SAVE THE DATE: Poor People's Campaign Rally, Texas State Capitol, March 2, 2024 at 12PM Noon—Fight Poverty, not the Poor!

Friends,

Do save the date for a March 2, 2024 Rally at the Texas State Capitol. In this era of prioritizing the so-called "culture wars" in the policy arena, what is getting neglected and sidelined are massive policy issues of the kind noted below that affect large segments of the U.S. population.

In Texas, consider the following:

"Poverty and Low-Wages: Poverty is a policy choice, reflecting both low wages and high costs of living. These two conditions make it hard to meet basic needs and easy to fall into debt. In Texas: Between 2018-2020, there were 11,831,000 poor and low-income people, accounting for 41.1% of the population.**

To meet their basic needs, a household with two adults and two children needs to earn over $23/hour. However, the current minimum wage is just $7.25/hour. At this wage, an individual must work 124 hours/week to afford a modest two­ bedroom apartment."

No matter how high-sounding our state officials are in their rhetoric about Texas' economy, the reality is that tons of folks are desperate and can't make it without getting into crippling debt. They just can't.

I really appreciate what the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign (PPC), has been doing to shine a light on such gaping inequalities in our state, as well as in other states nationwide. His is a "National Call for Moral Revival.

Mark your calendars for March 2nd and make use of the many resources at the PPC website. This link takes you to a map of the PPC's work across the U.S. Once you pick a state, the website directs you to a sign-up link for your state. For example, here is the link for Texas so that you can remain regularly informed.

Thanks to Dr. Jesse McNeil for reaching out and sharing all this excellent information.

-Angela Valenzuela

A NATIONAL CALL for MORAL REVIVAL

TEXAS FACT SHEET • 2023

In 2019, before the pandemic hit, 140 million Americans were living in poverty or just one emergency away from economic ruin: 60% of Black people (24 million), 64% of Hispanic/ Latino people (38 million), 40% of Asian people (8 million), 60% of Indigenous and Native people (2 million) and 33% of white people (66 million).* These tens of millions of people live in every region, state and county in the country. Poverty was the fourth leading cause of death. claiming 183,000 deaths in 2019, or over 800 deaths a day.

The pandemic festered in these fissures, taking root in systemic racism, poverty, the denial of health care, ecological devastation, wealth inequality and rampant military spending. During the first two years, governments at all levels responded to the crisis by expanding access to health care, housing, water, food and utilities. These overdue changes proved that in the world's richest country, we can ensure a dignified life for all. But these pandemic programs were temporary.

When they ended abruptly, poverty and related interlocking injustices began to rise once again.

While millions of people remain without work, living wages, housing, clean water, food or health care, corporations and the wealthy are doing exceedingly well. Between 2020-2022. billionaire wealth grew by $1.5 trillion - more than $2 billion a day.

Religious and moral texts are clear that making policy that does not protect the rights of the poor and puts the cause of the wealthy first is evil and wrong. Isaiah 10 says, "Woe to those who legislate evil, who make unjust laws to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed." Jeremiah 22 reminds us, ''Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor those who have been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place." Matthew 25 tells us, "'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me."'

Indeed. the first governing principle of the US Constitution is to establish justice.

If we do not want to enable this wrongdoing, we must speak out and stand. up against it. This is why the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is organizing across the nation: to reveal these injustices, change the narrative, and build our power.

Fight Poverty, not the Poor!

* The PPC:NCMR created this fact sheet using the most comprehensive and current publicly available data through May 2023. Where possible, data is disaggregated to reflect the complex reality of the interrelated injustices contained in this document. Unfortunately, there are significant gaps in racial, ethnic and other demographic data, reflecting gaps in data collection and statistical methodologies, which the PPC:NCMR cannot control. We continue to push for improvements to fill those gaps.

IN TEXAS:

Poverty and Low-Wages: Poverty is a policy choice, reflecting both low wages and high costs of living. These two conditions make it hard to meet basic needs and easy to fall into debt. In Texas: Between 2018-2020, there were 11,831,000 poor and low-income people, accounting for 41.1% of the population.**

To meet their basic needs, a household with two adults and two children needs to earn over $23/hour. However, the current minimum wage is just $7.25/hour. At this wage, an individual must work 124 hours/week to afford a modest two­ bedroom apartment.

There are 5,692,294 people, or 39.8% of the workforce, earning less than $15 I hour. This includes 5,159,650 adults and 26.1% of Asian and Native workers, 48.3% of Black workers, 54.2% of Hispanic workers, 26.5% of white workers, 49.2% of working women and 60.3% of working women of color. Average household debt rose 9% in 2022 to an average of $54,290. Average student loan debt held by households was $5,330 at the end of 2022.

Rolling Back on Basic Needs: Pandemic relief policies temporarily lifted the load of poverty, but ended too soon, resulting in higher rates of economic, food and housing insecurity. In Texas:In 2021, 6,660,000 children in 3,899,000 households received the exP-anded Child Tax Credit and 1,396,0_00 low-wage workers without children received the exP-anded Earned Income Tax Credit. The expansions contributed to a dramatic decline in poverty, but ended in 2021.

In 2022, 3,440,700 people relied on expanded SNAP (food stamP-s} benefits to feed themselves and their families. However, in 2023, SNAP benefits were reduced by $90-$250 I month, cutting them down to $6 /day.At least 1,337,451 people will be impacted by these cuts.
At the beginning of 2023, more than one year after eviction protections were ended,1,263,789 households reported being behind on their rent or housing payments.

Health Care and the Pandemic: Across the country, approximately 1,000 people are still dying from Covid every week and millions of people lack access to health care. In Texas: During the most intense period of the pandemic, 5,202,500 people were uninsured.
With the ending of continuous eligibility for Medicaid, 833,600 people are estimated to lose access to health care.

Between 2019 and 2020, Texas experienced a 2.1-year decline in average life expectancy.
Approximately 10.8 million workers, or 74% of the workforce in the state, do not have access to Paid leave.

Climate Crisis and Ecological Devastation: Extreme heat, storms, and drought are becoming more common, with poor and low­ income communities at greatest risk. 

In Texas: Over the past century, the state warmed 0.8 degrees Celsius. As this trend continues, food production, spread of diseases, and health will all be adversely impacted.

Precipitation Patterns have also changed, with increased risks of flooding, drought, and water scarcity.

The percentage of poor and low-income household income that goes towards energy. costs is 6 times greater than what an average income household spends on energy.

The percentage of poor and low-income household income that goes towards water costs is 5 times greater than what an average income household spends on water.

Militarism: Government spending that prioritizes war, mass incarceration, excessive policing, and anti-immigrant forces is leading to greater violence, fear and criminalization of the poor. In Texas. In 2023, taxpayers will contribute $7.93 billion to Pentagon spending, $2.25 billion to immigration enforcement, and $2.72 billion to nuclear weapons.
Over the past 30 years, $135 million in military equipment (tanks, drones, combat rifles, and ammunition) has been transferred from the Pentagon to state and local law enforcement.
Between 2001-2020, 9,551 veterans committed suicide.

In 2021, 4,613 people were killed by gun violence.

There are 200,504 people incarcerated. As of April 2023, 9,973 immigrants are in detention.
From Oct 2002-June 2022, over 2,434,899 people were deported from Texas.

** Source: Calculated by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University using data from 2019-2021 Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey. Data retrieved from IPUMS-CPS (ipums.org).

Democracy across the nation, a surge of attacks on voting rights and on the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people are denying basic nights to millions of people and constraining our ability to participate in democracy. Poor and low-income people can change this direction. In Texas: There were 166 voter restrictive bills introduced between 2020 and 2023, and 63 anti-LGBTQ+  law introduced in 2023. Three voter restriction bills and one anti-LGBTQ+ bill were passed.

In 2022, abortion was banned, and performing an abortion was made a felony punishable by up to life in prison.

In Texas, there are 7,173,884 P-OOr and low-income eligible voters, including 3,824,783 white voters, 2,415,203 Latino voters, 72,516 Asian voters, 654,460 Black voters and 1,964 Indigenous voters. Together, they account for 33.76% of the electorate.

There is an abundance of wealth and resources to meet our basic needs and ensure we all survive and thrive.A proposed federal tax on the annual increase in billionaires' wealth would generate an estimated $557 billion over 1O years. Texas has 71 billionaires with a combined wealth of $584 billion. The state has zero personal income tax.

In Texas, state taxpayer dollars are being siphoned towards militarism: state taxpayer dollars for deportations and border control could instead subsidize more than 349,725 public housing units. Taxpayer dollars going to nuclear weapons could provide health insurance for 838,118 children. Taxpayer dollars going to the biggest weapons contractor Lockheed Martin. could hire more than 43,689 elementary school teachers.

More than $746.74 million from Texas taxpayers that is going to federal prisons could instead power more than 1.68 million households with solar energy.

Texas has only spent $9 billion of the $15.8 billion it was allocated under the American Rescue Plan, which could be used for housing, health care and other pressing needs. If the state and local governments do not allocate these resources by December 2024, the remaining funds will be lost.

Moving these resources, and investing more, to fully meet all of our needs will save lives and revive our national economy.During the pandemic, eviction moratoria and moratoria on utility. disconnections saved lives. If enacted earlier, they could have reduced Covid deaths by 40% and 15%, respectively, across the nation. Universal health care could have saved 330,000 lives.

Enacting Medicare for All will save $450 billion in health care costs and 68,000 lives every year.

Ending mass incarceration could raise average US life expectancy by five ears.

Providing Permanent safe housing delivers lifelong benefits to children and families at a national average cost of $12,800 per person per year, far less than the cost of crisis services for those suffering chronic homelessness. Paid Family and Medical Leave improves employment, especially among women, increases child well-being, and protects against poverty when health challenges arise.

Increasing resources for the poor stimulates the economy much more than making the rich even richer, because the poor need to spend nearly everything they earn. Every dollar going to a low-wage worker adds $1.20 to the economy overall. Every dollar spent on food stamps generates $1.50-$1.80 in economic activity, EXPanded unemployment insurance during the pandemic protected 5.1 million jobs by boosting economic activity.
The expanded Child Tax Credit was estimated to have a greater impact on the economy than military spending, without negative impacts on employment.

Overdue improvements to TANF could triple its reach and improve the lives of at least 2.38 million families nationwide.

Every dollar invested in Providing families clean water and P-rDP-er sanitation yields 5 times as many returns to the US economy.

Freedom from debt would allow more people to start small businesses and move around the country to take better jobs, strengthening our economy and workforce.

There are more than 7,173,844 poor and low-income voters in Texas and 85 million across the nation. Together, we account for one-third of the electorate. Together, we can ensure that the days of poverty and low wages - and the unnecessary cruelty of abandonment amidst abundance - are numbered. Together, we can revive the heart and soul of this democracy to ensure dignity and justice for all. Forward together, not one step back!

For more information and resources, visit poorpeoplescampaign.org.

U.S. Has Regressed To A Third-World Nation For Most Of Its Citizens

 It's deeply concerning where we're headed economically and otherwise as a country.  I do appreciate the antidote though as stated by Peter Temin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT:

Expanding education, updating infrastructure, forgiving mortgage and student loan debt, and overall working to boost social mobility for all Americans are bound to be seen as too liberal by many policy makers.

It is, as Dr. Temin suggests, "a tough sell in today's political climate," but what choice do we have but to argue for equity and opportunity as an advocacy community?

And it is not only our children and the unborn generations, but the planet depends on it.  We must never give up. 

-Angela

Study By MIT Economist: U.S. Has Regressed To A Third-World Nation For Most Of Its Citizens

byYossarianJohnson

America divided – this concept increasingly graces political discourse in the U.S., pitting left against right, conservative thought against the liberal agenda. But for decades, Americans have been rearranging along another divide, one just as stark if not far more significant – a chasm once bridged

America divided – this concept increasingly graces political discourse in the U.S., pitting left against right, conservative thought against the liberal agenda. But for decades, Americans have been rearranging along another divide, one just as stark if not far more significant – a chasm once bridged by a flourishing middle class.

Peter Temin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT, believes the ongoing death of “middle America” has sparked the emergence of two countries within one, the hallmark of developing nations.

In his new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Temin paints a bleak picture where one country has a bounty of resources and power, and the other toils day after day with minimal access to the long-coveted American dream.

In his view, the United States is shifting toward an economic and political makeup more similar to developing nations than the wealthy, economically stable nation it has long been.

Temin applied W. Arthur Lewis’s economic model – designed to understand the workings of developing countries – to the United States in an effort to document how inequality has grown in America.

The parallels are unsettling. As noted by the Institute for New Economic Thinking:

In the Lewis model of a dual economy, much of the low-wage sector has little influence over public policy. Check. The high-income sector will keep wages down in the other sector to provide cheap labor for its businesses. Check. Social control is used to keep the low-wage sector from challenging the policies favored by the high-income sector. Mass incarceration – check. The primary goal of the richest members of the high-income sector is to lower taxes. Check. Social and economic mobility is low. Check.

Temin describes multiple contributing factors in the nation’s arrival at this place, from exchanging the War on Poverty for the War on Drugs to money in politics and systemic racism. He outlines the ways in which racial prejudice continues to lurk below the surface, allowing politicians to appeal to the age old “desire to preserve the inferior status of blacks”, encouraging white low-wage workers to accept their lesser place in society.

“We have a structure that predetermines winners and losers. We are not getting the benefits of all the people who could contribute to the growth of the economy, to advances in medicine or science which could improve the quality of life for everyone – including some of the rich people,” he laments.

The antidote, as prescribed by Temin, is likely a tough sell in today’s political climate.

Expanding education, updating infrastructure, forgiving mortgage and student loan debt, and overall working to boost social mobility for all Americans are bound to be seen as too liberal by many policy makers.

Until the course is changed, he warns, the middle class will continue to fade and America will remain unsustainably divided.

How America's Poor Subsidize Wealthier Consumers in a Viscious Income Inequality Cycle

In this Medium.com piece that earlier appeared at Brookings.edu and authored by Aaron Klein, he provides a cogent, credible analysis on just how much it costs to be poor with respect to basic financial services and how this cost subsidizes wealthier consumers.  While a policy and political issue, this is largely unnoticed by policymakers.  This is a sad, painful read on the "hidden drivers of income inequality."

-Angela

How America's Poor Subsidize Wealthier Consumers in a Viscious Income Inequality Cycle

by

Aaron Klein

Being poor is expensive. This problematic paradox is evident with basic financial services. And judging by Bank of America’s recent decision to impose fees of almost $150 a year on what were free checking accounts, the problem is getting worse. Too bad (almost) no one is paying attention.

In January, The Atlantic’s Gillian White noted that, “free checking is basically a thing of the past.” White’s headline captures a reality for many Americans who regularly live near the bottom of their bank account. But it also misses the other side of the coin: financial services are cheaper the richer you are. This hidden driver of income inequality is embedded in something that we use every day and never think twice about: the payment system.

It isn’t what or where you buy, but rather how you pay that determines whether you ultimately benefit or lose from our economy’s payment system. Antiquated and unnecessarily slow, this system indirectly imposes large costs on middle and working class families, in the process actually redistributing money up the income scale. Indeed, substantial portions of the $14 billion that people pay in overdraft fees a year, and the $9 billion in payday loans fees, are partially the result of a U.S. payment system that is slower than similar ones used in Mexico or Poland. Meanwhile, credit cards that lower-income consumers are ineligible to receive reward wealthy users for money spent. The richer you are, the better your rewards.

It isn’t what or where you buy, but rather how you pay that determines whether you ultimately benefit or lose from our economy’s payment system.

And while our system operates at a scale larger than major U.S. government programs, it has largely gone unnoticed by policy makers and income inequality scholars. As a result, the less money you have, the more money you spend to just be able to use money.

Did you realize that working and middle class Americans subsidize the wealthy when they pay in cash or use debit cards? Everyone appears to pay the same price, regardless of how you pay. But that’s not the case. How you pay changes what stores receive, and ultimately how much is in your wallet.

If you pay in cash, you are paying full freight. If you use a debit card, the merchant pays a relatively small processing fee. You likely get zero or very little back in rewards. On the other hand, if you use an American Express credit card, the merchant will lose quite a bit: 3 percent goes to AmEx, plus a fixed fee. So where does that slice go? Some goes to American Express, but a fair amount goes right back to the credit card user in the form of cash back, reward points, or frequent flier miles.

It might not seem like a lot, but these perks can add up. Consider that a family charging $80,000 a year on a credit card and earning a fairly typical 1.5 percent cash back bonus will get $1,200 at the end of the year. (Full disclosure: I wrote this essay while flying on an airplane I paid for using points earned on my credit card). Those checks and points are not usually taxed, so it is equivalent to closer to $2,000 in pre-tax earnings.

That’s quite a gift from a payment system that provides lower income Americans with nothing. It is more than most families will see from the Trump tax cut and more than a family of four earning $45,000 a year receives from the Earned Income Tax Credit.

As long as merchants do not vary the price based on payment, economics dictate that people who pay using cash or debit cards are subsidizing people who use credit cards. The fancier the credit card, the larger the subsidy. Payment methods are correlated with income: lower income people are more likely to use cash, pre-paid or debit, while higher income use credit cards.

[T]he Federal Reserve Bank of Boston estimated that every household that uses a credit card receives $1,133 from cash users every year.

This happens for a variety of reasons. For example, not everyone can qualify for a credit card and the poorer you are, the worse the terms of the card; subprime credit cards can charge an annual fee greater than 10 percent of your credit limit. At the same time, the high costs of overdraft fees make debit cards far more expensive for those who occasionally hit zero in their bank account.

On the other end of the spectrum, platinum status and big rewards cards are reserved for the elites. One study by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston estimated that every household that uses a credit card receives $1,133 from cash users every year. This amounts to a hidden subsidy for those able to secure credit.

Another cost for lower and middle class American families is related to payment speed. America has one of the slowest payment systems in the world. Americans have to wait up to seven days for money deposited in their account to be available. This contrasts sharply with other countries that have had real-time payments for decades: South African introduced real-time payment in 2006, Brazil in 2002, Turkey in 1992 and Japan in 1973. The technology is there, but the U.S. remains inextricably stuck in the slow lane, with the Federal Reserve now setting 2020 as a goal.

But if you are one of the more than 6 in 10 Americans who could not access $500 in case of an emergency, any delay can be costly. A cup of coffee can cost you $35 in overdraft fees if a paycheck deposited yesterday doesn’t clear in time.

A few days of delay probably does not matter if you regularly have thousands of dollars in your bank account; the minimum balance to have free checking in the new Bank of America account is $1,500.

But if you are one of the more than 6 in 10 Americans who could not access $500 in case of an emergency, any delay can be costly. A cup of coffee can cost you $35 in overdraft fees if a paycheck deposited yesterday doesn’t clear in time. Even worse are the high-cost payday loans that can become a desperate person’s only option to pay rent if their ex-spouse’s alimony or child support payment didn’t arrive in time. Recent research from the U.S. Financial Diaries project shows working families cobble together income from an increasingly diverse set of sources that are highly volatile.

Put all of this together, and you can see why Lisa Servon, author of “The Unbanking of America,” concludes that: “banks’ requirement to keep monthly minimum balances, the speed with which overdraft charges are levied, and the days it takes between depositing a check and having access to the money, all are a poor fit for the growing number of Americans who cope with unpredictable cash flow.”

In worst case scenarios, government policy can actually make the cost of providing free checking even more difficult. It can cost banks between $250 and $400 to establish a new checking account and another several hundred dollars a year to maintain it. As anti-money laundering (AML) regulations have grown in complexity, costs for ‘knowing your customer’ have risen sharply; one estimate is by 50 percent in just three years. Poorly targeted regulation that drives up costs often ends up impacting those least able to afford them.

The somewhat good news is there are simple steps the government could take to combat these problems. The Federal Reserve could implement and/or mandate real-time payments. Congress and financial regulators could improve AML laws and regulations to better capture bad guys and lower the costs for banks to open and maintain low cost basic bank accounts for customers.

New financial technology (fintech) is already trying to tackle some of these challenges, including the implementation of real-time payments system for some of the largest banks (including Bank of America). Of course these innovations are driven in part by a fear of non-bank fintech capitalizing on the demand for faster payments. Banks don’t want to be taxis in an Uber story. Meanwhile, employers like WalMart are working to provide employees faster access to their pay through new FinTechs like Even.

Despite these signs of progress, the reality is that income inequality is exacerbated by our current payment system. And the system does not have to be like this. The technology and alternative structures exist. Unfortunately, absent fleeting moments like the Bank of America announcement, most people and policy makers do not think about or appreciate the magnitude of the problem — or the solutions that could address it.

This post originally appeared on brookings.edu on February 6, 2018.

Extreme Poverty in America: Read the UN Special Monitor's Report

Extreme Poverty in America: Read the UN Special Monitor's Report

Philip Alston

Friday 15 December 2017 12.00 EST | The Guardian

I have spent the past two weeks visiting the United States, at the invitation of the federal government, to look at whether the persistence of extreme poverty in America undermines the enjoyment of human rights by its citizens. In my travels through California, Alabama, Georgia, Puerto Rico, West Virginia, and Washington DC I have spoken with dozens of experts and civil society groups, met with senior state and federal government officials and talked with many people who are homeless or living in deep poverty. I am grateful to the Trump administration for facilitating my visit and for its continuing cooperation with the UN Human Rights Council’s accountability mechanisms that apply to all states.

My visit coincides with a dramatic change of direction in US policies relating to inequality and extreme poverty. The proposed tax reform package stakes out America’s bid to become the most unequal society in the world, and will greatly increase the already high levels of wealth and income inequality between the richest 1% and the poorest 50% of Americans. The dramatic cuts in welfare, foreshadowed by Donald Trump and speaker Ryan, and already beginning to be implemented by the administration, will essentially shred crucial dimensions of a safety net that is already full of holes. It is against this background that my report is presented.

The United States is one of the world’s richest and most powerful and technologically innovative countries; but neither its wealth nor its power nor its technology is being harnessed to address the situation in which 40 million people continue to live in poverty.

Of course, that is not the whole story. I also saw much that is positive. I met with state and especially municipal officials who are determined to improve social protection for the poorest 20% of their communities, I saw an energized civil society in many places, I visited a Catholic Church in San Francisco (St Boniface – the Gubbio Project) that opens its pews to the homeless every day between services, I saw extraordinary resilience and community solidarity in Puerto Rico, I toured an amazing community health initiative in Charleston, West Virginia that serves 21,000 patients with free medical, dental, pharmaceutical and other services, overseen by local volunteer physicians, dentists and others (Health Right), and indigenous communities presenting at a US-Human Rights Network conference in Atlanta lauded Alaska’s advanced health care system for indigenous peoples, designed with direct participation of the target group.

American exceptionalism was a constant theme in my conversations. But instead of realizing its founders’ admirable commitments, today’s United States has proved itself to be exceptional in far more problematic ways that are shockingly at odds with its immense wealth and its founding commitment to human rights. As a result, contrasts between private wealth and public squalor abound.

In talking with people in the different states and territories I was frequently asked how the US compares with other states. While such comparisons are not always perfect, a cross-section of statistical comparisons provides a relatively clear picture of the contrast between the wealth, innovative capacity, and work ethic of the US, and the social and other outcomes that have been attained.

Hookworm, a disease of extreme poverty, is thriving in the US south. Why?

Read more

• By most indicators, the US is one of the world’s wealthiest countries. It spends more on national defense than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, France and Japan combined.
• US healthcare expenditures per capita are double the OECD average and much higher than in all other countries. But there are many fewer doctors and hospital beds per person than the OECD average.
• US infant mortality rates in 2013 were the highest in the developed world.
• Americans can expect to live shorter and sicker lives, compared to people living in any other rich democracy, and the “health gap” between the US and its peer countries continues to grow.
• US inequality levels are far higher than those in most European countries
• Neglected tropical diseases, including Zika, are increasingly common in the USA. It has been estimated that 12 million Americans live with a neglected parasitic infection. A 2017 report documents the prevalence of hookworm in Lowndes County, Alabama.
• The US has the highest prevalence of obesity in the developed world.
• In terms of access to water and sanitation the US ranks 36th in the world.
• America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, ahead of Turkmenistan, El Salvador, Cuba, Thailand and the Russian Federation. Its rate is nearly five times the OECD average.
• The youth poverty rate in the United States is the highest across the OECD with one quarter of youth living in poverty compared to less than 14% across the OECD.
• The Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks the most well-off countries in terms of labor markets, poverty, safety net, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. The US comes in last of the top 10 most well-off countries, and 18th amongst the top 21.
• In the OECD the US ranks 35th out of 37 in terms of poverty and inequality.
• According to the World Income Inequality Database, the US has the highest Gini rate (measuring inequality) of all Western Countries
• The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality characterizes the US as “a clear and constant outlier in the child poverty league”. US child poverty rates are the highest amongst the six richest countries – Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and Norway.

To read to full report, click here.