more women, and minorities, and Americans with disabilities began to win the right to more fairly and fully participate in the economy.

Nevertheless, during the post-World War II years, the economic ground felt stable and secure for most Americans, and the future looked brighter than the past. And for some, that meant following in your old man's footsteps at the local plant, and you knew that a blue-collar job would let you buy a home, and a car, maybe a vacation once in a while, health care, a reliable pension. For others, it meant going to college - in some cases, maybe the first in your family to go to college. And it meant graduating without taking on loads of debt, and being able to count on advancement through a vibrant job market.

Now, it's true that those at the top, even in those years, claimed a much larger share of income than the rest: The top 10 percent consistently took home about one-third of our national income. But that kind of inequality took place in a dynamic market economy where everyone's wages and incomes were growing. And because of upward mobility, the guy on the factory floor could picture his kid running the company some day.

But starting in the late '70s, this social compact began to unravel. Technology made it easier for companies to do more with less, eliminating certain job occupations. A more competitive world lets companies ship jobs anywhere. And as good manufacturing jobs automated or headed offshore, workers lost their leverage, jobs paid less and offered fewer benefits.

As values of community broke down, and competitive pressure increased, businesses lobbied Washington to weaken unions and the value of the minimum wage. As a trickle-down ideology became more prominent, taxes were slashed for the wealthiest, while investments in things that make us all richer, like schools and infrastructure, were allowed to wither. And for a certain period of time, we could ignore this weakening economic foundation, in part because more families were relying on two earners as women entered the workforce. We took on more debt financed by a juiced-up housing market. But when the music stopped, and the crisis hit, millions of families were stripped of whatever cushion they had left.

And the result is an economy that's become profoundly unequal, and families that are more insecure. I'll just give you a few statistics. Since 1979, when I graduated from high school, our productivity is up by more than 90 percent, but the income of the typical family has increased by less than eight percent. Since 1979, our economy has more than doubled in size, but most of that growth has flowed to a fortunate few.

The top 10 percent no longer takes in one-third of our income - it now takes half. Whereas in the past, the average CEO made about 20 to 30 times the income of the average worker, today's CEO now makes 273 times more. And meanwhile, a family in the top 1 percent has a net worth 288 times higher than the typical family, which is a record for this country.

So the basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed. In fact, this trend towards growing inequality is not unique to America's market economy. Across the developed world, inequality has increased. Some of you may have seen just last week, the Pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length. "How can it be," he wrote, "that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?"

But this increasing inequality is most pronounced in our country, and it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people. Understand we've never begrudged success in America. We aspire to it. We admire folks who start new businesses, create jobs, and invent the products that enrich our lives. And we expect them to be rewarded handsomely for it. In fact, we've often accepted more income inequality than many other nations for one big reason - because we were convinced that America is a place where even if you're born with nothing, with a little hard work you can improve your own situation over time and build something better to leave your kids. As Lincoln once said, "While we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else."

The problem is that alongside increased inequality, we've seen diminished levels of upward mobility in recent years. A child born in the top 20 percent has about a 2-in-3 chance of staying at or near the top. A child born into the bottom 20 percent has a less than 1-in-20 shot at making it to the top. He's 10 times likelier to stay where he is. In fact, statistics show not only that our levels of income inequality rank near countries like Jamaica and Argentina, but that it is harder today for a child born here in America to improve her station in life than it is for children in most of our wealthy allies - countries like Canada or Germany or France. They have greater mobility than we do, not less.

The idea that so many children are born into poverty in the wealthiest nation on Earth is heartbreaking enough. But the idea that a child may never be able to escape that poverty because she lacks a decent education or health care, or a community that views her future as their own, that should offend all of us and it should compel us to action. We are a better country than this.

So let me repeat: The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe. And it is not simply a moral claim that I'm making here. There are practical consequences to rising inequality and reduced mobility.

For one thing, these trends are bad for our economy. One study finds that growth is more fragile and recessions are more frequent in countries with greater inequality. And that makes sense. When families have less to spend, that means businesses have fewer customers, and households rack up greater mortgage and credit card debt; meanwhile, concentrated wealth at the top is less likely to result in the kind of broadly based consumer spending that drives our economy, and together with lax regulation, may contribute to risky speculative bubbles.

And rising inequality and declining mobility are also bad for our families and social cohesion - not just because we tend to trust our institutions less, but studies show we actually tend to trust each other less when there's greater inequality. And greater inequality is associated with less mobility between generations. That means it's not just temporary; the effects last. It creates a vicious cycle. For example, by the time she turns three years old, a child born into a low-income home hears 30 million fewer words than a child from a well-off family, which means by the time she starts school she's already behind, and that deficit can compound itself over time.

And finally, rising inequality and declining mobility are bad for our democracy. Ordinary folks can't write massive campaign checks or hire high-priced lobbyists and lawyers to secure policies that tilt the playing field in their favor at everyone else's expense. And so people get the bad taste that the system is rigged, and that increases cynicism and polarization, and it decreases the political participation that is a requisite part of our system of self-government.

So this is an issue that we have to tackle head on. And if, in fact, the majority of Americans agree that our number-one priority is to restore opportunity and broad-based growth for all Americans, the question is why has Washington consistently failed to act? And I think a big reason is the myths that have developed around the issue of inequality.

First, there is the myth that this is a problem restricted to a small share of predominantly minority poor - that this isn't a broad-based problem, this is a black problem or a Hispanic problem or a Native American problem. Now, it's true that the painful legacy of discrimination means that African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans are far more likely to suffer from a lack of opportunity - higher unemployment, higher poverty rates. It's also true that women still make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men. So we're going to need strong application of antidiscrimination laws. We're going to need immigration reform that grows the economy and takes people out of the shadows. We're going to need targeted initiatives to close those gaps. (Applause.)

But here's an important point. The decades-long shifts in the economy have hurt all groups: poor and middle class; inner city and rural folks; men and women; and Americans of all races. And as a consequence, some of the social patterns that contribute to declining mobility that were once attributed to the urban poor - that's a particular problem for the inner city: single-parent households or drug abuse - it turns out now we're seeing that pop up everywhere.

A new study shows that disparities in education, mental health, obesity, absent fathers, isolation from church, isolation from community groups - these gaps are now as much about growing up rich or poor as they are about anything else. The gap in test scores between poor kids and wealthy kids is now nearly twice what it is between white kids and black kids. Kids with working-class parents are 10 times likelier than kids with middle- or upper-class parents to go through a time when their parents have no income. So the fact is this: The opportunity gap in America is now as much about class as it is about race, and that gap is growing.

So if we're going to take on growing inequality and try to improve upward mobility for all people, we've got to move beyond the false notion that this is an issue exclusively of minority concern. And we have to reject a politics that suggests any effort to address it in a meaningful way somehow pits the interests of a deserving middle class against those of an undeserving poor in search of handouts. (Applause.)

Second, we need to dispel the myth that the goals of growing the economy and reducing inequality are necessarily in conflict, when they should actually work in concert. We know from our history that our economy grows best from the middle out, when growth is more widely shared. And we know that beyond a certain level of inequality, growth actually slows altogether.

Third, we need to set aside the belief that government cannot do anything about reducing inequality. It's true that government cannot prevent all the downsides of the technological change and global competition that are out there right now, and some of those forces are also some of the things that are helping us grow. And it's also true that some programs in the past, like welfare before it was reformed, were sometimes poorly designed, created disincentives to work.

But we've also seen how government action time and again can make an enormous difference in increasing opportunity and bolstering ladders into the middle class. Investments in education, laws establishing collective bargaining, and a minimum wage - these all contributed to rising standards of living for massive numbers of Americans. (Applause.) Likewise, when previous generations declared that every citizen of this country deserved a basic measure of security - a floor through which they could not fall - we helped millions of Americans live in dignity, and gave millions more the confidence to aspire to something better, by taking a risk on a great idea.

Without Social Security, nearly half of seniors would be living in poverty - half. Today, fewer than 1 in 10 do. Before Medicare, only half of all seniors had some form of health insurance. Today, virtually all do. And because we've strengthened that safety net, and expanded pro-work and pro-family tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit, a recent study found that the poverty rate has fallen by 40 percent since the 1960s. And these endeavors didn't just make us a better country; they reaffirmed that we are a great country.

So we can make a difference on this. In fact, that's our generation's task - to rebuild America's economic and civic foundation to continue the expansion of opportunity for this generation and the next generation. (Applause.) And like Neera, I take this personally. I'm only here because this country educated my grandfather on the GI Bill. When my father left and my mom hit hard times trying to raise my sister and me while she was going to school, this country helped make sure we didn't go hungry. When Michelle, the daughter of a shift worker at a water plant and a secretary, wanted to go to college, just like me, this country helped us afford it until we could pay it back.

So what drives me as a grandson, a son, a father - as an American - is to make sure that every striving, hardworking, optimistic kid in America has the same incredible chance that this country gave me. (Applause.) It has been the driving force between everything we've done these past five years. And over the course of the next year, and for the rest of my presidency, that's where you should expect my administration to focus all our efforts. (Applause.)

Now, you'll be pleased to know this is not a State of the Union Address. (Laughter.) And many of the ideas that can make the biggest difference in expanding opportunity I've presented before. But let me offer a few key principles, just a roadmap that I believe should guide us in both our legislative agenda and our administrative efforts.

To begin with, we have to continue to relentlessly push a growth agenda. It may be true that in today's economy, growth alone does not guarantee higher wages and incomes. We've seen that. But what's also true is we can't tackle inequality if the economic pie is shrinking or stagnant. The fact is if you're a progressive and you want to help the middle class and the working poor, you've still got to be concerned about competitiveness and productivity and business confidence that spurs private sector investment.

And that's why from day one we've worked to get the economy growing and help our businesses hire. And thanks to their resilience and innovation, they've created nearly 8 million new jobs over the past 44 months. And now we've got to grow the economy even faster. And we've got to keep working to make America a magnet for good, middle-class jobs to replace the ones that we've lost in recent decades - jobs in manufacturing and energy and infrastructure and technology.

And that means simplifying our corporate tax code in a way that closes wasteful loopholes and ends incentives to ship jobs overseas. (Applause.) And by broadening the base, we can actually lower rates to encourage more companies to hire here and use some of the money we save to create good jobs rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our airports, and all the infrastructure our businesses need.

It means a trade agenda that grows exports and works for the middle class. It means streamlining regulations that are outdated or unnecessary or too costly. And it means coming together around a responsible budget - one that grows our economy faster right now and shrinks our long-term deficits, one that unwinds the harmful sequester cuts that haven't made a lot of sense - (applause) - and then frees up resources to invest in things like the scientific research that's always unleashed new innovation and new industries.

When it comes to our budget, we should not be stuck in a stale debate from two years ago or three years ago. A relentlessly growing deficit of opportunity is a bigger threat to our future than our rapidly shrinking fiscal deficit. (Applause.)

So that's step one towards restoring mobility: making sure our economy is growing faster. Step two is making sure we empower more Americans with the skills and education they need to compete in a highly competitive global economy.

We know that education is the most important predictor of income today, so we launched a Race to the Top in our schools. We're supporting states that have raised standards for teaching and learning. We're pushing for redesigned high schools that graduate more kids with the technical training and apprenticeships, and in-demand, high-tech skills that can lead directly to a good job and a middle-class life.

We know it's harder to find a job today without some higher education, so we've helped more students go to college with grants and loans that go farther than before. We've made it more practical to repay those loans. And today, more students are graduating from college than ever before. We're also pursuing an aggressive strategy to promote innovation that reins in tuition costs. We've got lower costs so that young people are not burdened by enormous debt when they make the right decision to get higher education. And next week, Michelle and I will bring together college presidents and non-profits to lead a campaign to help more low-income students attend and succeed in college. (Applause.)

But while higher education may be the surest path to the middle class, it's not the only one. So we should offer our people the best technical education in the world. That's why we've worked to connect local businesses with community colleges, so that workers young and old can earn the new skills that earn them more money.

And I've also embraced an idea that I know all of you at the Center for American Progress have championed - and, by the way, Republican governors in a couple of states have championed - and that's making high-quality preschool available to every child in America. (Applause.) We know that kids in these programs grow up likelier to get more education, earn higher wages, form more stable families of their own. It starts a virtuous cycle, not a vicious one. And we should invest in that. We should give all of our children that chance.

And as we empower our young people for future success, the third part of this middle-class economics is empowering our workers. It's time to ensure our collective bargaining laws function as they're supposed to - (applause) - so unions have a level playing field to organize for a better deal for workers and better wages for the middle class. It's time to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act so that women will have more tools to fight pay discrimination. (Applause.) It's time to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act so workers can't be fired for who they are or who they love. (Applause.)

And even though we're bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, we're creating more good-paying jobs in education and health care and business services; we know that we're going to have a greater and greater portion of our people in the service sector. And we know that there are airport workers, and fast-food workers, and nurse assistants, and retail salespeople who work their tails off and are still living at or barely above poverty. (Applause.) And that's why it's well past the time to raise a minimum wage that in real terms right now is below where it was when Harry Truman was in office. (Applause.)

This shouldn't be an ideological question. It was Adam Smith, the father of free-market economics, who once said, "They who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged." And for those of you who don't speak old-English - (laughter) - let me translate. It means if you work hard, you should make a decent living. (Applause.) If you work hard, you should be able to support a family.

Now, we all know the arguments that have been used against a higher minimum wage. Some say it actually hurts low-wage workers - businesses will be less likely to hire them. But there's no solid evidence that a higher minimum wage costs jobs, and research shows it raises incomes for low-wage workers and boosts short-term economic growth. (Applause.)

Others argue that if we raise the minimum wage, companies will just pass those costs on to consumers. But a growing chorus of businesses, small and large, argue differently. And already, there are extraordinary companies in America that provide decent wages, salaries, and benefits, and training for their workers, and deliver a great product to consumers.

SAS in North Carolina offers childcare and sick leave. REI, a company my Secretary of the Interior used to run, offers retirement plans and strives to cultivate a good work balance. There are companies out there that do right by their workers. They recognize that paying a decent wage actually helps their bottom line, reduces turnover. It means workers have more money to spend, to save, maybe eventually start a business of their own.

A broad majority of Americans agree we should raise the minimum wage. That's why, last month, voters in New Jersey decided to become the 20th state to raise theirs even higher. That's why, yesterday, the D.C. Council voted to do it, too. I agree with those voters. (Applause.) I agree with those voters, and I'm going to keep pushing until we get a higher minimum wage for hard-working Americans across the entire country. It will be good for our economy. It will be good for our families. (Applause.)

Number four, as I alluded to earlier, we still need targeted programs for the communities and workers that have been hit hardest by economic change and the Great Recession. These communities are no longer limited to the inner city. They're found in neighborhoods hammered by the housing crisis, manufacturing towns hit hard by years of plants packing up, landlocked rural areas where young folks oftentimes feel like they've got to leave just to find a job. There are communities that just aren't generating enough jobs anymore.

So we've put forward new plans to help these communities and their residents, because we've watched cities like Pittsburgh or my hometown of Chicago revamp themselves. And if we give more cities the tools to do it - not handouts, but a hand up - cities like Detroit can do it, too. So in a few weeks, we'll announce the first of these Promise Zones, urban and rural communities where we're going to support local efforts focused on a national goal - and that is a child's course in life should not be determined by the zip code he's born in, but by the strength of his work ethic and the scope of his dreams. (Applause.)

And we're also going to have to do more for the long-term unemployed. For people who have been out of work for more than six months, often through no fault of their own, life is a catch-22. Companies won't give their résumé an honest look because they've been laid off so long - but they've been laid off so long because companies won't give their résumé an honest look. (Laughter.) And that's why earlier this year, I challenged CEOs from some of America's best companies to give these Americans a fair shot. And next month, many of them will join us at the White House for an announcement about this.

Fifth, we've got to revamp retirement to protect Americans in their golden years, to make sure another housing collapse doesn't steal the savings in their homes. We've also got to strengthen our safety net for a new age, so it doesn't just protect people who hit a run of bad luck from falling into poverty, but also propels them back out of poverty.

Today, nearly half of full-time workers and 80 percent of part-time workers don't have a pension or retirement account at their job. About half of all households don't have any retirement savings. So we're going to have to do more to encourage private savings and shore up the promise of Social Security for future generations. And remember, these are promises we make to one another. We don't do it to replace the free market, but we do it to reduce risk in our society by giving people the ability to take a chance and catch them if they fall. One study shows that more than half of Americans will experience poverty at some point during their adult lives. Think about that. This is not an isolated situation. More than half of Americans at some point in their lives will experience poverty.

That's why we have nutrition assistance or the program known as SNAP, because it makes a difference for a mother who's working, but is just having a hard time putting food on the table for her kids. That's why we have unemployment insurance, because it makes a difference for a father who lost his job and is out there looking for a new one that he can keep a roof over his kids' heads. By the way, Christmastime is no time for Congress to tell more than 1 million of these Americans that they have lost their unemployment insurance, which is what will happen if Congress does not act before they leave on their holiday vacation. (Applause.)

The point is these programs are not typically hammocks for people to just lie back and relax. These programs are almost always temporary means for hardworking people to stay afloat while they try to find a new job or go into school to retrain themselves for the jobs that are out there, or sometimes just to cope with a bout of bad luck. Progressives should be open to reforms that actually strengthen these programs and make them more responsive to a 21st century economy. For example, we should be willing to look at fresh ideas to revamp unemployment and disability programs to encourage faster and higher rates of re-employment without cutting benefits. We shouldn't weaken fundamental protections built over generations, because given the constant churn in today's economy and the disabilities that many of our friends and neighbors live with, they're needed more than ever. We should strengthen them and adapt them to new circumstances so they work even better.

But understand that these programs of social insurance benefit all of us, because we don't know when we might have a run of bad luck. (Applause.) We don't know when we might lose a job. Of course, for decades, there was one yawning gap in the safety net that did more than anything else to expose working families to the insecurities of today's economy - namely, our broken health care system.

That's why we fought for the Affordable Care Act - (applause) - because 14,000 Americans lost their health insurance every single day, and even more died each year because they didn't have health insurance at all. We did it because millions of families who thought they had coverage were driven into bankruptcy by out-of-pocket costs that they didn't realize would be there. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens couldn't get any coverage at all. And Dr. King once said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

Well, not anymore. (Applause.) Because in the three years since we passed this law, the share of Americans with insurance is up, the growth of health care costs are down to their slowest rate in 50 years. More people have insurance, and more have new benefits and protections - 100 million Americans who have gained the right for free preventive care like mammograms and contraception; the more than 7 million Americans who have saved an average of $1,200 on their prescription medicine; every American who won't go broke when they get sick because their insurance can't limit their care anymore.

More people without insurance have gained insurance - more than 3 million young Americans who have been able to stay on their parents' plan, the more than half a million Americans and counting who are poised to get covered starting on January 1st, some for the very first time.

And it is these numbers - not the ones in any poll - that will ultimately determine the fate of this law. (Applause.) It's the measurable outcomes in reduced bankruptcies and reduced hours that have been lost because somebody couldn't make it to work, and healthier kids with better performance in schools, and young entrepreneurs who have the freedom to go out there and try a new idea - those are the things that will ultimately reduce a major source of inequality and help ensure more Americans get the start that they need to succeed in the future.

I have acknowledged more than once that we didn't roll out parts of this law as well as we should have. But the law is already working in major ways that benefit millions of Americans right now, even as we've begun to slow the rise in health care costs, which is good for family budgets, good for federal and state budgets, and good for the budgets of businesses small and large. So this law is going to work. And for the sake of our economic security, it needs to work. (Applause.)

And as people in states as different as California and Kentucky sign up every single day for health insurance, signing up in droves, they're proving they want that economic security. If the Senate Republican leader still thinks he is going to be able to repeal this someday, he might want to check with the more than 60,000 people in his home state who are already set to finally have coverage that frees them from the fear of financial ruin, and lets them afford to take their kids to see a doctor. (Applause.)

So let me end by addressing the elephant in the room here, which is the seeming inability to get anything done in Washington these days. I realize we are not going to resolve all of our political debates over the best ways to reduce inequality and increase upward mobility this year, or next year, or in the next five years. But it is important that we have a serious debate about these issues. For the longer that current trends are allowed to continue, the more it will feed the cynicism and fear that many Americans are feeling right now - that they'll never be able to repay the debt they took on to go to college, they'll never be able to save enough to retire, they'll never see their own children land a good job that supports a family.

And that's why, even as I will keep on offering my own ideas for expanding opportunity, I'll also keep challenging and welcoming those who oppose my ideas to offer their own. If Republicans have concrete plans that will actually reduce inequality, build the middle class, provide more ladders of opportunity to the poor, let's hear them. I want to know what they are. If you don't think we should raise the minimum wage, let's hear your idea to increase people's earnings. If you don't think every child should have access to preschool, tell us what you'd do differently to give them a better shot.

If you still don't like Obamacare - and I know you don't - (laughter) - even though it's built on market-based ideas of choice and competition in the private sector, then you should explain how, exactly, you'd cut costs, and cover more people, and make insurance more secure. You owe it to the American people to tell us what you are for, not just what you're against. (Applause.) That way we can have a vigorous and meaningful debate. That's what the American people deserve. That's what the times demand. It's not enough anymore to just say we should just get our government out of the way and let the unfettered market take care of it - for our experience tells us that's just not true. (Applause.)

Look, I've never believed that government can solve every problem or should - and neither do you. We know that ultimately our strength is grounded in our people - individuals out there, striving, working, making things happen. It depends on community, a rich and generous sense of community - that's at the core of what happens at THEARC here every day. You understand that turning back rising inequality and expanding opportunity requires parents taking responsibility for their kids, kids taking responsibility to work hard. It requires religious leaders who mobilize their congregations to rebuild neighborhoods block by block, requires civic organizations that can help train the unemployed, link them with businesses for the jobs of the future. It requires companies and CEOs to set an example by providing decent wages, and salaries, and benefits for their workers, and a shot for somebody who is down on his or her luck. We know that's our strength - our people, our communities, our businesses.

But government can't stand on the sidelines in our efforts. Because government is us. It can and should reflect our deepest values and commitments. And if we refocus our energies on building an economy that grows for everybody, and gives every child in this country a fair chance at success, then I remain confident that the future still looks brighter than the past, and that the best days for this country we love are still ahead. (Applause.)

Thank you, everybody. God bless you. God bless America. (Applause.)

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President Obama on inequality (transcript)

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 Remarks by President Trump at the Economic Club of New York | New York, NY ECONOMY & JOBS  Issued on: November 12, 2019

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 Remarks by President Trump at the Economic Club of New York | New York, NY ECONOMY & JOBS  Issued on: November 12, 2019

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commencement address (chande

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Economic Inequality - Research and data from Pew Research Center

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Research and data on Economic Inequality from Pew Research Center

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USA The source for global inequality data. Open access, high quality wealth and income inequality data developed by an international academic consortium.

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Watch Amanda Nothaft, Poverty Solutions director of data & evaluation, speak about measures of poverty and how we use this data in our work.

Facts

Supplemental child poverty rate

Children were poor according to the supplemental poverty measure

Income for 4-person family at
poverty level

SOURCES: U.S. Bureau of the Census 2022 Poverty and Income in the United States reports

How Do We Measure Poverty?

Though poverty may seem a straightforward concept, how we define and measure it is a matter of great debate. And this debate is important, because how we measure poverty is central to how we define, understand, and improve well-being in our society. We are constantly confronted with articles and analyses describing the growth or decline in the poverty rate, a certain program's impact on poverty, how we can best eliminate poverty. But what does it all mean? How do we actually define what it is to be poor in the United States? And why do we do it at all?

We largely use poverty measures for two central reasons: to target resources to those in need, and to measure our progress in improving well-being in society.

The most common way we measure poverty in the United States is through the Official Poverty Measure (OPM), a measure of income poverty developed in the 1960s. The OPM sets a certain income threshold, which varies by family size and is pegged to the rate of inflation, below which a family is considered poor. In 2020, the OPM threshold for a family of four is $26,200, and it's estimated that in 2019, 10.5 percent of Americans were living beneath that OPM threshold.[1] The OPM is the most commonly referenced poverty measure, and is used in determining the eligibility criteria for a whole range of government programs.
Read our brief on what the U.S. spends on anti-poverty programs
Though the OPM is the most ubiquitous poverty measure in the United States, scholars and policymakers have long pointed to the weaknesses of the OPM as an accurate measure of well-being. The OPM thresholds we use today were largely developed by Mollie Orshansky, an economist working in the Social Security Administration in the early 1960s, and were operationalized by the Johnson administration in its efforts to measure progress in its War on Poverty.[2] Leaning on survey data which showed that American households in the mid 1950s spent roughly a third of their budget on food, the adopted threshold was set at three times a subsistence food budget as defined by the Department of Agriculture, and adjusted for family size. Other than adjustments for inflation, this threshold is basically the same we use today.

While there may be some utility in using a consistent measure over such a long period of time, the world has also changed considerably since the mid 20th century. For example, housing eats up far more of household budgets than it did in the 1960s, and food much less, meaning the current threshold fails to properly account for an adequate basic-needs budget in today's world.[3] In addition, the OPM is not adjusted for regional variation in cost-of- living, a significant flaw when the cost of housing varies considerably by geography. The OPM also fails to properly account for other essential household expenses, such as transportation and childcare.[4] Finally, the measure does not account for many in-kind benefits and tax credits meant to improve overall well-being in low-income households, meaning the official poverty measure is unresponsive to many policies meant to combat poverty.[5]

In 2011, the Census Bureau began publishing the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) to address the shortfalls of the official measure. Rather than basing the threshold off of historical food budgets, the SPM threshold uses expenditure data on food, clothing, shelter, and utilities.[6] The SPM also accounts for regional variation in housing costs, and, perhaps most importantly, includes in-kind benefits and tax credits in overall household resources. This is important because while the OPM shows a relatively stable poverty rate over time,[7] historical analyses using the SPM show that poverty has dropped considerably since the late 1960s, largely as a result of government programs.[8]

While the SPM was developed in response to critiques of the OPM, many scholars believe that any attempt to define a poverty threshold based on a "basic necessities" basket of goods is an inherently flawed approach in a wealthy democracy.[9] Rather, these scholars believe that a relative poverty measure is more appropriate, defining the poverty threshold at 50 percent of a country's median income, for example. A relative measure of poverty moves away from measuring the share of individuals facing absolute deprivation, and seeks to measure the share of individuals who are unable to fully participate in society. Rather than trying to adjust and readjust an absolute threshold as costs, demands, and lifestyles of a particular society change, a relative threshold constantly adjusts to these changes, measuring who is being left behind. Many scholars believe that while an absolute threshold may be beneficial in a developing economy, a relative measure is far more useful in a wealthy democracy, allowing for better policy responses and more accurate cross-national comparisons of poverty. If we place the poverty threshold at 50 percent of a country's median, the poverty rate in the U.S. rises to roughly 18 percent, far above the rate seen in other developed nations.

Still other scholars suggest that the use of any threshold - absolute or relative - may fail to accurately assess the state of well-being in the United States. The OPM, SPM, or even a relative threshold are all indirect measures of economic well-being, estimating the amount of resources a household requires to meet their needs. An alternative way to measure well-being, however, is by simply asking households directly about their ability to meet basic needs: do they have enough to eat, can they pay their bills, are they able to see a doctor when they need to?[10] There are a number of surveys that seek to understand the state of material hardship in U.S. households - most notably the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) - and when this data is combined with the OPM and SPM, it offers a more holistic view of the state of well-being in America. For example, research finds that hardship often exists in households with incomes well above the poverty line, while some households in poverty - perhaps due to the aid of government programs - don't demonstrate hardship.[11] Relying on measures of material hardship, Poverty Solutions postdoctoral scholar Richard Rodems found that roughly 45 percent of U.S. households move into and out of either material hardship or income poverty over a two-year period, presenting a picture of widespread economic precarity in the U.S.[12]
Read the journal article on avoiding material hardship.
____________________________________________________________________________________________

[1] https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2020/demo/SEHSD-WP2020-10.html

[2] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/working-papers/1997/demo/orshansky.pdf

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/business/yourmoney/a-poverty-line-thats-out-of-date-and-out-of-favor.html; https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2001/05/art3full.pdf

[4] Rodems

[5] https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/145911/rodems_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y; https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/TCF_MeasuringPoverty_Report.Sep29.pdf

[6] https://www.vox.com/2015/9/16/9337041/supplemental-poverty-measure

[7] https://www.irp.wisc.edu/resources/how-is-poverty-measured/#:~:text=in%20this%20FAQ.-,Official%20Poverty%20Measure,and%20adjusted%20for%20family%20size.

[8] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27352076/

[9] Brady, Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of Poverty.

[10] https://poverty.umich.edu/files/2019/09/PovertySolutions-MaterialHardship-PolicyBrief-final.pdf

[11] https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/145911/rodems_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

[12] Rodems

How does the U.S. compare with other rich nations?

Compared to other wealthy nations, poverty rates in the United States are quite high. Many European countries, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), use a relative poverty measure, typically setting the poverty threshold at 50 percent of the country's median income. [27] These measures, therefore, are more of a gauge on inequality than deprivation, setting an income threshold that allows citizens to fully participate in society, rather than live at some minimal level of subsistence. [28]

Using this relative measure, the poverty rate in the United States is roughly 18 percent, the fourth highest among 40 countries measured by the OECD, and ahead of only Romania, Costa Rica, and South Africa. [29]

By comparison several countries in northern, western, and eastern Europe have relative poverty rates below 10 percent. [30] More international comparisons can be found at the LIS Cross-National Data Center , Eurostat , and the OECD .

[27] Rodems

[28] Rodems

[29] https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-rate.htm

[30] https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-rate.htm

Measuring hardship with ALICE

In recent years, much attention has been paid to the United Way's ALICE report, which sets a minimum basic needs threshold far above the poverty threshold, based on estimated household expenses for different family sizes. [31] For example, the ALICE threshold for a family of four (two adults and two young children) is roughly $61,000, including expenses like childcare, housing, transportation, and health care. ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed and is designed to capture those households whose incomes put them above the income poverty threshold, but who are still struggling to afford basic household necessities. The ALICE rate combines these households with those under the poverty line.

[31] https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52fbd39ce4b060243dd722d8/t/5c902a7e971a186c0a29dff2/1552951937149/HR19ALICE_Report_MI_Refresh_02.26.19b_Final_Hires+%283%29.pdf

The connection between poverty and race

Since we first began recording poverty data in 1959, poverty rates have been far higher for Black and Hispanic Americans than those for whites. [20] In 1959, the poverty rate for Black Americans was a shocking 55.1 percent. In the 1960s, when poverty dropped steeply, much of this reduction was due to the fall in the Black poverty rate, though by 1969 still roughly a third of Black Americans remained poor. [21] Beginning in the early 1970s, the Census Bureau began recording poverty rates for Hispanic Americans as a separate ethnic group, enabling comparisons between the poverty rates for Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and non-Hispanic whites. The disparities were vast. In 1976, the poverty rate was 31 percent for Black Americans, 25 percent for Hispanic Americans, and 8 percent for non-Hispanic Whites. [22]

Since then, Black and Hispanic poverty as measured by the OPM has declined significantly, but is still far above the poverty rate for white Americans. The poverty rate for Black and Hispanic Americans took a significant dip in the booming economy of the late '90s, falling from roughly 30 percent for both groups in 1995, to roughly 22 percent in 2000. [23] In 2018, 21 percent of Black Americans and 18 percent of Hispanic Americans were living in poverty, while the poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites was the same as it was in 1976, 8 percent.

While the poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites has been relatively stable (it only rose above 10 percent in three years since 1976, and never rose above 11 percent), the poverty rate for Black and Hispanic Americans is highly contingent on the state of the economy, in part due to their overrepresentation in low-wage industries that suffer losses during recessions, and only see wage growth when the economy is strong. [24] As noted above, this is why the poverty rate for Black and Hispanic Americans fell substantially in the economic expansion of the late 1990s, and shot back up during, and in the years following, the Great Recession.

These disparities persist when we look at rates of material hardship. In an analysis of hardship measures from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) from the mid 1990s to 2011, Poverty Solutions postdoctoral scholar Richard Rodems found that nearly 40 percent of Black households and 36 percent of Hispanic households experience some form of material hardship, versus just 20 percent of white households. [25] The share of households experiencing "hidden" hardship - households that are not income poor but still experience a form of material hardship - are also higher amongst Black and Hispanic households (25 percent and 24 percent respectively) than amongst white households (16 percent). [26]

[20] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/07/11/poverty-in-the-50-years-since-the-other-america-in-five-charts/

[21] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/07/11/poverty-in-the-50-years-since-the-other-america-in-five-charts/ ; https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/poverty-rates-for-blacks-and-hispanics-reached-historic-lows-in-2019.html

[22] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/stories/2020/09/poverty-rates-for-blacks-and-hispanics-reached-historic-lows-in-2019-figure-1.jpg

[23] Author analysis of historic Census tables

[24] https://www.epi.org/blog/workers-of-color-are-far-more-likely-to-be-paid-poverty-level-wages-than-white-workers/ ; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/business/economy/jobs-report-minorities.html

[25] https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/145911/rodems_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

[26] https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/145911/rodems_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

This map streamlines poverty and well-being data to understand what's happening in counties across Michigan.

This index represents a holistic look at disadvantage, using health indicators (life expectancy, low infant birth weight), poverty metrics (rates of poverty and deep poverty), and social mobility data (Opportunity Insights Mobility Metrics).

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Watch Amanda Nothaft, Poverty Solutions director of data & evaluation, speak about measures of poverty and how we use this data in our work. Supplemental child poverty rate Children were poor according to the supplemental poverty measure Income for 4-person family at poverty level SOURCES: U.S.

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On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, overturning Roe v. Wade, eliminating the federal standard protecting the right to abortion. Across the nation, states are reacting by implementing bans or protecting access to abortion. It is now up to each state to establish laws protecting or... More

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, overturning Roe v. Wade, eliminating the federal standard protecting the right to abortion. Across the nation, states are reacting by implementing bans or protecting access to abortion. It is now up to each state to establish laws protecting or...