Inequality and Poverty

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

read in full

Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

read in full

Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

read in full

Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

read in full

more news

More Transparency on Katrina?

Aug 29, 2006 by Matthew Madia

A year ago today, of course, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. I don't have much to add to all that's been said so far, except for that we don't really know how the federal government has been spending the money it allocated for the relief and recovery effort. Amy Liu, a researcher for the Brookings Institute who's been tracking the recovery for the last year, should know what the federal government has been spending the money on. But as she said on the Tavis Smiley show in July, nobody really does.

read in full

Income, Poverty Stats: Two Tales of the Economy

Aug 29, 2006 by Craig Jennings

This morning, the Census Bureau released its report, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005. Nationally, 2005’s 1.1 percent increase marked the first time that real median household income showed an improvement since 1999. The poverty rate remained statistically unchanged from 2004, which marked the end of four consecutive years of increases. That’s one tale of the economy. But, as OMB Watch noted yesterday, the raw numbers are misleading unless historical benchmarks are taken into account. The economic tale that does so is not as sanguine.

read in full

EPI's "The State of Working America"

Aug 29, 2006 by Craig Jennings

Coming soon... On Labor Day 2006, the Economic Policy Institute releases its advance edition of The State of Working America 2006/2007.

read in full

Bush Seeing Colors on the Estate Tax?

Aug 29, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

In his speech (text; video) to the NAACP last month, President Bush implied that the estate tax discriminates against black entrepreneurs. Darius Ross, himself a black entrepreneur, shredded that absurd, if not vaguely racist, hypothesis in an incisive TomPaine.com commentary last week. Ross cites a stat suggesting that the estate tax may actually be roughly ten times more burdensome on whites: “The median net worth of African American households was $19,024, compared to $120,989 for whites in 2001,” he writes.

read in full

2005 Income, Poverty Stats Due Out Tomorrow

Aug 28, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

Tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., the Census Bureau will release its annual report card on the nation's economic well-being, with a consolidated report on personal income, poverty health insurance coverage and other data for 2005. Last year, the New York Times reported, was the first time on record that household incomes failed to increase for five straight years. Median pretax income, $44,389, was at its lowest point since 1997, after inflation. And OMB Watch noted that poverty rose for the fourth straight year. Will these sad trends continue?

read in full

NY Times Fronts Inequality Findings

Aug 28, 2006 by Matt Lewis

The Grey Lady leads today with a great story on how wages are not keeping up with inflation or productivity growth. The whole thing is worth a read, but I thought this section drew an important distinction between average and median income:

read in full

Katrina and Welfare Links

Aug 23, 2006 by Matt Lewis

The Coalition for Human Needs just put up an excellent database of links to resources on Katrina and welfare reform issues. Take a look if you're interested in learning the latest about these milestones in the fight against poverty.

read in full

Despite Short-Term Gains, CBO Forecasts Grim Long-Term Fiscal Outlook

On Aug. 17, The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released the annual summer update to its Budget and Economic Outlook report. In it, CBO lowers its estimate of the Fiscal Year 2006 budget deficit by 30 percent from its March analysis and now projects the year-end deficit at $260 billion. The rosy news, however, did little to assuage analysts' concerns over fiscal challenges looming on the horizon.

read in full

Economists Rethink Minimum Wage

Aug 8, 2006 by Craig Jennings

Ezra Klein, writing on Tapped, points us to this Bloomberg article about an emerging consensus among economists regarding the minimum wage: Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Prominent economists of all ideological persuasions long believed that raising the U.S. minimum wage would retard job growth, creating unintended hardship for those at the bottom of the ladder. Today, that consensus is eroding, and a vigorous debate has developed as some argue that boosting the wage would pull millions out of poverty.

read in full

Senate Defeats Estate Tax Giveaway...Yet Again

The Senate voted last week to reject a tax and wage package dubbed the "trifecta" that would have slashed the estate tax permanently, increased the minimum wage modestly, and extended a broad set of tax breaks. The bill, passed by the House last month, also contained a number of "sweeteners" to entice targeted senators to vote for the bill. "What I will do over the next month [is] assess where America is," Frist said. "And what I would very much like to do or to have happen is ... pressure from the American people. If I felt that, I would use that procedural option in bringing these back."

read in full