Category: Class

The Census released its supplemental poverty measurement today. The details are numerous, but the headline is that under the SPM, the number of impoverished people climbs to 49.1 million, 2.5 million more than the conventional poverty measurement. Under the SPM measurement — which takes into account government benefits, child support, and other factors — the… Continue reading How useful is the poverty line?

Eric Cantor bailed out on giving his grand speech on inequality friday. The UPenn student newspaper printed it instead. The speech is long and, like most speeches given by politicians, not really worth reading. That the speech was prepared and hyped reflects the amazing success that Occupy Wall Street has had in shifting the national… Continue reading Social mobility does not make an economy just

In the discussions of why things are so bad, why incomes have not risen, why poverty keeps climbing, and why inequality is so severe, people should keep in mind one basic statistic: the US GDP per capita has doubled since 1970. Or to put it in more simple terms, the United States economy is producing… Continue reading Remember that production has doubled in the last 40 years

I have become increasingly annoyed by the rhetorical line that the goals of Occupy Wall Street are unclear. Mainstream media outlets have been pushing this line from the beginning and many regular people have picked it up as their position. What these media outlets really mean is that protesters at occupations have not written up… Continue reading The Goals of Occupy Wall Street

There is a worthwhile open letter on racialicious about the whiteness of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The phenomenon of white men leading the movement is fairly predictable. The fact that the movement has a strong anarchist contingent makes it even more predictable: anarchist subcultures are almost entirely white and heavily male from what I… Continue reading A racial justice case for economic competency