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This article distinguishes the facts and myths over the issue of poverty. Writer Nafissatou Ndiaye states that poverty can mean many different things in a wide variety of different contexts. It's evident from this article that poverty doesn't have one clear definition. However, the article does state that poverty is a problem in the United States, but EXTREME poverty is in fact not an issue, even though the media portrays it to be. Before the pandemic set progress back, extreme poverty was steadily declining for almost 25 years!

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Poverty is hard to define, which can lead to a lot of misinformation about what it is and how-or even if-we can end it. Here, we correct a few of the most persistent poverty myths, and offer up a few facts.

Myth: Poverty is a choice and/or the result of laziness or a simple lack of work

For the vast majority of the 800 million people living in extreme poverty, there was no choice offered (especially if they live in a region or community prone to one of the top causes of poverty). Many were born into a cycle of poverty passed from one generation to the next.

Securing work isn't a guaranteed way out of poverty, either: Despite a decline in the working poverty rate in the last 25 years, 8% of the world's workers and their families still live in extreme poverty. This number is higher in areas like sub-Saharan Africa, where 38% of the workforce live on less than $1.90 a day (even in some cases with multiple jobs). Employment should be a key solution to ending poverty, but that only can be done through adequate pay, job security, and safe working environments.

Fact: Many of the causes of poverty are beyond individual control

If poverty is a choice, it's the choice of policy-makers and world leaders who opt not to take greater action towards eradicating extreme poverty. If we want to see real progress made towards eliminating extreme poverty, governments of wealthy nations must work together to fulfill 100% of the humanitarian funding needed every year. Policies and practices that negatively impact low- and middle-income countries should also be either amended or discontinued.

At the local level, governments must address the causes and maintainers of poverty. At Concern, we consider poverty to be the combination of inequality and risk, meaning that governments, policy-makers, and local leaders must work to reduce inequities and offset risk - especially those most vulnerable to the effects of economic, environmental, and health emergencies. Many people can break the cycle of poverty with the right support (we know this from the millions of people we work with each year to do just that), and leadership can help by supporting sustainable programs for families and communities living in poverty, along with education initiatives to ensure that the next generation has the skills, knowledge, and assets to succeed.

Myth: Money is enough to end extreme poverty.

Money is very important to end extreme poverty (as seen above in our note on humanitarian funding), but simply throwing money at a problem isn't going to solve it. . We also need to ensure that there are programs, policies, laws, and systems in place so that people can continue to earn money without relying on an outside organization like Concern for help, or without falling back below the poverty line in the event of a personal, local, or international crisis.

When we work to end extreme poverty, we're really working to address the issues that drive poverty. Beyond money, we need to fundamentally change the systems of inequality that prevent people of different genders, classes, ethnicities, religions, and other identities that can be marginalized from having the same rights as those in power. ( Gender equality is a big step, but not the only one!) We also must address other key causes and maintainers of poverty, including climate change, hunger, healthcare, conflict, and lack of quality education.

Fact: Poverty isn't easy to define

Poverty is multidimensional and not just about money. The World Bank has set the international poverty line at $1.90, meaning that anyone living on less than that amount per day is living "in poverty." Income is an important dimension, but measuring poverty by money alone isn't enough to capture its true nature, depth, and duration. (This is why the UN's Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Poverty includes targets around policy change and resilience-building.)

Even when we look at poverty in all its dimensions, there's still no one-size-fits-all label. People may move in and out of poverty frequently, they may stay in poverty for long periods, or they may only ever occasionally experience poverty. Broadly speaking, we can categorize poverty into four types, each with its own rhythm and fluctuations: occasionally poor, cyclical poor, usually poor, and always poor. Learn more about each type in our cycle of poverty explainer:

Myth: We can end poverty without needing to worry about...

There's no way around ending poverty without addressing issues like gender inequality, climate change, and hunger. If left in place, an issue like climate change will lead to effects (such as drought and flooding) that cause a domino effect of hunger, displacement, and conflict. Similarly, if we don't work towards eradicating social norms and practices that leave women and other identities marginalized and out of the conversation, that inequity gap will continue to widen. That gap keeps girls out of school, women unable to financially benefit from agriculture as their male counterparts do, and a disparity in income that leads to insufficient access to healthcare, shelter, and daily necessities.

These issues are interdependent. If we leave one of them unchecked, we'll soon be back at square one.

Fact: Poverty can happen to anyone

While inequality and geography both play a big role in driving the cycle of poverty, it can still happen to anyone. We've seen this over the last year with the economic toll of COVID-19 and lockdowns that have led to loss of income and livelihoods. Syria is another good example of what can happen in a situation that spirals out of control: Prior to 2011, as few as 10% of Syrians lived below the poverty line and the country had a thriving middle class. A decade of conflict and instability has left over 80% of Syrians now living below the poverty line.

Myth: We have so much going on in the United States (including our own poverty rates) that we should focus on that first

Poverty is a very real issue in the United States. Extreme poverty, however, is not. In fact, the vast majority of people living in extreme poverty don't even live in our hemisphere. That makes it harder for us as Americans to see its impact firsthand, but it doesn't mean we can ignore it. We can work to both address poverty at home and extreme poverty in the world-and as a high-income nation overall, we must work to do both of these things at once and take decisive action against extreme poverty. Its causes and impacts are not contained by national borders.

Fact: Many high-income countries bear some responsibility for the current poverty rates in low-income countries

It's an uncomfortable truth that the majority of countries dealing with the highest levels of extreme poverty are countries that were left unstable following western colonial rule and/or countries excluded from global development strategies in the last century. The last 60 years of the Democratic Republic of Congo's history have been plagued by internal conflict and insecurity following its independence from Belgium (an era marked by forced labor, exploitation of natural resources, disease, and mass killings that some estimate claimed the lives of 10 million Congolese). Key to understanding Haiti's history following its own hard-won independence from France is that the country has been in a protracted financial crisis since the Haitian Revolution ended in 1804. It only finished paying reparations to France for that independence in 1947.

Myth: Only billionaires can help end poverty

There is a misconception that only rich people can meaningfully help end poverty. It's understandable: The numbers are very big, and for many of us it can seem like what we're able to do is just a small drop in the bucket. (Especially when billionaires are flying into space instead of putting their money to use on planet Earth.)

While big donations are important for humanitarian aid and development programs, no government, organization, or person can solve extreme poverty on their own. We each have a role to play as we have the power to either contribute to extreme poverty or help to resolve it. As a first step, we can start by learning about the causes of poverty and some of the ways it can be solved. By doing so, we will eventually see how our choices and the use of our resources change to have a positive impact on the world.

Fact: It may seem impossible, but we can end poverty

...but not at the current rate. Even though the pandemic set progress back, extreme poverty was steadily declining for almost 25 years. The number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 689 million in 2017. Ending poverty is within our reach: There are enough resources in the world that everyone could and should be living well above the poverty line. We are losing steam, however, which means that we must renew our commitment to this common goal as individuals, organizations, and governments.

Ending extreme poverty, whatever it takes

For more than 50 years, Concern has been dedicated to reaching the furthest behind on the road to Zero Poverty, listening first to the specific needs of people, families, and communities, and then responding with solutions that will leave us out of a job. Learn more below about our work building livelihoods and financial empowerment.

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Poverty myths and facts: Setting fake news straight

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Poverty is hard to define, which can lead to a lot of misinformation about what it is and how-or even if-we can end it. Here, we correct a few of the most persistent poverty myths, and offer up a few facts.

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This source is my favorite because who doesn't love BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY. He goes through several myths/misconceptions surrounding poverty including some that surprised me. Some myths he debunks line up with those Rosling tries to debunk including child mortality going by a lot in Africa.

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This graph confirms what Bill Nye and Rosling have been saying. Not only is the number of poor people decreasing but the number of extremely poor people is also decreasing. Seeing graphs like this help fight the negative ideas we have about our current world and helps push a more optimistic view.

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This graph shows how the majority of Americans say social media has a negative affect on the way we see the country today. Across all political parties, there's a trend that social media has a more negative then positive affect on the way we view the country. However, even though we are aware of the negative affects the media has on us today, we continue to be consumed by it.

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This image goes hand in hand with my first post. It debunks this misconception that poor people are poor because they don't want to work.

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This song is does an amazing job of showing poverty in our lives. This opening verse does a FANTASTIC job of showing an everyday situation of someone on the street needing help but citizens ignoring her. Why are we quicker to help those is need in areas farther away from us rather than those in our own community?

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Phil Collins - Another Day In Paradise (Official Music Video)

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This video is titled "this is poverty" and it is showing everyday people that could easily live my, or your, community that consider themselves living in poverty.

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Project manager - Maddi OBrien
Tech support - Jad Khayyati
Proofing - Ridhdhi Patel and Hadley Moran
Duplicate monitor - Trinity Maturen
Due date monitor - Alyssa Luke
Idea specialist - Andrew Wallace
Quality control/ communication - Alex Smit

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This journal entry shows the public view on poverty though the years, and how it is reported in the media. It shows the change from helpless to lazy and different ways it is represented. This source doesn't mention specific places, but it shows many perspectives on media coverage of poverty.

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Summary: As shown in the illustration, the heart is telling the brain to look at the piles of "good" pebbles to the left. The brain, only focusing on the one "bad" pebble using a magnifying glass, replies to the heart saying, "Now now! Can't you see I'm busy?!"

Explanation: This illustration does a great job at defining the negativity instinct, which is the first part of our focused question. We hyper focus on negative news that we ignore the positive news and do not realize how much good there is - our heart tells us to focus more on the good, but our mind tells us the opposite, to only focus on the bad because it is our unconscious habit.

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Often when someone thinks of poverty an image similar to this comes to mind. This is how the negativity instinct is portrayed in media. Although this does not explain a specific place, it is more often than not the image someone sees when searching poverty in other areas around the world.

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This Ted talk is about the medias coverage on poverty and its negative impacts on Africa. He explains how the media shows small incidences of aid that billions of dollars get poured into small things, and that the western view is that Africa is in despair and that they desperately need aid. This will be helpful in the project because it talks about the general media coverage view on poverty in another continent.

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Andrew Mwenda: Aid for Africa? No thanks.

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In this provocative talk, journalist Andrew Mwenda asks us to reframe the "African question" -- to look beyond the media's stories of poverty, civil war and helplessness and see the opportunities for creating wealth and happiness throughout the continent.

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In this survey most people thought that drug abuse and medial bills were major causes of poverty and that not doing enough is a bigger cause of poverty than circumstances. These negative views impact everyone in poverty because it categorizes them all in a view of not doing enough and how everyone perceives them.

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American Attitudes About Poverty and the Poor

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This song is an example of the negativity instinct on media coverage because it is basically saying that people who are in poverty do not even know what Christmas is and that nothing grows over there. This is also showing the gap instinct of him v them.

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Band Aid - Do they know it's christmas 1984   |   HD -  Widescreen 16:9

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Summary: Bono, the speaker of this TedTalk, shows inspiring data (data that has not been widely shared through the media) that shows that we are making progress towards the end of poverty - his goal is to educate others on the facts, on the positives that most fail to recognize, and to share an optimistic view. For example, Bono displayed a line chart and explained how the number of people living in extreme poverty has declined from 43 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2010 - the percentage of people living in extreme poverty halved in twenty years. As shown on another line chart Bono displayed, it is predicted that by the year 2030, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty will be near or at 0 percent.

Explanation: I chose to include this TedTalk because this TedTalk connects to our focused question in that it reminds us that the media focuses on extremes of poverty, and not on the improvements the world has made - the good news - on poverty, which is why most of us do not know about them. Bono helps to point out common misconceptions and educates us by providing optimistic statistics and facts.

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Bono: The good news on poverty (Yes, there's good news)

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Human beings have been campaigning against inequality and poverty for 3,000 years. But this journey is accelerating. Bono "embraces his inner nerd" and shares inspiring data that shows the end of poverty is in sight ... if we can harness the momentum.

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This chapter shows some of the history of how the media has covered people experiences poverty, including pointing out the lack of coverage provided consistently.

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President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty in the 1960s represented the United States' most sustained attempt at addressing entrenched poverty and the news media's most consistent coverage of the issue. News coverage of poverty subsided drastically in the 1970s as government priorities shifted. Thereafter, media attention was limited to occasional special reports by metropolitan newspapers owing to some anniversary, milestone or catastrophic event like Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which illuminated the depth of poverty in New Orleans. In Katrina's aftermath, news treatment of poverty issues was similar to coverage in Appalachia decades before. Though racially dissimilar, both regions had socioeconomic parallels. Great Society programs attracted scrutiny in Appalachia in the 1960s, and those who survived Katrina's wrath in 2005 also received much news media attention. In both instances, how the news media covered poverty contributed to the negative stereotypes that have endured for both Kentucky's Appalachia and Louisiana's New Orleans. This chapter explores news coverage of the two events and discusses the characteristics that would later be determined problematic. It concludes by noting the need to provide consistent coverage of people experiencing poverty and the issues affecting them.

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A History of Media Coverage of Poverty in the United States Since 1960

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President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty in the 1960s represented the United States' most sustained attempt at addressing entrenched poverty and the news media's most consistent coverage of the issue. News coverage of poverty subsided drastically in the 1970s as government priorities shifted.

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This article shows how specific language is used to convey conceptions regarding poverty.

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This is an example of a website for a non-profit organization. This page explains what hunger is, who may be hungry, and what we can do to help.

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Food banks, shelters, and soup kitchens may seem like the answer to hunger in America. They are, however, a short-term and inadequate response. There has been a stunning increase in the number of emergency food programs over the last 40 years. In 1980, there were about 2 dozen food banks in the United States.

Today, there are more than 350, which serve 63,000 affiliated pantries and shelters. The growth of the emergency food system, however, has failed to solve "hunger." Despite a spike during the Great Recession and a recent trend downward as the economy has recovered, the prevalence of food insecurity has remained relatively constant over the past 25 years. 11.1% of households were food insecure in 2018, which is only slightly below the 11.9% rate that was recorded in 1995, the year the federal government started keeping statistics.

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Food banks, shelters, and soup kitchens may seem like the answer to hunger in America. They are, however, a short-term and inadequate response. There has been a stunning increase in the number of emergency food programs over the last 40 years. In 1980, there were about 2 dozen food banks in the United States.

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Summary: The main sections of this report that are most helpful in answering our focused question are the sections titled “Working with the ‘traditional’ media” and “New media, new opportunities”. These sections discuss how poverty is under-reported and inadequately reported in the media for a range of reasons, how the media tends to focus on the extremes of poverty, why people who have had firsthand experiences of poverty should have their stories told, and how increased communication through new media has allowed for more opportunities to develop better public understanding of the global poverty issue and generating pressure for change.

Explanation: I decided to include this report as one of my three main sources to answer our focused question because it goes into depth behind why we have these misconceptions about the issue of poverty around the world. The report also discusses what should be shown and told in the media to educate the public.

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This cartoon portrays the idea that distortions tend to go viral on social media. The media plays a tremendous influence on our daily lives today. We believe whatever it is we might see on the internet, no matter how misleading this information can be. Consuming false and misleading information in the media, leads to distorted views of the world.

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In this song, singer Madison Beer expresses how social media has both its positive and its negatives when it comes to its affect on an individual. Beer explains how its our choice to become self-aware of the media's purpose and notice when social networking starts to become harmful.

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Madison Beer - Dear Society (Official Video)

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Economic security programs reduce overall poverty. Between 1970 and 2017 the poverty rate fell for all groups of people. It seems that these economic security programs have become a lot more effective in reducing poverty and racial disparities over the last five decades, according to this article.

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In this article it is talking about how CNN and MSNBC have decreased their coverage on material about poverty and inequalities in the world. In 2016, 7 different news provider programs decreased their media coverage about poverty and inequalities by 40% (Harrington, 2016). Even though some media outlets are decreasing and very few of them are increasing their coverage on this topic it still relates to our overall question because this decrease in media coverage about poverty is directly fueling the idea of the negativity instinct. Due to the poor media coverage on this topic it allows people to continue to view our world negatively and think that there is no fixing the poverty levels in this world but in reality our poverty levels are getting better and so is our world. WIthout proper media coverage people will not realize this and continue to fall under the negativity instinct.

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Huge Drop In Segments Dedicated To Inequality And Poverty

Weekday And Sunday Programs Dim Their Spotlight On Inequality And Poverty. Major broadcast and cable news programs discussed policies and other topics relating to economic inequality less frequently during the second quarter of 2016 than during the first quarter of the year, according to a Media Matters analysis. Weekday broadcast and cable coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC dropped nearly 40 percent from 109 total segments in the first quarter to just 67 segments during the second quarter. Among qualifying weekday programming, only two networks -- ABC and CBS -- increased their focus on inequality from the first quarter.

Sunday political talk shows on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox Broadcasting, and NBC exhibited a less severe decrease of roughly 19 percent, down from 27 total segments in the first quarter to 22 in the second. Among qualifying Sunday programming, only two networks -- CBS and Fox Broadcasting -- increased their focus from the first quarter. Yet, both stations increased coverage by only one additional segment. [ Media Matters, 8/1/16, 5/25/16]

Despite Drop In Total Coverage, Proportion Of Segments Discussing Poverty Increased. Despite significant decreases in total coverage of inequality, the proportion of weekday and Sunday segments on inequality that also mentioned issues of poverty increased over the last quarter. Weekday programming specifically mentioned poverty in over 62 percent of segments focused on economic inequality in the second quarter, up from 55 percent in the prior period. Sunday programming specifically mentioned poverty in roughly 46 percent of similar segments, up from 33 percent in the prior period:

Weekday News Still More Likely To Discuss Inequality, Poverty Than Sunday Shows. As seen in the prior recording period, weekday broadcast and cable news programming were more likely to discuss inequality and poverty than the Sunday political talk shows in segments on the economy.

PBS Continues High Standard While Fox News Remains A Problematic Voice In Inequality Coverage

PBS Led All Competitors In Covering Economic Inequality, Poverty. PBS NewsHour maintained its first-quarter lead over all other broadcast evening news programs in terms of covering both economic inequality and poverty in the second quarter. PBS dedicated three times as much coverage to economic inequality as its next closest broadcast competitor: CBS' Evening News. PBS aired six times more programming focused on economic inequality than CNN -- despite the cable giant having three hours of qualifying program every day to PBS' one hour.** [ Media Matters, 5/25/16]

Fox News Remained The Loudest Voice In The Room. Fox News dedicated 24 segments to economic inequality during the survey period, twice as many segments as MSNBC and eight times more than CNN. MSNBC's 12 segments during the second quarter represented a significant decrease from 32 in the first quarter. Meanwhile, after featuring a discussion of economic inequality in 17 segments during the first quarter, CNN's coverage of the topic virtually disappeared, with just three qualifying segments during the second:

Fox Continued Promoting So-Called Solutions That Would Actually Make Inequality And Poverty Worse. Fox News continued dedicating considerable time to promoting so-called policy solutions to lingering economic inequality and systemic poverty that research suggests would make those problems worse:

In 11 segments, the same number as registered during the prior quarter, Fox hosts and guests called for so-called "pro-growth" tax and regulatory policies allegedly aimed at boosting economic growth and job creation to lift working Americans out of poverty. But research suggests that economic growth alone is not sufficient mechanisms to alleviate poverty. Recent research from the Brookings Institution indicates "a weak relationship" between increased growth and increased economic security. Meanwhile, independent analyses from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Research on Poverty suggests that if economic growth alone could reduce poverty, the predicted poverty rate would have fallen to 0 percent between 1988 and 1994. [Institute for Research on Poverty, Focus, Spring-Summer 2007; Economic Policy Institute, 1/15/14; Brookings Institution, 1/29/16]

In nine segments, Fox hosts and guests called for further reductions of the annual federal budget deficit and for reduction of the national debt. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the spending cuts necessary to achieve balanced budgets would be disastrous for vital programs including food assistance, cash welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security -- all of which play a crucial role in reducing poverty in the United States. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/9/16, 3/28/16]

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was a featured guests during four segments focused on inequality and poverty. A recent Moody's Analytics analysis of Trump's tax and economic policies indicates that enacting his proposals would drive the American economy into a deep and prolonged recession resulting in higher unemployment, decreased job creation, and increased economic inequality. According to a 2010 analysis of the Great Recession (2007-2009) from the Brookings Institution, the economic contraction greatly "exacerbated" poverty rates around the country; the report correctly predicted that the economic contraction would continue driving millions of Americans into poverty "by the middle of this decade." [Brookings Institution, October 2010; Moody's Analytics, 6/17/16]

Fox News hosts and guests never mentioned the impact raising the minimum wage at the local, state, or federal level could have on alleviating poverty and economic insecurity despite considerable evidence that low wages force millions of American workers to rely on anti-poverty assistance programs. According to a recent joint report by Oxfam America and EPI, a full-time worker earning a minimum wage of $12 per hour could sustain an average family of four above the poverty line, and a nationwide wage threshold at that level would reduce federal spending on anti-poverty programs by roughly $17 billion annually. [Oxfam America/ Economic Policy Institute, June 2016]

Bernie Sanders Remained The Driving Force In Sunday Show Coverage Of Inequality And Poverty. In line with a trend established during the first quarter of the year, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who lost the Democratic presidential primary to Hillary Clinton, was the driving force in coverage of economic inequality and poverty on the five major Sunday political talk shows on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox Broadcasting, and NBC. Sanders was featured in 15 of the 22 segments focused on economic inequality and in eight of the 10 segments focused on poverty. President Barack Obama and Clinton were responsible for the remaining mentions of poverty. [ Media Matters, 5/25/16]

Women's Perspectives Less Prevalent; Economists' Opinions On Inequality Break Through

Economists Accounted For 10 Percent Of Weekday Guests During Segments On Inequality And Poverty. Political and media figures continued to represent the vast majority of guests during discussions of economic inequality and poverty during qualifying weekday programming. Economists accounted for six of the 60 guests featured during weekday broadcast and cable coverage of inequality -- a significant increase from the prior quarter, when they accounted for just two of 136 guests. Political guests (23) and journalists/media guests (23) comprised the bulk of the remaining weekday guests. As had been the case during the first quarter of the year, economists were not among the 26 guests featured during Sunday segments focused on inequality and poverty. The increased representation of economists during weekday programming from the first to the second quarter of the year reflects broader trends in guest composition. [ Media Matters, 5/25/16, 8/1/16]

Women's Representation Falls From Already Low Baseline. In the first quarter of the year, women accounted for just 33 percent of total weekday and Sunday guests during segments on economic inequality and poverty. In the second quarter, the percentage of guests who were women fell just below 20 percent. Women accounted for just 12 of 60 guests during qualifying weekday segments, and just five of 26 guests during qualifying Sunday segments. The stark lack of representation comes despite the fact that Equal Pay Day -- an annual day of action marking how far into the year an average woman has to work to earn as much as her male counterparts -- fell on April 12 this year, within the survey period for the second quarter. According to an April 2016 report by Congress' Joint Economic Committee (JEC), women are acutely affected by poverty and more likely than men to struggle with poverty "at every age" as a result of pay disparities over the course of their careers. [ Media Matters, 4/12/16; U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, April 2016]
The last quarterly report of inequality and poverty coverage is available here: first quarter, 2016** PBS dedicates more daily airtime to live news than its broadcast competitors do, and its news programming is commercial-free. This increased programming range allows the PBS NewsHour to feature more significant and in-depth discussions of the economy than ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News can. .
Methodology

Media Matters conducted a Nexis search of transcripts of network broadcast news and cable prime-time (defined as 8 p.m. through 11 p.m.) weekday programs on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC from April 1 through June 30, 2016. We identified and reviewed all segments that included any of the following keywords: econom! or jobs or growth or debt or deficit or minimum wage or inequality or taxes or poverty or low income or low-income or obamacare or aca or affordable care act or health care.

The following programs were included in the data: World News Tonight, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CBS Evening News, Face the Nation, NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, PBS NewsHour, Anderson Cooper 360, CNN Tonight, The O'Reilly Factor, The Kelly File, Hannity, All In with Chris Hayes, The Rachel Maddow Show, and The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell. For shows that air reruns, only the first airing was included in data retrieval. Unlike Fox News and MSNBC, CNN did not air distinct news programming during the 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. time slot during the survey period, opting instead for a second hour of Anderson Cooper 360.

We defined segments that discuss economic inequality as those that mention the socioeconomic disparity between high- and low-income individuals.

We defined segments that call for deficit reduction as a priority as those where either the host or guest mentions deficit and debt reduction as pressing needs.

We defined segments that call for economic growth as a priority as those where either the host or guest mentions economic growth and job creation as pressing needs.

We defined segments that identify tax increases as having a negative impact on the economy as those where either the host or guest mentions that tax increases are holding back job creation or economic growth as well as those where either the host or guest advocates tax cuts to spur job creation or economic growth. In some instances, a host or guest conflates general or specific government regulations with tax increases.

We defined segments that promoted myths about the economic effects of the Affordable Care Act as those where either the host or guest suggests that the Affordable Care Act is holding back job growth, increasing part-time work, or restricting business activity, as well as those where either the host or guest proposes repealing the Affordable Care Act as a means of stimulating the economy.

We defined segments that promoted myths about the economic effects of increasing the minimum wage as those where either the host or guest alleges that a minimum wage increase would lead to job losses, an increase in part-time work, or restricted business activity.

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STUDY: Networks Focus Less On Poverty As Coverage Of Inequality Drops

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In the second quarter of 2016, prime-time and evening weekday news programs on the largest broadcast and cable outlets dedicated significantly less time to economic inequality and poverty than they had in the first quarter of the year. The weekday drop-off was led by CNN and MSNBC, which dramatically reduced their programming on inequality.

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1. In this article the author describes the problem with how our society talks about poverty in the media. The way that poverty is talked about in the media makes it seem like it is an illness or disease and not a worldwide issue that needs to be talked about. The author goes into discussing that the word choice that media companies use when talking about poverty makes a big difference to understand the tone to this issue. Even though these journalists are working for a company with specific views they should be showing how serious this issue is and sharing with people on how to fix it. These journalists and news companies are using their source of media to once again fuel the negativity instinct by using their language in their coverage to convey this issue incorrectly when they should be showing our progress and including other ways to help continue to help the already decreasing poverty rates.

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This article lists five ways how art can help impoverished individuals by helping them stay engaged in school, helping them get into college, a place to express themselves, and even give them a source of employment. The author also mentions that art can be a source that brings awareness to the negativity instinct relating to poverty and help other be aware of this issue in a positive way. Through art we can change the worlds perception on poverty and visually show the people the truth. Since the negativity impact is so prevalent in the media we can use art to change people’s point of view by opening their eyes and combating the negativity instinct visually through art.

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Art is a frequent medium for human expression and resistance, and within that space of creation and possibility is the opportunity to find ways to fight poverty and alleviate the suffering of the global poor.

1. Art can help impoverished children increase their chances of going on to college and obtaining employment by developing fundamental cognitive capacities, critical analytical skills, and providing learning experiences that have a significant impact on children's educational achievement and social development.

A recent report published last year by the presidentially appointed Committee on the Arts and Humanities showed results stating that low-income students who were highly involved in the arts performed better, stayed in school longer, scored higher in math assessments, and were more likely to graduate high school, attend college, find stable employment, perform volunteer work in their communities, and vote.

2. Art programs can focus on entire communities faced with poverty and provide multiple services and opportunities in terms of gainful employment, a platform of expression for the voiceless, creating beauty and hope amidst poverty and blight, provide awareness to suffering, galvanizing donors and philanthropists, and can allow others to advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves.

Programs like the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program target at-risk children, juveniles, and adults and provide them with opportunities and spaces of expression they would not otherwise have access to. The program has even taken a leading role in criminal and restorative justice by offering education programs in prisons and rehabilitation centers, helping to effectively reduce crime, violence, and the poverty and misery associated with it.

3. Art and creative expression can help provide employment and income to those who are impoverished. Having non-profit programs that help develop artists by providing a more equitable share of profits from sold work, and investing in opportunities for those who are poor to create and thrive as artists, means a larger return than one individual's income and the chance to influence poverty in an entire community or area.

4. Art can advocate for the impoverished, provide visibility to issues of poverty, and be a platform for agency to effect change and eradicate this form of human suffering. Organizations like 2015 use art and creativity to change perceptions about poverty by raising awareness so that greater actions can be taken to fight poverty in the Middle East. By linking an art movement to the United Nations Millennium Goals, the public sphere and shared space of art becomes a political platform to support larger movements, fight poverty locally, and challenge the failings that allow for three billion people to remain trapped in poverty.

5. Art can help fund projects and utilize creativity to find measures to help end the suffering of the billions of the world's poor. Artistic endeavors and the art community can be organized and motivated to provide fundraising and resources for essential programs and serve as the appropriate community to build connections of supporters. Art naturally involves innovation, and creative minds can be utilized to find solutions to problems like substandard housing or the effective use of public space. Those suffering in poverty need all the resources we have available, and art has the capacity to take its own form and be that of another, so when used to fight poverty, it becomes an instrument of justice.
- Nina Verfaillie
Feature Writer

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5 Ways Art Can Help Alleviate Poverty - The Borgen Project

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Art is a frequent medium for human expression and resistance, and within that space of creation and possibility is the opportunity to find ways to fight poverty and alleviate the suffering of the global poor. 1.

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This picture represents how our world and its media coverage is focused to please the viewer when it there should be more coverage on real issues that are happening in our world.

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This article describes the idea that certain media coverage might cause those in poverty to feel stuck and unseen.

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Megan Howe

Journalists and charity campaigners in Britain have joined forces to combat bias in journalism that makes life even worse for people trapped in a world of growing inequality and deprivation.

Reporting the plight of communities struggling to lift themselves out of poverty requires careful and sensitive journalism, but sometimes the poorest people may find themselves targeted by bias in the news.

This has led the National Union of Journalists in the UK and the British-based group Church Action on Poverty to draft new Reporting Guidelines for journalists and editors and now they plan to make a film to reinforce the message that news media need to set higher standards.

The initiatives come after fresh evidence that impoverished people feel targeted by language and deceptive use of statistics. The groups claim that often media perpetuate the idea that poor people are lazy, exaggerate benefit claims or manage money badly.

As one of those surveyed stated in the guide: "Poverty is not just a lack of money, food, jobs, and so on-it's also a lack of opportunity." There were also statements from participants asking the media to treat them with dignity and humanity.

Rachel Broady, NUJ Manchester and Salford branch Equality Officer, said: "It is a concern about language and inaccurate portrayals and the misuse of statistics." She says some tabloid newspapers are guilty of stereotyping the poor as people who skip work or are committing benefit fraud.

"They allow sections of our communities to be seen as a problem to be dealt with rather than people living through austerity or a hard time," she said. ""These stories, which are often extreme or sensationalized, have been used to justify benefit cuts or to suggest unemployment is a lifestyle. These stories have a real impact on people's lives."

Jackie Cox, Media Coordinator for Church Action on Poverty said: "People feel stigmatised by the way the media reports on poverty." Speaking at event to launch the guidelines in London earlier this year, Cox said that people in poverty are the real experts on poverty and the feel "demonized" by the way some media write about their situation.

Sian Jones, from the National Union of Journalists said: "What we really want to do with the guidelines is tackle inappropriate language and to use them as a practical tool for journalists and newsrooms."

To increase awareness of the guidelines there are plans to make a short film about reporting poverty.The film will be funded by donations and produced by The Reporters' Academy,a non-profit youth media company. The Academy helps young people develop professional media skills and to further their opportunities for advanced education and future careers.

"We think the unique partnership with The Reporters' Academy would not only benefit our campaign but introduce these young people to the to the importance of ethical reporting," said Broady.

More information on The Reporters' Academy and the reporting poverty film is available from Sian Broad [email protected]

This article was updated on 1 August 2016.

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NUJ - How Poor Journalism Makes Life Worse for People in Poverty

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Megan Howe Journalists and charity campaigners in Britain have joined forces to combat bias in journalism that makes life even worse for people trapped in a world of growing inequality and deprivation. Reporting the plight of communities struggling to lift themselves out of poverty requires careful and sensitive journalism, but sometimes the poorest people may find themselves targeted by bias in the news.

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This article explains how poverty is viewed by a lot of people and how wrong this view can be. It explains that poverty does not necessarily correlate with a poor work ethic but it's sometimes a necessary stepping stone in peoples lives.

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This video explains that there's a general misconception that poverty is getting worst. The optimistic point of view it gives is similar to Rosling's. They say that the precentage of poor people has gone down from 44% to 10% in roughly 30 years which is amazing.

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The Most Common Misconceptions About Poverty

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This article discusses the statistics of media coverage of global poverty and how lacking the United States is in its awareness of other countries around the world. It discusses how the 0.2% of news coverage that addresses global poverty impacts US citizens which directly plays into our big question regarding the negativity instinct because there is such minimal news coverage that most people are not being exposed to accurate data and the very minimal information they have is the perfect example of how the negative instinct can become so widespread.

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Many U.S. citizens have misconceptions about the extent of global poverty and how the government is acting to remedy the issue. However, this may not be at the fault of the general public. Media coverage of global poverty largely contributes to the information gaps in the minds of many Americans.

A survey done by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that Americans assume more than 20% of the federal budget is spent on foreign aid. In reality, non-military assistance composes just about 0.2% of the federal budget. This assumption is especially pertinent, as it may give Americans the impression that global poverty is constantly decreasing. For the first time since 1998, that is no longer true. COVID-19 is pushing millions into extreme poverty, counteracting years of progress.

Limited Media Coverage

In 2014, another study found that three major network newscasts devoted just 0.2% of their programming to poverty in 14 months. Recently, with politics and public health consuming the majority of airtime, this number has fallen. Media coverage of global poverty is taking a back seat to other topics. Consequently, it is no surprise that many Americans have warped perceptions of poverty overseas.

General, mainstream media outlets tend to shy away from discussing global poverty in great depth. This is because the topic may not test well with viewers. As a result, when there are reports on these issues, they often take the form of stories or opinion pieces rather than formal news stories. While these pieces still spread awareness, they do not relay to Americans, the facts of what occurs overseas. In turn, this limits the opportunity for readers to develop sufficiently informed opinions of their own.

Mainstream Media Coverage?

Even The New York Times, a reputable news outlet, is not immune to this phenomenon. A Google search for "global poverty New York Times" yields an opinion piece before any formal article on the subject. These results may deter readers from trusting information in the opinion article (first search result) as opinion pieces outwardly inform readers of bias. The second article, titled "Millions Have Risen Out of Poverty. Coronavirus is Pulling them Back" begins with a narrative of a woman in Bangladesh escaping poverty, then falling back into its grasp due to the side effects of COVID-19. Using devices like storytelling to convey facts can be effective, but it does not always present the most detailed information. Just three articles on the Google search results page are from 2020. This represents only 30% of the initial search results. Any other non-opinion pieces are from 2015 or earlier (at the time of this article's publication).

However, it may not even be the news outlets that are at fault for the sporadic nature of their reports on poverty. Censorship proves to be its own problem. Many impoverished countries tend to withhold the information for which journalists may be looking. The extra steps or inability to access these kinds of facts may prove difficult for some news outlets.

Other Outlets

The irregular nature of the reports on poverty explains why the issue is not on the radar of many Americans. Yet, still, the information does exist. News outlets such as Borgen Magazine and Global Citizen consistently release articles in the interests of the world's poor - simultaneously educating Americans on foreign affairs. However, this does not make up for mainstream news outlets' lack of coverage.

There have been efforts to remedy the lack of media coverage of global poverty, including publications and initiatives dedicated to aiding the world's poor. For instance, the Global Investigative Journalism Network released tips on covering poverty back in 2014. However, knowledge of poverty and how to combat it cannot spread unless two things occur. First, citizens must take the initiative to seek it out themselves. Alternatively (and arguably more beneficially), mainstream media outlets can find a way to integrate it into their news releases on a more regular basis.

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Media Coverage of Global Poverty - The Borgen Project - Global Poverty

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Many U.S. citizens have misconceptions about the extent of global poverty and how the government is acting to remedy the issue. However, this may not be at the fault of the general public. Media coverage of global poverty largely contributes to the information gaps in the minds of many Americans.

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This TED Talk challenges a very controversial topic about those in poverty, something that many people agree with today- that the poor have something mentally wrong with them to continue to make the same decisions that keep them in poverty. The speaker combats this false mindset and explains in depth the mentality one has when in poverty as well as the fact that "poverty isn't a mindset, it's a lack of cash." This directly connects to false assumptions made about poverty in our big question.

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Rutger Bregman: Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash

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"Ideas can and do change the world," says historian Rutger Bregman, sharing his case for a provocative one: guaranteed basic income. Learn more about the idea's 500-year history and a forgotten modern experiment where it actually worked -- and imagine how much energy and talent we would unleash if we got rid of poverty once and for all.

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This art work addresses inaccurate stereotypes of the countries and cities in Africa and inaccurate/skewed media coverage is significantly responsible for this. The piece is a combination of the inaccurate portrayal of African countries mixed with the more accurate portrayal including all the cities that are thriving in Africa, contrary to what most Americans believe.

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In the fall of 2007, in a 1st- and 2nd-grade classroom during circle time, Ms. Brown told her students, "My friend is planning a trip to the continent of Africa. Can you tell me what my friend will need when she goes to Africa?" Several children shouted out excitedly.

Ms. Brown followed up with another question, "What will my friend see when she goes to Africa?" The children quickly rattled off a list:
Animals.
Yeah, animals.
Elephants.
Cheetahs and monkeys.
Lions.
Giraffes.
Jaguars.
Men with spears hunting animals.
Ms. Brown asked, "What kinds of things do they do there?"

Finally, Ms. Brown asked, "What kind of jobs do they have there?" The children seemed stumped. Then two children piped up.
Picking fruit.
Growing corn.
These responses highlight the images that children often have of Africa.

As Professor Michael Bamidele Adeyemi of the University of Botswana suggests, "Americans believe that Africa is a country, that Africa is 'still uncivilized,' that the average African is polygamous, and that Africa is not urbanized." In fact, the African continent encompasses a diverse set of more than 50 nations, each made up of a variety of urban and rural cultures, lifestyles and socioeconomic realities. Rates of urbanization in Africa are the highest in the world. By 2025, more than half of the African population will be urban. Barbara Brown explains in the March/April 2008 issue of Social Studies and the Young Learner: "Americans are often surprised to learn that the majority of Africans have never seen large wildlife."

Images in the news, popular media and school textbooks often highlight African people living in abject poverty; rarely do they show the realities of wealth, power and good health that also exist throughout the continent. Typically, African children are depicted as sick and hungry; rare are depictions of the millions of African children who arrive at school fed and ready to learn each day.

Inaccurate impressions of Africa start early, as children are exposed to stereotypical information in books, the news media, advertisements, and film and TV programs such as "The Lion King," "Madagascar" and "George of the Jungle," to name just a few.

It is not just children who see Africa as a land full of wild animals and starving children. One of the authors of this article showed slides in her child's classroom of their family's trip to the capital city of Dakar in Senegal, with images of cars, tall buildings and people in schools, restaurants and at work. As soon as the slide show was over, the teacher jumped in front of the class and told all the students, "I want you to know that this is not the real Africa that you have just seen here."

Because teachers, parents, and other adults are influenced by ongoing exposure to these stereotypes, we must carefully examine and challenge our own knowledge and assumptions about African environments, customs, traditions and cultural realities. Otherwise, our misimpressions influence the kinds of learning opportunities we create for children.

This is a challenging but essential task. Vivian Yenika-Agbaw, the author of Representing Africa in Children's Literature: Old and New Ways of Seeing, analyzed 50 fictional children's books set in West Africa and published between 1960 and 1995. She found that the texts "represent West Africa as either primitive/barbaric or natural/romantic."

She also examined messages regarding life in Africa as depicted in picture books for young children. Although some picture books depicted "Africans as dignified people with varied cultures," many painted a more stereotypical picture; negative messages included descriptions and depictions of Africa "as a 'Mythical Home' with unexplainable natural and historical occurrences ... as a vulnerable place prone to foreign invasions ... [and] as a place where people share space with animals."

Our own review of 30 children's books about Africa found skewed and incomplete images. More than 90 percent of the books, for example, showed only rural or village life and jungles. Based on images from these books, readers would assume there are no cities in Africa.

Why is this important?

Stereotypical representations of Africa and its people have a profound impact on three levels:

Racial relations and identity development for all Americans.

Constant association of Africa with animals, poverty and exotic behaviors affects the perception of African American and black heritage around the world. Such deficit images of Africa contribute directly to racism. Historically, these misconceptions were used to justify enslavement and colonialism. The portrayal of Africa in Western media and children's books continues to feed a belief in white superiority and the need of Africans (Blacks) to be saved or feared. The images also contribute directly to internalized racism, leading many black children in the U.S. to want to distance themselves from any association with their African heritage.

Treatment of first-generation African immigrants.

Most recent immigrants from African countries to the United States learn quickly about how little Americans know about Africa and experience firsthand the racism associated with that ignorance. We have heard countless stories from first-generation immigrants from Africa about the questions they receive. Invariably, they are asked about wild animals. Many of these immigrants have come from cities in Africa and have not seen a wild animal except in the zoo. In some cases, children are taunted, told to return to the jungle or asked to show their tail.

Global/international relations and foreign policy.

Ultimately what students in the United States learn about Africa impacts our country's relations with and policies toward African countries. If negative stereotypes prevail, then as citizens we are unlikely to challenge policies that are paternalistic or exploitative. If the next generation of students develops a deeper and more respectful understanding of African countries, then our foreign relations and policies will follow suit.

Challenging African Stereotypes in the Classroom

Below are recommendations for using an anti-bias curricular approach when creating learning experiences about the African continent for children in the United States.

Use the names of specific countries instead of just calling it "Africa."

Just as it is unusual to use "Europe" when referring to France or "North America" when referring to Canada, avoid using "Africa" to stand for individual African countries. Some guidance: Some children's books have Africa in the title, but the author's note indicates which nation is featured. If a parent, fellow teacher, or guest speaker references Africa, you can ask: "Which country?" If there are first-generation immigrants from the African continent in your school or classroom, be sure that you and your students know their specific countries of origin. Read Africa is Not a Country (Burns & Melnicove, 2000) to your students, and find the featured countries on a map of Africa. Reinforce the vastness of the continent with the informative map "How Big is Africa," which fits Europe, China and the United States into Africa.

Avoid activities that perpetuate stereotypes of hungry and poor Africans.

Activities that use images of hungry, helpless Africans reinforce negative stereotypes that pervade children's consciousness due to limited exposure to counter images. When fundraising drives, social studies lessons or current events focus on issues of poverty in an African country, use the opportunity to teach about the root causes of hunger and poverty globally. Be sure to help children recognize that poverty is also prevalent here in the United States, and that poverty locally and globally is impacted by U.S. trade policies and multinational corporations. Students can then identify strategies for lasting change, e.g. purchasing fair-trade items, educating their communities, and advocating for progressive legislation. Terry Moore, a 3rd-grade teacher, describes how a small group of committed students moved their school "from charity drives to education to action." For their final project, the students held a Hunger Banquet, an activity designed by Oxfam America to mimic inequities and politics in the real world. Students charged $5 admission to an ice cream banquet, then dished out unequal portions to the attendees. The activity dramatically changed the way their fellow students viewed hunger and poverty. The money the students raised was donated to an organization dedicated to helping people obtain a sustainable source of food and income ("Beyond Bake Sales: Elementary Students Fight Hunger and Child Labor" in Rethinking Schools, Summer 2004). Many more lessons like this can be found in Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World.

Use "regular" language.

Employ words and phrases that you would normally use when discussing life in the U.S. Use "house" not "hut" and "people" (or identity group or ethnic group) instead of "tribe." The latter is a source of endless debate and discussion. Curtis Keim provides a cogent critique of the term "tribe" in his book Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind (Keim, 1999).

Pay attention to the messages and images conveyed by your choice of art activities.

In many classrooms, making "African" masks and "huts" are students' first school-based introductions to Africa. Expand students' perspectives by introducing contemporary art and artists. Highlight Nigerian batik specialist Nike Onlaniyi Davies and encourage students to use her techniques to create their own artistic expressions. Davies is featured in Faces magazine's "The Yoruba People: Nigeria and Beyond" (September 1995) and on her website. If mask-making is an essential part of your curriculum, be sure to include masks from throughout the world. Know the country and cultural significance of the masks you are introducing from Africa and be aware that some countries in Africa have no masking traditions. Introduce students to the wide variety of musical expressions from Africa by playing compact discs while students work. Start with Putumayo's "Mali," which features the lyrical kora, the vibrant balaphon and blues-tinged sounds from southern Mali.

Make sure you are using as many contemporary stories as you are folktales.

African folktales are a great way to teach values and gain insight into cultures and beliefs. The heavy use of folktales, however, can lead to misconceptions since folktales are typically set in the past and feature wild animals and rural scenes. Balance folktales with stories that introduce young children to present-day reality in cities and towns. These images are represented well in Ikenna goes to Nigeria (Onyefulu, 2007) and A Child's Day in a South African City (Wulfsohn, 2002).

Include North Africa.

Don't separate the study of North African countries from countries south of the Sahara. Bring North Africa into your discussions with The Day of Ahmed's Secret (Heide & Gilliland, 1990), set in Egypt, and My Father's Shop (Ichikawa, 2006), set in Morocco. When studying ancient Egypt, be sure to include ancient Nubia, Egypt's southern neighbor. The Rise of the Golden Cobra (Aubin, 2007), a novel set during the reign of King Piankhy, is a good choice for upper elementary students.

Highlight typical social groups and everyday activities.

Avoid materials that emphasize exotic practices. Provide posters and books that feature African children and families engaged in everyday activities, especially those activities with which children in the U.S. can relate. The African continent is a diverse collection of countries where people live in wealth and in poverty, in rural and in urban dwellings; where livelihoods depend upon farming, business, and industry; and where individuals occupy all of the professions we have come to associate with the industrialized world, including doctors, lawyers, and professors. Tololwa Mollel's My Rows and Piles of Coins (1999) and Big Boy (1997) are much more representative of life in Tanzania than the endless stream of books about East Africa's cattle-keeping Maasai. For occupation diversity, ask children to identify the different occupations in Here Comes our Bride (Onyefulu, 2004).

Avoid wild animal motifs.

Did you know that most Africans have never seen large wild animals? Elephants, lions and giraffes populate only a few countries, primarily in East and Southern Africa, and today most of these large animals live in or near national parks. Children in Africa are much more likely to see the same animals an American child would see. I Lost My Tooth in Africa (Diakite, 2006), What's Cooking, Jamela? (2001) and Musa's Journey (Grobler, 1997) collectively feature birds, dogs, cats, chickens and a host of other barnyard animals. If "wild animals" is a must-do theme, read a book about wild animals in the U.S., and then read Home Now (Beake, 2007), a realistic story about an orphaned South African girl who befriends an orphaned elephant that lives in a national park. In Ashraf of Africa (Mennen and Daly, 1990), we see fierce lions, gliding crocodiles, and thundering zebras but discover that Ashraf, who lives "in a city, a city at the very tip of the great African continent," has only seen these animals in a book.

Explore African perspectives and actions.

Share the ways Africans see their world by reading award-winning books by African authors. Tololwa Mollel (Tanzania), Ifeoma Onyefulu (Nigeria) and Elinor Sisulu (South Africa) are just a few of the authors from African countries who have won Children's Africana Best Book Awards (complete list of winners at www.AfricaAccessReview.org). Highlight Africans who organized to bring about needed change. For example, students can learn about Kenya's Green Movement and the leadership of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. Independent readers can tackle easy-to-read biographies including Lilian Ngoyi (van Wyk, 2003) and Helen Joseph (van Wyk, 2003); these unsung heroes - one black, one white - opposed apartheid side by side and in death are buried side by side.

Take an imaginary city tour.

To ensure that your students never say, "I didn't know there were cities in Africa," pretend your class is taking a trip that includes a tour of two or more cities. Students will need to plan their air travel, select hotels, understand the currency and exchange rate, pack appropriate clothing and identify places of interest to visit. Good choices for this project are: Accra, Ghana; Cairo, Egypt; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Cape Town, South Africa. Cape Town (Stein, 1998) and Cairo (Stein, 1996) are good resources for planning trips to these cities. For Accra and Addis Ababa, use Google Images and the University of Wisconsin's digital collection Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds from Africa. Don't limit your study of urbanization in Africa to the present. Ask students in grades 3 and higher to write about living in an ancient or medieval African city. UNESCO's World Heritage site has useful information on Aksum and Lalibela, Ethiopia, and medieval Timbuktu, Mali.
Brenda Randolph is the Director of AfricaAccess, Chairperson of the Africana Children's Book Award and Library Media Specialist with the Montgomery County Maryland Public Schools. Betsy DeMulder is the Director of Initiatives in Educational Transformation at George Mason University and visiting scholar with Teaching for Change. Thanks to Barbara Brown (Boston University), Lindsey Allard (Teaching for Change), Merry Merryfield (Ohio State University), and Deborah Menkart (Teaching for Change) for their contributions to the article.

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I Didn't Know There Were Cities in Africa!

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In the fall of 2007, in a 1st- and 2nd-grade classroom during circle time, Ms. Brown told her students, "My friend is planning a trip to the continent of Africa. Can you tell me what my friend will need when she goes to Africa?" Several children shouted out excitedly.

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This article discusses the dangers of fake news and misinformation in the media and how it can significantly impact a populations' ability to accept fact as truth. This causes extremely negative consequences as people cannot even accept proven fact which connects to conformation bias. This article looks at American poverty and how inaccurate media coverage can be dangerous.

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Under the administration of the incontinently mendacious President Donald J. Trump, everyone should worry about the integrity of America's official statistics. They should worry about much more under Trump, particularly the fate of democracy in the United States. But without credible official data, there can be no genuine accountability-and thus no democracy.

Consider the Trump administration's reporting on poverty in the US. It seems that the baseline numbers produced by the US Census Bureau are (so far) intact, but there has been a flurry of misinterpretations that go beyond the usual partisan spin.

Commentators on the right like to quote Ronald Reagan's 1988 claim that in the war on poverty, declared by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, poverty won. That claim, perennially used as a cudgel to beat the social safety net that was expanded under Johnson's 'Great Society' reforms, is consistent with official poverty estimates, the methodology of which has not been updated since the 1960s.

Because that methodology ignores taxes (including the earned income tax credit) and programs like food stamps (now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP), their effects are not counted, no matter how successful they are in reducing want. Such a widely acknowledged statistical flaw invites commentators to fill the hole with their prejudices, as Reagan did.

More recently, Trump's Council of Economic Advisers, in a July report arguing for work requirements to be attached to social benefits, claimed that, thanks to the American safety net, the war on poverty 'is largely over and is a success'. This argument hinges on abandoning traditional metrics, which measure income, and switching to consumption.

Consumption is arguably (but only arguably) superior to income as a welfare measure, but it is unclear how many of the very poor participate in a burdensome and intrusive survey that has a 40% non-response rate. More worrying still is the essentially arbitrary 'correction' to the consumer price index (CPI) that reduces the poverty line so that there are fewer people beneath it.

Perhaps the official CPI doesn't adequately capture quality improvements in goods and services. The consequences of this have been addressed in the scholarly literature, notably by a National Academy of Sciences panel that argued against a mechanical correction. But debating that issue is very different from abandoning the official CPI in favor of a more politically advantageous one that comes close to eliminating poverty.

A more egregious case of data manipulation concerns a report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. At the invitation of the US government, the Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston, examined extreme poverty in the US. He reported his findings to the UN Human Rights Council in June 2018.

The result makes for dreadful reading. Documenting the extraordinary depths of poverty in parts of the US, the report includes tent camps on the streets of Los Angeles, yards awash in untreated sewage because local authorities refuse to supply services, and the widespread use of fines and confiscations levied on poor people that many towns and cities are using to finance themselves. Whereas Johnson declared a war on poverty, parts of America are now waging a war on the poor.

Many of us believe that, because the US social safety net is so imperfect, extreme poverty is more prevalent there than elsewhere-and certainly among developed countries. Welfare reform that encouraged work has been good for some of the poor, but bad for the poorest, expanding inequality within the poor population and hurting the worst off.

Books by Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer and by Matthew Desmond have documented in detail the miseries of life at the bottom in America, and Shaefer and Edin argue that several million children in the US are living on less than two dollars a day. In a New York Times commentary in January, I noted that the World Bank now publishes estimates of global poverty that include the rich countries, and that those estimates show 5.3 million people in the US living on less than the equivalent of the world's global poverty line.

In my argument, I used US$4 per person per day for rich countries as roughly equivalent to the global poverty line of US$2 used for poor countries. There are more 'globally poor' people in the US than in Sierra Leone or Nepal, and the poverty rates in the US and China are similar, despite the more than threefold difference in per capita income.

The World Bank's calculations that I reported were widely denounced-by both the right and the left. The Heritage Foundation argues that if one uses consumption, not income, there are only 250,000 globally poor people in the US. Never mind whether the parents selling their children's social security numbers to survive, or risking their children's safety to find a place to live, have time to participate in the consumption survey. Many on the left, meanwhile, refuse to believe that any American is as poor as the poorest in Africa or Asia. Whereas the right wants to decrease domestic transfers, the left wants to increase foreign transfers.

The story then turns surreal. Alston's report drew an angry rebuke from the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, who claimed that 'it is patently ridiculous for the United Nations to examine poverty in America', and an official US response saying that Alston's numbers were wrong. Yet the only numbers Alston used came from the US Census Bureau, an estimate described in the response as 'the exaggerated figure cited by the Special Rapporteur'. The response then approvingly cited the Heritage calculations, which are based on my $4-per-day poverty line.

And then, perhaps only coincidentally, the Trump administration pulled the US out of the Human Rights Council, with the result that Haley didn't attend the report's presentation. She, like the Council of Economic Advisers, noted that the Trump administration knows how to tackle deep poverty, which is to force people to work.

That may or may not be true, but denouncing the Census Bureau's estimates in favor of those from the Heritage Foundation (there is evidence that agency officials objected) or conveniently tampering with the CPI, and then treating the alternative numbers as superior to the official statistics, is surely well beyond the pale. Trump's administration showed in 2018 that it will admit no blemishes, whether extreme poverty or the unconscionable death toll following Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. And there is no reason to believe that further distortions of the truth, and the threat to democracy that such behaviour implies, will not appear in the coming year.

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﻿How American poverty became 'fake news' | The Strategist

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Under the administration of the incontinently mendacious President Donald J. Trump, everyone should worry about the integrity of America's official statistics. They should worry about much more under Trump, particularly the fate of democracy in the United States. But without credible official data, there can be no genuine accountability-and thus no democracy.

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This article discusses the most commonly believed myths and misconceptions about poverty around the world. Some of these misconceptions are taught through inaccurate media coverage that play into the negativity instinct as well as false stereotypes of global poverty.

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There are a lot of inaccurate, false stories and information out there about poverty and people who experience it. You've probably heard some of them - like that poverty is an individual's fault, or that ending extreme poverty isn't possible.

In reality, poverty is a societal issue that affects people all over the world and it's a multifaceted and complex issue, with individual experiences of poverty varying from person to person.

At its heart, poverty is about a lot more than a lack of money. Poverty is also exclusion from society, it's discrimination and lack of access, it's not being able to access the resources your family needs to stay healthy.

As the World Bank puts it: "Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place across time, and has been described in many ways. Most often, poverty is a situation people want to escape. So poverty is a call to action - for the poor and wealthy alike - a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and health, protection from violence, and a voice in what happens in their communities."

Misinformation, which drives misconception, is powerful - powerful enough to derail the real narrative around poverty, the people who experience it, and the fight to end it.

The systemic effects of misinformation go far beyond misinformed individuals. Misinformation can quickly breed false beliefs and opinions about poverty, influencing the actions of decision-makers and leaders who have the ability and resources to alleviate extreme poverty and bring it to an end.

Here are some common myths and misconceptions about poverty, those who experience it, and information about its reality.

1. Poor Countries Are Doomed to Remain Poor.

The idea that low-income countries are trapped in a cycle of poverty that can't be escaped is one held the world over, but particularly in western-based countries. While the assumption that poorer countries will never progress exists, basic data can debunk it. Countries including Mexico, Turkey, and Chile which, according to the Borgen Project, were once considered "irrevocably poor" are now home to thriving economies.

There has actually been very significant progress in the fight against global poverty in the last couple of decades alone, which frankly isn't talked about enough.

The UN reports that in 2015, 10% of the world's population, or about 734 million people, lived in extreme poverty (meaning on less than $1.90 a day) - down from 36% in 1990. It's worth noting, however, those are pre-pandemic figures, with the World Bank reporting that about 97 million more people have been pushed into poverty as a result of COVID-19.

2. Aid to Tackle Poverty Is a Waste.

Businessman and philanthropist, Bill Gates, says one of the most common myths about international aid is that it's a waste of money - and that's partly due to media coverage giving a "distorted" picture, "with big generalizations based on small examples."

It's a damaging narrative that can lead the public to think that aid doesn't work, and that gives leaders an excuse to cut humanitarian and development funding. In fact, the UK government has already done just that - cutting its aid budget in 2020. Aid to Syria, for example, was cut by 69%, with just one impact of that cut being that more than 40,000 Syrian children are now out of school as a direct result.

You can learn more here about why international aid is actually more vital now than ever - and why wealthy countries must increase, not cut, their contributions.

3. Lifting People Out of Poverty Will Lead to Overpopulation.

Anxiety about the world's growing population, particularly in the face of climate change and an impending global hunger crisis, is understandable - but it also risks overriding concern for the human beings that make up the global population.

One thing to be very clear on is that advocating for and protecting those living in poverty does not, in fact, lead to overpopulation. It's actually quite the opposite.

The Borgen Project highlights that poverty and a lack of education access actually causes overpopulation. There are many reasons why tackling poverty and its systemic causes also helps reduce a population size, including that when there's a higher death rate for children, there's a higher birth rate too. If people know their children can access health care and are more likely to grow up healthy, they have fewer children. Meanwhile, when women and girls are able to access education and sexual and reproductive health care like contraception, again, they have fewer children.

4. A Person's Poverty Is Their Fault.

It's a widely held, yet completely inaccurate, belief: If someone's living in poverty, it's because they're not trying hard enough or working hard enough to lift themselves out of it. It's an idea that shifts the responsibility for ending poverty off a society and onto the individual. In other words, it becomes a "you" or "them" problem, not an "us" problem.

One of the subtle harmful effects of this myth is that it provides a convenient excuse for doing nothing to address poverty. If poverty is the result of individual shortcomings, and if the blame for poverty falls squarely on the shoulders of the poor, then helping them would be ineffective and futile.

What then is the reality? Well, poverty is a complex and multifaceted reality. It is rooted in structural barriers, systemic discriminations and inequalities, injustice, inequity, and social exclusion. Poverty is generational, and many people who live in poverty were born into it - and born into the lack of access to health care, education, nutrition, employment, and more, that are resources essential to escaping it.

5. All Poor Families Are the Same and Are Poor in the Same Way.

While extreme poverty is defined as living on less than $1.90 a day, there is no single set of deprivations that can be used to describe everyone's experience of poverty. There is no single index that can adequately capture the various ways a family or individual experiences poverty and non-poverty.

6. People in Poverty Can't Devise Solutions for Themselves.

When people have the power to name their own poverty, to identify their own problems, they also have the power to help society at large address those problems.

Too often, efforts to tackle poverty - whether at a community, national, or global level - don't center around the voices and experiences of those who live in poverty and experience it for themselves firsthand.

People living in poverty are the people best able to say what barriers they face and what resources they need to overcome it - what's needed is for people directly experiencing poverty to have a seat at the table and be listened to by policy- and decision-makers.

7. Only People Experiencing Homelessness Are Actually Poor.

It's a common misconception that you can only be poor if you're homeless. Poverty is more than being homeless, unemployed, having low living standards, or having a low income. Poverty is a complicated issue. It has numerous causes and manifestations and the way people experience poverty varies.

For many experiencing poverty, this can mean a standard of living that includes deprivation, malnutrition, poor sanitation, a lack of access to safe drinking water, education, health care, and other social services, and a lack of a social safety net.

8. Providing Jobs Is the 'Magic Remedy' to Solving Poverty.

The truth is that having a job does not always lift you out of poverty. Many people work, sometimes multiple jobs, and still struggle to make ends meet. This is often known as "in-work poverty" or "working poverty."

The global demand for jobs - which is increasing through urbanization, as more people move into cities - and high unemployment is pushing increasing numbers of people into informal, low-paying, and less productive jobs, according to the World Bank. It's an issue in both developing and developed countries - in the UK, for example, the majority of people living in poverty in 2020 were in working households.

In the US, meanwhile, the Center for Poverty and Inequality Research says that low wages remains the most significant barrier to the "working poor" escaping poverty.

9. Poverty Only Exists in Low-Income Countries.

Poverty actually exists in every single country, in varying degrees. There are different definitions and ways of measuring poverty, including absolute poverty and relative poverty, for example, which can make comparisons across countries difficult. But in the US for example, around 34 million people are living in poverty; in the UK, just over 1 in 5 people live in poverty, about 14.5 million people.

In 2018, the UN's then-Special Rapporteur for Extreme Poverty Prof. Philip Alston, authored a damning report criticizing increasing poverty levels in the US, arguing that "the benefits of economic growth are going overwhelmingly to the wealthy."

In the same year, he made a trip to the UK to investigate poverty, the first time the UN had done so - and only the second mission to a country in Western Europe by a poverty rapporteur this century, after a visit to Ireland in 2011.

10. Some People Are Immune to Poverty.

Yes, geography and global financial inequality are both important factors in driving poverty, but the fact remains that poverty can affect anyone - no one is immune to it.

As highlighted by NGO Concern, the economic impacts of COVID-19 are a very good example, with lockdowns leading to people the world over losing their incomes and livelihoods. Climate change too is costing livelihoods and the economic impact will only grow without widespread and immediate action.

Conflict is also a significant driver of poverty - one example is Syria, where the percentage of people living in poverty rose from 10% to 80% as a result of a decade of war. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, meanwhile, the UN estimated in March that 9 in 10 Ukrainians could face poverty within a year.

11. Every Child Has an Equal Chance of Success in Life.

The idea that every child starts life with an equal chance of success is also a false one. In reality, children born into or experiencing poverty start their lives at a high risk of developing physical, social, emotional, health, and/or behavioral issues as a result of a lack of nutrition, physical stimulation, or emotional development.

As they grow older and try to break the cycle of poverty, there are new challenges - such as accessing education, and then employment.

While poverty isn't incurable, it does get passed from generation to generation. It's also one of the reasons why investing in women and girls is so crucial to breaking the cycle of poverty - because, as nonprofit Women Deliver highlights: "Evidence from around the world confirms that investing in girls and women creates a ripple effect that yields multiple benefits, not only for individual women, but for families, communities, and countries."

12. Poverty Is Too Complicated to Eradicate and Would Cost Too Much.

True, poverty is complicated, but with a comprehensive strategy that involves collaboration, determined willpower from leaders, and global financial coordination, ending extreme poverty is possible and the resources needed already exist.

According to Nelson Mandela: "Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings."

That's why our " End Extreme Poverty NOW - Our Future Can't Wait " campaign, launched earlier this year, is rallying millions of Global Citizens around the world to demand the world's government and corporate leaders take immediate action in three critical areas: empowering adolescent girls across the world; breaking the systemic barriers that keep people trapped in poverty; and taking meaningful climate action.

While proper financing is crucial - not just when crises strike as a stop-gap solution, but as long-term, sustainable development finance - the importance of strong willpower and determination on the part of policy- and decision-makers can't be overstated. Governments, business leaders, and the world's wealthiest people all have a big role to play in enacting laws and policies, and providing financing and resources, to protect the fundamental human rights of everyone and ultimately, end extreme poverty.
You can join Global Citizens around the world now in taking action to eradicate extreme poverty - just sign up as a Global Citizen, and download the Global Citizen app, or head to our Take Action page to start taking action now.

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12 Myths and Misconceptions About Poverty Around the World

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There are a lot of inaccurate, false stories and information out there about poverty and people who experience it. You've probably heard some of them - like that poverty is an individual's fault, or that ending extreme poverty isn't possible.

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This article describes how the news nowadays focuses on the more negative aspects of the world. It goes into detail explaining how people gravitate towards negative news rather than positive.

Pick #1

Explanation: I picked this article as my top source because I think it does the best job at describing the negativity instinct. This article can be directly related back to some of Rosling's teachings. It does a great job at addressing a problem that not many other articles do, which is the media itself.

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Does the news seem overwhelmingly negative these days?

Dartmouth College economics professor Bruce Sacerdote thought so. He felt that news coverage - especially of the coronavirus pandemic - was often more negative than what scientists or data suggested.

Like many Americans at the beginning of the pandemic, Sacerdote was stuck at home watching the news more than usual. He found it "depressing," he says, and discovered the more his eyes were glued to the news, the more he realized the media was covering COVID-19 in "the worst possible way."

This prompted him and a team of researchers to analyze tens of thousands of articles about COVID-19 by using a social science technique to determine whether reporting was negative, positive or neutral.

They found news coverage of the pandemic in the U.S. was "shockingly negative" and bleaker than in international news outlets or scientific journals, Sacerdote says.

The study revealed nearly 90% of articles from major U.S. news organizations were negative compared to just 50% to 60% from major international media sources, he says.

While the type of pessimism varied, the research discovered the negative coronavirus coverage comes from media outlets with liberal audiences like MSNBC and conservative audiences like Fox News.

There were times when the media could have focused on the good instead of the bad, but chose to amplify the latter, he says. For example, in early summer last year when cases were trending down nationwide, media outlets would emphasize records in individual states or the cumulative death toll.

"Of course, the cumulative can only go up," Sacerdote says. "It can't go down."

When the vaccine rollout began, something that was "fantastically great news," he says media networks were quick to elevate sometimes "unnecessary" and "overly negative caveats." These included an emphasis on new virus variants and vaccine side effects.

He and the study's co-authors surmise that American media outlets could be responding to consumer demand. "We have no one to blame but ourselves," he says.

The most popular articles, whether that's quantified by the most viewed or most shared, overwhelmingly center on gloom and doom, he says.

"People do occasionally share or view positive articles, but people tend to gravitate toward the negative," he says, "and we think that the American media is just very good at giving people what they want."

Sacerdote isn't suggesting that journalists are presenting untrue or factually incorrect reports. He means that by stressing the negative, the media isn't presenting the full picture.

While the study's authors didn't set out looking for misreporting, he says they didn't find any specific examples of false information.

"Fundamentally, we don't think that the major American media is in the business of reporting fake news," he says, "but we think they are in the business of reporting rather negative news and emphasizing the negative news."

Sacerdote says he and his fellow researchers hope journalists use the study as a reminder to "bring balance to their stories" and put the facts in context.
Samantha Raphelson produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Serena McMahon adapted it for the web.

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U.S. Media Offers Negative Picture Of COVID-19 Pandemic, Study Finds

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Does the news seem overwhelmingly negative these days? Dartmouth College economics professor Bruce Sacerdote thought so. He felt that news coverage - especially of the coronavirus pandemic - was often more negative than what scientists or data suggested. Like many Americans at the beginning of the pandemic, Sacerdote was stuck at home watching the news more than usual.

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To me this comic by Clay Bennett depicts how the news is today for us. Everyday people are expecting something bad to happen because that is what the news usually reports. I think this comic is also an accurate depiction of most people's concern when thinking about what might be in the news.

Pick #2

Explanation: I chose this comic as my second source because I believe that it is a good representation of how we all feel today. There do not seem to be many comic depicting how we feel towards the news. This comic can be directly related to how the negativity instinct affects media around the world.

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This article discusses how the media's poverty coverage has shifted over the past few years. This shift in media coverage has influenced policies and laws. By having this media coverage be negative, it affects the world around us.

Pick #3

Explanation: I chose this article as my third source because it discusses the shift in media coverage. It provides a good explanation of why media coverage has changed and what there can be done.

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In a new Nieman Reports article, Dan Froomkin argues that the media pay insufficient attention to poverty. Discussing Froomkin's piece, Margaret Sullivan, the Public Editor of the New York Times, notes: "observers like Mr. Froomkin praise the quality of The Times 's journalism on poverty and inequality issues but cite the need for more resources and greater emphasis."

Of course, the quantity of poverty coverage is important, but the quality of that coverage, including in the Times, needs to be a more central concern. By quality I really mean the framing, substance and content of coverage. Too often, coverage focuses on the characteristics and behavior of "the poor" in negative or stereotypical ways that sharply differentiate them from working- and middle-class people.

In considering the quality of the media's coverage of poverty, the meticulous research of Princeton political scientist Martin Gilens provides an essential starting point. In Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy, published in 1999, Gilens documented the "racialization" of media images of poverty from the mid-1960s through the 1990s. As he puts it, "changes in the complexion of poverty coverage stemmed from the news media's increasingly negative discourse on poverty and welfare and its consistent tendency to associate African Americans with the least sympathetic aspects of poverty." He then showed how these "racial distortions in the media's coverage of poverty are largely responsible for public misperceptions of the poor," misperceptions that influenced anti-poverty policy. In short, Gilens' work suggests that the quality of poverty coverage was a bigger problem than quantity, at least through the 1990s.

Similarly, in a just published paper, " Framing the Poor: Media Coverage and U.S. Poverty Policy, 1960-2008", Max Rose and Frank Baumgartner find a big increase in the Times' coverage of poverty leading up to the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. That Act established the (now woefully underperforming) Temporary Assistance block grant, sharply cut Supplemental Security for children with severe disabilities, and barred many immigrants with lawful permanent residence in the United States from means-tested benefits available to citizens. Based on an analysis of the frames used by the Times ' in their coverage of poverty between 1960-2008 they concluded that: "Media discussion of poverty has shifted from arguments that focus on the structural causes of poverty or the social costs of having large numbers of poor to portrayals of the poor as cheaters and chiselers and of welfare programs doing more harm than good. As the frames have shifted, policies have followed."

In a later post, I'll summarize some of the critiques I've made of the quality of the NYT's coverage of poverty over the last year or so. But as a start, here are links to some of these posts:

In fairness to Froomkin: his article provides some good ideas on how to improve the substance and quality of poverty coverage, particularly from Mimi Corcoran of the Open Society Institute and Calvin Sims of the Ford Foundation.

And in fairness to the NYT: They often do get it right. A great recent example is Stephen Greenhouse's " Low Pay at Weight Watchers Stirs Protest as Stars Rake It In," which documents growing dissension among Weight Watchers' poorly compensated and mostly female rank-and-file labor force. Another example of the kind of reporting it would be great to see more of in the NYT is Susan Saulny's " After Recession, More Young Adults Are Living on Street." Although homeless youth account for only a small portion of economically insecure young people, Saulny tells the story in a sensitive and responsible way that links it to the larger economic struggles of young people today and their parents. Finally, Public Editor Sullivan deserves kudos for her post pointing out problems in Kristof's commentary on Supplemental Security for disabled children.

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Media Coverage of Poverty: Quality, Not Just Quantity, Matters - Center for Economic and Policy Research

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In a new Nieman Reports article, Dan Froomkin argues that the media pay insufficient attention to poverty. Discussing Froomkin's piece, Margaret Sullivan, the Public Editor of the New York Times, notes: "observers like Mr. Froomkin praise the quality of The Times's journalism on poverty and inequality issues but cite the need for more resources and greater emphasis."

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This TED talk talks about how the world needs to change their view on poverty. Ranita Ray describes how she went to impoverished areas and her experiences and how it is nothing like how the media portrays it.

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Ranita Ray: Let's change how we think about poverty

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What if we are approaching the concept of poverty in the wrong way? What if by changing the way we fight poverty we could make more of a difference in peoples' lives? Dr. Ranity Ray addresses these questions and others, the answers to which are the results of spending three years in an economically marginalized community.

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This article has numerous infographics depicting the wealth inequality in America. Looking at these infographics, it really puts it all into perspective about how dangerous this large inequality is.

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Something massive and important has happened in the United States over the past 50 years: Economic wealth has become increasingly concentrated among a small group of ultra-wealthy Americans.

You can read lengthy books on this subject, like economist Thomas Piketty's recent best-seller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (the book runs 696 pages and weighs in at 2.5 pounds). You can see references to this in the campaigns of major political candidates this cycle, who talk repeatedly about how something has gone very wrong in America.

Donald Trump's motto is to make America great again, while Bernie Sanders's campaign has focused on reducing income inequality. And there's a reason this message is resonating with voters:

It's grounded in 50 years of reality.

You can see lots of discussion and debate and political fighting over who has wealth in America, and whether that should change. Or, you can look at the the cartoon below to understand how the distribution of wealth has changed in America, and why.

Let's say the 100 figures below represent every household in America

The poorest 20 percent are wearing red shirts. The second 20 percent are wearing orange, and so on:

And let's say the dollar bills below represent all the income in America:

Things stayed about the same for the next decade and a half.

Then in 1981, before Ronald Reagan became president, the wealthy began to get wealthier while the poor got poorer.

By the time Reagan left office in 1989, this is how that $100 was split up

Notice how everyone but the richest has a smaller portion of the money.

And that trend continued

Here's what it looked like in 2014, six years into President Barack Obama's term:

In short, we've seen quite an increase in income inequality since the late-1970s.

There are many reasons economists believe wealth inequality is a bad thing

One reasons is it means everyone doesn't share America's economic growth. Another reason is that it prohibits social mobility - and it turns out social mobility in the US might be worse than once thought.

One metaphor often used is that when the rungs of a ladder get further apart, it's harder to climb.

But perhaps the best argument against income inequality, though, is that it's a threat to democracy. If a few people control most of the money, then they can control political outcomes.

But how did this happen?

We need to go back in time, starting with the 1930s, to really understand.

So here we are in the 1930s. This is when we start seeing a strengthening of labor unions, a federal minimum wage, the establishment of Social Security and unemployment insurance, and increased taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Economist Paul Krugman calls this phenomenon "The Great Compression" because these policies created a lot more parity - and held inequality at bay for about 40 years.

You can see that in this graph. It shows that, from the 1940s through the mid-1980s, the richest one person got a much smaller portion of the whole:

That lasted until the late-1970s - and you saw what happened from then on. It's what economists call "The Great Divergence," or a great increase in wealth inequality.

So, what caused this?

Wealthy people began making more of their money from investments and business income

Everyone else continued to make money on salaries and wages. Even from 1996 to 2006, things changed drastically:

But since the 1970s, we've significantly reduced how much we tax investment income

The most we've taxed investment income is about 40 percent. That was in the late-1970s. Since then, rates have been much lower. In fact, until 2013, the most investment income could be taxed was 15 percent. It's now about 25 percent.

Keep in mind that, if you're filing as a single person, your salary and wages starting at $38,000 are taxed at 25 percent - and from there the rates only go up.

Since it's the rich who made more and more money on investments, taxing investments less helped them a lot.

American tax and transfer policies are among the worst in reducing inequality, compared to other developed countries

The below chart shows how effective tax rates have changed. Even though we have a relatively progressive tax system, we now have some of the lowest tax rates in decades. Low tax rates mean the US collects less revenue - and can transfer fewer resources back to taxpayers.

Here's the same chart, but showing who controlled Congress when these effective tax rates changed:

This isn't just a story about tax policy. Salary growth has also been higher at the very top of the economic ladder. CEO, athletes, managers, and financial professionals have seen a huge increase in wages.

So the past half century has been quite prosperous for a small number of people.

Meanwhile, the policies that help everyone else have suffered.

Adjusted for inflation, minimum wage has gone down by about $3 an hour.

And labor unions have shrunk dramatically

The percentage of workers who are part of labor unions has plummeted to all-time lows. Studies show unions help workers earn more.

Meanwhile, some argue that technological advances and the decline of manufacturing jobs has made education an even bigger determinant for future income.

That means access to education is more important than ever before - and lower degrees become less valuable

The chart below shows that those with bachelor's degrees or less have seen stagnant or falling wages, while those with master's and doctorate degrees have generally seen rising wages.

But despite all this, some people think there's no problem

Some say income inequality is a myth. Other say the poor haven't gotten any poorer, though the rich did get richer, so everything is fine. Another argument is that inflation over time exaggerates the differences.

Some people agree it's happening, but argue that the government should get out of the way so everyone can equally pursue the "American Dream," as defined by them. Others say the government should merely provide equal protection and otherwise do nothing - even if inequality is a terrible thing.

Not all politicians talk directly about income inequality - or not as directly as someone like Bernie Sanders. Rather, they talk about restoring the middle class, education reform, social safety nets, and tax policy.

So how do the 2016 candidates talk about wealth inequality?

Sanders has a 13-point plan that directly addresses it. He proposes arguably the most progressive tax policy we've ever seen from a modern presidential candidate, while increasing social programs that largely help low- and middle-income households.

Hillary Clinton has an eight-point plan to increase wages for the middle class. While Clinton's tax policy isn't all that different from President Obama's, several parts of her platform address wealth inequality, either through education or jobs.

Meanwhile, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has positions and issues that don't really address wealth inequality. He does promise tax relief for the middle class, but this is while also giving even bigger tax breaks to the wealthy - and all the while increasing spending. (This cartoon explains how irresponsible that is.)

In short, Trump's proposals would almost certainly exacerbate wealth inequality

If making America great again involves reducing income inequality and bringing back a strong middle class in the way it was done during The Great Compression, Trump has failed to outline a roadmap.

But if it's been happening since the '70s, we can put it on the back burner for a little longer, right? Not really.

It's urgent, because some analysts believe that if nothing is done soon, the next generation will have 25 percent less upward mobility than right now.

In other words, the rungs of the ladder will grow further apart.

How wealth inequality is dangerous for America

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This cartoon explains how the rich got rich and the poor got poor

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The ratio of the number of people living in extreme poverty to the number of people not living in extreme poverty has dramatically gotten smaller since the 1820's - this graph does a good job at countering the commonly held assumption that the global poverty issue has not improved.

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The author, Stuart Soroka, discusses how the potential costs of negative information far outweigh the potential benefits of positive information, why news agencies value negative information (primarily because of increased sales), news viewers’ psychophysiological reactions to negative news and positive news, and how focusing on negative information is a reasonable way of managing a complex news environment.

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A growing body of evidence illustrates the human tendency to prioritise negative over positive news content. But why is this? Stuart Soroka suggests that humans may neurologically or physiologically predisposed towards focusing on negative information because the potential costs of negative information far outweigh the potential benefits of positive information.
A recent article by Arianna Huffington argues for the importance - and popularity - of positive news. Huffington draws in part on recent work suggesting that positive stories are more likely to be shared on social networks. This trend in sharing, she suggests, provides evidence that the "if it bleeds, it leads" approach to gaining audiences is misguided. News readers, she argues, want more positive news content.

Sharing news content on social media is a fundamentally different thing from selecting and reading articles, however. (Indeed, the study on which Huffington relies recognises this.) Even as we may tend to forward positive material via social media, our news-reading habits may still prioritise negative information. There is after all a growing body of evidence illustrating the human tendency to prioritise negative over positive news content.

The behaviour of newspapers and programmes offers one obvious clue - news agencies seek audiences, after all, and experience (and sales) points towards the value of negative information. For instance, and as the figure below illustrates, newsstand magazine sales increase by roughly 30 per cent when the cover is negative rather than positive. It is no surprise, then, that a "good news day" resulted in a 66 per cent decrease in readership in an online Russian newspaper. Indeed, other research suggests that even when participants say that they would like more positive news, they still select online news stories that are predominantly negative. Even as emails and Facebook feeds highlight good, our news consumption habits still prioritise information that is negative.
Figure 1: The relationship between the tone of magazine covers and sales
But why do we pay more attention to negative news than to positive news? Answering this question (at least in part) is the focus of " News, Politics, and Negativity," a paper that Stephen McAdams and I recently published in Political Communication. The paper draws on work in psychology, economics, and political communications to suggest that humans may neurologically or physiologically predisposed towards focusing on negative information. The argument has its roots in an evolutionary-biological account of how humans decide what to pay attention to. It is evolutionarily advantageous to prioritise negative information, the argument goes, because the potential costs of negative information far outweigh the potential benefits of positive information. The human brain is as a consequence predisposed towards focusing on negative information.

We cannot easily prove an evolutionary story, of course. But we can examine news viewers' psychophysiological reactions to positive and negative news content. The aim of our recent paper was to do exactly this. The paper reports results from a lab experiment in which participants view a selection of real television news stories while we monitor a number of physiological indicators, including heart rate and skin conductance. Skin conductance captures the degree to which we are sweating, which changes constantly in very small ways, and which is often used as a measure of activation or arousal. Decreased heart rate is used as a measure of attentiveness.

Our findings suggest that negative network news content, in comparison with positive news content, tends to increase both arousal and attentiveness. In contrast, positive news content has an imperceptible impact on the physiological measures we focus on. Indeed, physiologically speaking, a positive news story is not very different from the gray screen we show participants between news stories.

Our study is one of the first to demonstrate this tendency using real television news content. It thus makes very clear the implications that a negativity bias in humans' brains has for the nature of news content. (Not to mention the nature of political and economic behaviour more generally, discussed in more detail here.) News content is predominantly negative because humans tend to be more attentive to negative information.

Whether this is a bad thing is, I believe, unclear. Focusing on negative information may be a perfectly reasonable way of managing a complex news environment. We typically need to change our behaviour, or our assessment of politicians, when something goes wrong, not when something goes right. So unless we have an unlimited amount of time to pay attention to everything, we may be well-served by focusing on the information that requires a change on our part - provided that all that negativity does not also lead to overwhelming scepticism or disengagement, of course.

The difficulty is that we do not really know the 'appropriate' amount of negativity. Nor do we know if there are ways to adjust our negativity biases. This may be a good avenue for comparative research, and my ongoing work with Patrick Fournier and Lilach Nir is one of a growing of studies exploring the possibility that negativity biases vary systematically across cultures, and media systems. If negativity biases shift from one country to the next, we may be able to learn something about how communications and political contexts can increase or decrease our interest in negative over positive information.

Future work might also consider the implications that social media have on the tone of the news content that we receive. If we increasingly receive news content through social media, and if social media users tend to forward positive rather than negative information, then we might expect the tone of our 'news stream' (all the news we receive by traditional or non-traditional means) to become more positive overall. Whether this leads to a more informed or attentive electorate is another matter, however. We may be better informed about successful policy initiatives. We may alternatively lose (even more) interest in politics.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the British Politics and Policy blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting. Featured image credit: Jon S CC BY 2.0 About the Author
Stuart Soroka is the Michael W. Traugott Collegiate Professor of Communication Studies and Political Science, and Faculty Associate in the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. His work focuses on political communication, the sources and/or structure of public preferences for policy, and the relationships between public policy, public opinion, and mass media. His most recent book is Negativity in Democratic Politics (2014, Cambridge University Press).

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Why do we pay more attention to negative news than to positive news?

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A growing body of evidence illustrates the human tendency to prioritise negative over positive news content. But why is this? Stuart Soroka suggests that humans may neurologically or physiologically predisposed towards focusing on negative information because the potential costs of negative information far outweigh the potential benefits of positive information.