Pro tip: don’t start a blog while in the midst of a cross-state move. Especially not just before the holidays, and a big family Christmas trip. However! I have lots of links to share today, and actual content scheduled for the new year. Happy holidays.
Housing First: Good News for the Homeless This Christmas (via The Independent)
“The reasoning behind the scheme was, of course, based on projected state-saving rather than outright benevolence. Utahan number crunchers calculated the annual cost of hospital and jail time for the average homeless person was costing the state $16,670, (£10,200) a year while an apartment and social worker would cost just $11,000.”
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Poor People Deserve Digital Privacy, Too (via Slate)
“One of the more egregious examples comes out of Utah, where in 2010 a Department of Workforce Services employee accessed a client database and released to the media, law enforcement, and governor’s office the names of benefits recipients who were allegedly unauthorized to be in the United States. In response, the state instituted a “zero tolerance” policy for unauthorized database access—but after 24 workers were fired, the penalty was reduced to a four-day suspension.”
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Bill Moyers: “That Sound You Hear Is the Shredding of the Social Contract” (via Mother Jones)
“Why are record numbers of Americans on food stamps? Because record numbers of Americans are in poverty. Why are people falling through the cracks? Because there are cracks to fall through. It is simply astonishing that in this rich nation more than 21 million Americans are still in need of full-time work, many of them running out of jobless benefits, while our financial class pockets record profits, spends lavishly on campaigns to secure a political order that serves its own interests, and demands that our political class push for further austerity. Meanwhile, roughly 46 million Americans live at or below the poverty line and, with the exception of Romania, no developed country has a higher percent of kids in poverty than we do. Yet a study by scholars at Northwestern University and Vanderbilt finds little support among the wealthiest Americans for policy reforms to reduce income inequality.”
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When Lenders Sue, Quick Cash Can Turn Into a Lifetime of Debt (via Pro Publica)
“By this year, that $1,000 loan Burks took out in 2008 had grown to a $40,000 debt, almost all of which was interest. After ProPublica submitted questions to AmeriCash about Burks’ case, however, the company quietly and without explanation filed a court declaration that Burks had completely repaid her debt.
Had it not done so, Burks would have faced a stark choice: declare bankruptcy or make payments for the rest of her life.”
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Should We Raise the Minimum Wage? 11 Questions and Answers (via The Atlantic)
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Waiting for the 8th (via Washington Post)
“Of all the stereotypes about urban poverty, the one Raphael resented most was the notion that a dependent life is a lazy life. Their food supply was down to four boxes of mac-and-cheese, three loaves of white bread, juice, rice and a few dozen canned goods. ‘Lazy would be getting in a car, turning on the heat, going to the grocery store and picking out some bacon,’ she said. Instead, she headed outside in 25-degree weather to walk a mile with three of her children in hooded sweatshirts and windbreakers, some of the best winter clothing they owned, so they could wait as long as it took for whatever food they were given.”
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Charity is no substitute for justice (via Al Jazeera English)
“Charity, as a supplement to justice, should be applauded. But charity as a substitute for justice is neither charity nor justice. It is cruelty.
The same week that the nation cheered a charitable effort to make one child’s wish come true, the largest employer in the US held a charity drive for some of its own workers. Wal-Mart, whose six heirs to the company fortune have as much wealth as the bottom 42 percent of Americans, pays its workers salaries so low that many qualify for food stamps.
The costs are then transferred to taxpayers. A report by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce estimated that one Wal-Mart Supercenter employing 300 workers could cost taxpayers at least $904,000 annually.
Yet instead of raising salaries to allow employees to live above the dole, Wal-Mart encourages charity – a common panacea to social plight. Universities employing adjunct professors, who are also paid below poverty wages, have held similar food drives for their employees.”
In Forma Pauperis 