Category: Class

Earlier, I responded to Scott Sumner’s rather strange armchair attempt to act like my standard form of poverty statistical analysis was off. It wasn’t and still isn’t. After posting my response, Sumner has another really bizarre post about the topic, which I will address here. Like the first post, this new post utilizes what I… Continue reading Grandpa Sumner At It Again

I am not really sure what Scott Sumner is all about these days. Many years ago, he was like “monetary policy should utilize an NGDP target” and people were like “that’s an interesting thought.” But now, he’s kind of gone into mission creep mode where he comments on things that he’s not so knowledgeable on.… Continue reading Cutting Poverty Is Super Easy: A Response to Sumner

Here is my piece on structural poverty. Here is Noah Smith’s piece on structural poverty. His piece is not narrative, so my reaction won’t be narrative either. Structural Poverty To rehash the basic idea: structural poverty refers to poverty that is derivative of the way that we have structured our economy. In particular, when I… Continue reading Structural poverty, obviously the case

Bryce Covert has a piece about a poor person finally being allowed to testify at Paul Ryan’s very serious and earnest inquiries into the War on Poverty. Apparently, Republican Todd Rokita (who?) thought he’d be a real dick to the person, and the result was pure genius: He gave a “theoretical example” in which the… Continue reading A slippery slope towards justice

Peter Frase wrote this piece about class and the Left. I put out a short response to it when it came out. There are lots of parts to it, and I hesitate to summarize it for that reason. But, basically, he objects to those who say class is different than race and gender, those who… Continue reading Poor whites and the Left