The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives (52 page)

4.
See
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/22/bush-denies-us-economy-in-recession/
.

5.
See
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/15/mccain-fundamentals-of-th_n_126445.html
.

6.
See
http://articles.cnn.com/2008–09–24/politics/bush.transcript_1_markets-financial-assets-economy?_s=PM:POLITICS
.

7.
Rakesh Kochhar, Richard Fry, and Paul Taylor,
Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics
. Report released by Pew Research Center, July 26, 2011. Available at
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/26/wealth-gaps-rise-to-record-highs-between-whites-blacks-hispanics/
.

8.
See
http://news.yahoo.com/documents-show-fed-missed-housing-bust-022039343.html
.

9.
Elise Gould and Kathryn Anne Edwards, “Another Look at Poverty in the Great Recession,” Economic Policy Institute, January 5, 2011. Available at
http://www.epi.org/publication/ib293/
.

10.
The author wrote about these laws in “Reversing ‘Right to Work,’” the
Nation
, February 27, 2006.

11.
These numbers, generated by the federal government, have been widely reported. For a particularly good analysis, see
http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/1568
.

12.
For Texas poverty data, see
Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity
, available at
http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/map-detail.aspx?state=Texas
. For information on Texans without health insurance, see
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-texas-has-the-highest-percentage-of-uninsured-people-in-the-us/2011/08/02/gIQA1wIdHJ_blog.html
. For data on hunger in Texas, see figures provided by the Texas Hunger Initiative:
http://www.baylor.edu/texashunger/index.php?id=85493
. For job creation numbers, see
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/may/29/texas-public-policy-foundation/texas-public-policy-foundation-says-texas-created-/
.

13.
See
http://www.cppp.org/research.php?aid=1133&cid=3&scid=5
.

14.
See
http://www.bls.gov/lau/
.

15.
See
http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2010tbls.htm#3
.

16.
See
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/business/Number-of-Walmarts-in-Dallas-to-Double-116711789.html
.

17.
See
http://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Walmart-Stores-Hourly-Pay-E715.htm
.

18.
See
http://walmartwatch.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/pdf/walmart_unions.pdf
.

19.
See
http://walmartwatch.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/pdf/walmart_unions.pdf
.

20.
See
http://www.walmartstores.com/sites/AnnualReport/2011/financials.aspx
.

21.
See
http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/national/walmart-black-friday-2012-strike-walkout-update-group-of-dallas-walmart-workers-protest
.

22.
Howard Friedman,
The Measure of a Nation: How to Regain America’s Competitive Edge and Boost Our Global Standing
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2012), 18.

23.
For a full transcript of Santorum’s speech, see
http://www.freep.com/article/20120219/OPINION05/202190367/Transcript-GOP-primary-candidate-Rick-Santorum-s-speech-Detroit-Economic-Club
.

24.
See
http://cbsdetroit.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/basicskillsreport_final.pdf
.

25.
For a good overview of the current literature on social mobility in the United States, see
The Economist
, December 29, 2004. Available at
http://www.economist.com/node/3518560
.

PART TWO, INTRODUCTION

1.
Randy Albelda, “Different Anti-Poverty Program, Same Single-Mother Poverty,”
Dollars and Sense
, February 2012.

2.
Richard Rothstein,
Class and Schools
(Washington, D.C., and New York: Economic Policy Institute and Teachers College Press, 2004), 9.

3.
Ibid., 10.

4.
See
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/31/615661/big-5-oil-companies-going-for-the-gold/
.

5.
For a fuller explanation of this act, see the congressional report issued by the Joint Committee on Taxation, available at
https://www.jct.govpublications.html?func=startdown&id=2388
.

PART TWO, CHAPTER ONE

1.
See Albelda, “Different Anti-Poverty Programs, Same Single-Mother Poverty.”

2.
In 2008, the
New York Times
quoted estimates that varied from $12.5 billion per month up to $25 billion. See
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/opinion/23kristof.html
.

3.
These numbers were provided by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, available at
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3625
. To put in perspective: America was spending more each second funding the Iraq War than most welfare recipients in America receive in a year, according to numbers generated by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

4.
Edelman,
So Rich, So Poor
, 2–3.

5.
See
http://www.citylimits.org/news/article_print.cfm?article_id=4463
.

6.
Hoynes and her colleagues have written several articles on this. The author also talked about these findings with Hoynes several times during the research for this book.

7.
Albelda, “Different Anti-Poverty Programs, Same Single-Mother Poverty.” Albelda’s information came from the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Table 4.3 of TANF, 6th Annual Report to Congress (November 2004), and Table 4.2 of TANF, 8th Annual Report to Congress (June 2009).

PART TWO, CHAPTER TWO

1.
See
http://www.childrenshealthwatch.org/upload/resource/MRVP_CHIA.pdf
.

2.
See
http://blogs.justice.gov/main/archives/1950
.

3.
See
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/economists-letter-ftt-2009–12.pdf
.

4.
See
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012–07–25/billionaires-may-win-as-dems-split-on-estate-tax
.

5.
See
http://news.yahoo.com/alaskans-878-yearly-oil-wealth-payout-191045917.html
.

6.
Information provided to author by United Methodist Outreach Ministry staff during visit to the site.

7.
See
http://fieldus.org/Stories/FastFacts.html
.

8.
See
http://cfsinnovation.com/content/complex-portrait-examination-small-dollar-credit-consumers
.

9.
For details of Paine’s plan, see Gareth Steadman Jones,
An End to Poverty?
(London: Profile Books, 2004).

10.
Known as the Alfond Challenge, the program is administered by the Finance Authority of Maine. The $500 grants were awarded starting on January 1, 2009. For more details, see Margaret Clancy and Terry Lassar’s May 2010 report for the Center for Social Development, at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, St. Louis, available at
http://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Documents/PB10–16.pdf
.

11.
See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/education/12college.html
.

12.
This was written about extensively. For a good overview, see the
U.S. News & World Report
article available at
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2012/06/28/1-million-people-show-support-for-student-loan-forgiveness-act
.

13.
This information was generated by researchers with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Available at
http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2012/03/grading-student-loans.html
.

14.
See
http://forbestadvice.com/Education/Articles/2011_0721_University_of_California_CAL_Tuition_Fee_History.html
.

15.
Friedman,
The Measure of a Nation
, 122.

16.
See
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/03/25/pell-grants-face-cuts-in-congress/
.

17.
See
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/16/390751/spending-deal-cuts-pell-grants/
.

18.
Josh Harkinson, “How the Nation’s Only State-Owned Bank Became the Envy of Wall Street,”
Mother Jones
, May 27, 2009. Available at
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/03/how-nation’s-only-state-owned-bank-became-envy-wall-street
.

19.
See
http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/job.htm
.

20.
N. P. Roman and N. Wolfe,
Web of Failure: The Relationship Between Foster Care and Homelessness
(Washington, D.C.: National Alliance to End Homelessness, 1995); and R. Cook,
A National Evaluation of Title IV-E Foster Care Independent Living Programs for Youth, Phase 2
(Rockville, MD: Westat, 1991).

21.
“18 and Out: Life After Foster Care in Massachusetts,” 7. Available at
http://www.chapa.org/pdf/18andOut.pdf
.

22.
See
http://www.chapinhall.org/research/inside/does-keeping-youth-foster-care-beyond-age-18-help-prevent-homelessness
.

23.
See
http://www.sor.govoffice3.com/vertical/Sites/%7B3BDD1595–792B-4D20-8D44-626EF05648C7%7D/uploads/Foster_Care_PDF_12-8-11.pdf
.

24.
Mark E. Courtney, et al., “Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth: Outcomes at Age 19,” Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, May 2005.

25.
Nicholas Zill,
Adoption from Foster Care: Aiding Children While Saving Public Money
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2011).

26.
The author wrote about this school as a point of contrast to the surrounding financial gloom in Nevada, in “Nevada Goes Bust,” the
Nation
, September 20, 2010. Available at
http://www.thenation.com/article/154482/nevada-goes-bust
.

27.
Kristina Rizga, “Everything You’ve Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong,”
Mother Jones
, September/October 2012. Available at
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/mission-high-false-low-performing-school
.

28.
See
http://www.sfdistrictattorney.org/index.aspx?page=3
.

29.
See data provided by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at
http://www.ojjdp.gov/dso/Truancy%20Abatement%20and%20Burglary%20Suppression%20(TABS)-DSOProgramDetail-800.aspx
.

30.
Diane Ravitch, “Schools We Can Envy,”
New York Review of Books
, March 8, 2012, 19–20.

31.
Abby Rapoport, “Diane Ravitch on the ‘Effort to Destroy Public Ed,’”
American Prospect
, October 2, 2012. Available at
http://prospect.org/article/diane-ravitch-effort-destroy-public-ed
.

32.
Ladd said this during a presidential address that she gave to the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, November 4, 2011. The speech was subsequently published in the
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
.

33.
National Public Radio’s “Marketplace” reported on the Oyler School in an October 2012 report, available at
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/wealth-poverty/one-school-one-year/leading-change-oyler-school/
. The report provides a good summary of the premises behind the Community Learning Center movement.

PART TWO, CHAPTER THREE

1.
“Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All Fifty States,”
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
, 3rd ed. (Washington, D.C., 2009). Available at
http://www.itepnet.org/whopays3.pdf
.

2.
See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nMa
.

3.
For a good, concise discussion of Friedman’s idea, see the
New York Times
business section article on it that followed Friedman’s death in 2006:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/business/23scene.html
.

4.
I am grateful to University of Pennsylvania historian Michael Katz for pointing this out to me. It is briefly referenced in a draft paper of his, and is more generally written about in Brian Steensland,
The Failed Welfare Revolution: America’s Struggle Over Guaranteed Income Policy
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).

5.
This information is detailed in the June 2012 unpublished paper, “Income, The Earned Income Tax Credit, and Family Health,” by University of California at Davis economists Hilary Hoynes, Douglas Miller, and David Simon. Hoynes also talked through her findings with the author during a series of in-person conversations.

6.
Jesse Rothstein, “Is the EITC as Good as an NIT? Conditional Cash Transfers and Tax Incidence,” Princeton University and NBER, May 5, 2009.