As in any other playoff, candidate rhetoric let loose during the U.S. presidential race can be tough. We’ve held a front row seat to the 2012 showdown for over a year, with tensions still rising as the general election looms nearer. Some of the barbs launched along the campaign trail have been laughable: Newt Gingrich’s television ad incriminating Mitt Romney for his ability to speak French comes to mind. Others are not. The dialogue surrounding U.S. poverty and inequality, two issues that are hotter than ever during a deep recession that the nation has shown incapable of simply shaking off [...]
Race
Poverty cripples Pine Ridge Reservation
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation epitomizes the failure of the reservation system and is home to some of the worst poverty in America. Census data shows that Pine Ridge has the lowest per capita income in the entire country. Up to two-thirds of adults may be alcoholics and one-quarter of children are born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Tuberculosis... »
Brewers exploit American Indians
OPINION: Anheuser-Busch and other brewers pour hundreds of thousands of gallons of alcohol into liquor stores just outside South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcohol sales are illegal. The companies hope to entice Pine Ridge residents to consume the alcohol illicitly; their policies fuel alcoholism, domestic violence, crime, and suicide in the reservations... »
Texas faces challenges from shifting student demographics
In many Texas cities, non-Hispanic white children are the minority in public schools, while Hispanic students constitute an ever-increasing majority. A socioeconomic shift has occurred along with the ethnic one, since many Hispanic students are low-income. Texas must learn to invest in its changing student population to maintain high standards of living and education... »
Saving Black and Latino Boys
The academic problems of African-American and Hispanic-American males, including a high dropout rate, lack of college achievement, and low standardized test scores, have been amply documented. The article cites research from New York University’s Metropolitan Center for Urban Education that shows that black and Latino males in more than 20 New York City high... »
Black Feminization of Poverty: Evidence From the U.S. Cross-Regional Data
This study explores the feminization of poverty among black women—despite their much improved labor market advantages—compared with white women and black men. Black women generally possess comparable human capital and work ethic characteristics, and face comparable unemployment rates. But they have higher poverty rates. The study suggests the importance of socioeconomic factors, such as... »
Despite recession troubles, minorities’ aspirations remain high
While all U.S. workers struggle in the current economic climate, recent polls reveal that higher numbers of minorities than their white counterparts are optimistic about their future prospects. According to Census numbers, the nation’s collective income fell by 6.4 percent between 2007 and 2010, with African-American and Latino incomes suffering the steepest declines. Paradoxically,... »
Blacks hit hardest by recession
Middle-class African-Americans have been hit hardest by layoffs and unemployment in the last two years, according to economists and recent government data. Jobless rates for blacks have consistently been double that of whites, in part because of continuing discrimination and generally lower education levels. Additionally, blacks are one-third more likely than whites to work... »
Wall Street protest movement draws sparse minority turnout
As the Occupy Wall Street movement protesting corporate greed and inequality sweeps the nation, some commentators puzzle over the absence of Latino and black demonstrators. These two groups together make up 40 percent of U.S. unemployed—and 60 percent of New York City’s population—and both have suffered disproportionately under the current recession. »
New law cuts sentences for inmates imprisoned for crack crimes
The U.S. Sentencing Commission has decided that a new law that brings penalties for crack cocaine possession into line with those for possession of powdered cocaine should apply to the roughly 12,000 federal inmates imprisoned on crack-related charges. The harsher crack penalties – instituted in the 1980s – have been criticized as racially discriminatory... »