The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives (53 page)

7.
See
http://walmartwatch.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/pdf/walmart_livingwage_policies07.pdf
.

8.
See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/us/19farm.html
.

9.
Jeannette Wicks-Lim and Jeffrey Thompson, “Combining Minimum Wage and Earned Income Tax Credit Policies to Guarantee a Decent Living Standard to All U.S. Workers,” Political Economy Research Institute, October 2010. Available at
http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/published_study/PERI_MW_EITC_Oct2010.pdf
.

10.
See
http://www.gallup.com/poll/149567/americans-favor-jobs-plan-proposals-including-taxing-rich.aspx
.

11.
See
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/public-opinion/news/2012/09/04/35992/public-opinion-snapshot-public-supports-infrastructure-spending-to-create-jobs/
.

12.
“The Growth in the Social Security Disability Rolls: A Fiscal Crisis Unfolding,”
Journal of Economic Perspectives
20, no. 3 (Summer 2006): 71–96.

13.
Alex Kowalski, “Disabled Americans Shrink Size of U.S. Labor Force,”
Bloomberg News
, May 3, 2012.

14.
Press release, “Social Security Board of Trustees: Project Trust Fund Exhaustion Three Years Earlier Than Last Year,” April 23, 2012.

15.
See
http://bcorporation.net/
.

16.
See
http://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2012/07/26/louisiana-about-to-become-a-benefit-corp-state-with-illinois-close-behind/
.

17.
Munnell’s data are sourced in Catherine Rampell, “Pensions 1980 Versus Today,” the
New York Times
, September 3, 2009. Available at
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/pensions-1980-vs-today/
.

18.
See
http://www.pbgc.gov/wr/other/pg/american-airlines-pensions-get-the-facts.html
.

19.
Sasha Abramsky, “No Country for Middle-Aged Men,”
Mother Jones
, May/June 2009, available at
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/05/no-country-middle-aged-men
. I also told this story in my book
Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It
(Sausalito, CA: Poli-Point Press, 2009).

20.
SSI formulas are extremely technical. For an overview of how the system works, see
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v67n3/v67n3p29.html
.

21.
See
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/economic-policy/ss-medicare/Documents/TR_2012_Medicare.pdf
.

22.
See
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html
.

23.
See, for example, Politifact’s analysis of Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s “Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act,” which proposed making income of greater than $250,000 per year subject to Social Security taxes. Available at
http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2012/aug/26/sheldon-whitehouse/us-sen-sheldon-whitehouse-says-proposal-would-keep/
.

24.
For an interesting analysis of the problems confronting Medicare, and the possibility of saving the system without eviscerating it, see Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Medicare Is Not Bankrupt,” available at
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3532
. To get a sense of the scale of the challenges facing Medicare, see reports by the Kaiser Family Foundation, including:
http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/7731–03.pdf
.

Index

Abiley, Paul,
140–143
,
321–322

Adelson, Sheldon,
52

Advocates for the Other America,
196

AFDC.
See
Aid to Families with Dependent Children

Affordable Care Act,
224
,
298

African Americans,
9–10
,
25
,
81
,
128–129
,
129–130
,
186

     
and education,
26

     
and housing,
172–173

     
and Hurricane Katrina,
155–156

Agassi, Andre,
276

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC),
45
,
107
,
216–217
,
218
,
232

Alabama,
103
,
106
,
131
,
289

Alaska,
251

Albelda, Randy,
206
,
218
,
233

Alfond, Harold,
256–257

American Airlines,
312

American Bankers Association conference (Chicago, 2009),
36

American Legislative Exchange Council,
178
,
179
,
205

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,
100
,
110
,
218
,
278

Anti-poverty strategies,
197–198
,
199–205

     
and automatic stabilizers,
231–232

     
and automatic triggers/coordinated efforts,
228–229

     
and benefit corporations,
310–311

     
and community building,
308–309
,
309–312

     
and disability insurance,
304–306

     
and domestic workers,
297–298

     
and Earned Income Tax Credit,
233
,
287–294
,
295–296
,
299–300
,
300–301

     
and economic downturns,
218–220

     
and education,
274–283

     
and existing programs,
287–317

     
and food stamp program,
220–223
,
232

     
and green jobs and industries,
264–266

     
holistic approach to,
229–231

     
and homelessness,
269–270
,
283–284

     
and housing,
266–269
,
283–284

     
and income guarantee,
294–297

     
and infrastructure, public and private,
263–264

     
and job training/retraining programs,
305–306
,
306–310

     
and living wage,
295–296
,
297
,
298–299
,
305

     
and Medicaid,
224–227

     
and Medicare,
311
,
314–315
,
316

     
and minimum wage,
297
,
299–300
,
305

     
and mortgage foreclosures,
270–274

     
and pensions,
311–313
,
313–315

     
and public works programs,
301–304

     
punishment-based
vs
. incentive-based approach to,
233
,
234

     
and school meals,
223–224

     
and Social Security,
311
,
313–315
,
315–316
,
316–317

     
and state banks,
263–266

     
and taxes,
263
,
264
,
266
,
298–300

     
and unions,
297–298

     
and will to reform,
227–229
,
326–327
See also
Poverty
;
War on Poverty

Appalachia,
54
,
131–132

Appalachian Pennsylvania,
18–20

Appalachian Regional Development Act,
202

Arizona,
91
,
106
,
300

Arkansas,
106
,
107

As Texas Goes
(Collins),
179

Asian Americans,
24–25
,
26

Aspen Institute, FIELD program,
254

Atlanta,
103
,
229

Attwell, Steven,
302–303
,
305

Automatic stabilizers,
121
,
218
,
231–232

Automatic triggers/coordinated efforts,
228–229

Autor, David,
304

Bachmann, Michele,
119–120

Bacon, Pastor Ed,
230–231

Baker, Dean,
244–247

Bankruptcy,
56
,
57–58
,
175
,
312–313

Banks/bankers,
36
,
58–59
.
See also
Micro-credit lending
;
Mortgage foreclosures
;
State banks

Barbour, Haley,
120

Barry, Artensia,
171–172

Bartholow, Jessica,
98
,
99
,
120
,
218–219
,
223

Baumann, Wendy,
254–255

BCC credit union.
See
Boston Community Capital credit union

Beck, Glenn,
92

Benefit corporations,
310–311

Bernanke, Ben,
165

Bethlehem Steel,
312

Bing, David,
185

Bismarck, Otto von,
71

Blaming the poor,
8
,
44
,
58
,
61
,
119

Blockett, Nekedra,
151–153

Bloomberg, Michael,
108

Boehner, John,
119

Boeing,
83

Booker, Alicia,
109
,
110

Booth, Charles,
65

Boston,
173
,
271–273

Boston Community Capital (BCC) credit union,
271–272

Brady, Diane,
102

Brazil,
251

Brown, Jerry,
218

Buchanan, Pat,
37–138

Buckley, William,
290

Budget deficit,
39–40
,
47–48
,
99
,
119–122
,
198

Buffett, Warren,
4
,
39
,
244

Burke, Robert,
184

Bush, George H. W.,
280
,
291

Bush, George W.,
16
,
45
,
165
,
207
,
216

Caldwell, Idaho,
183–184

California,
28
,
103
,
107
,
146
,
149
,
206
,
228–229

     
and child poverty,
117
,
148
,
267

     
food insecurity in,
132–133

     
food stamps in,
132–135

     
Proposition
30
,
325

     
protest march in,
166–168
,
318

California: America’s High Stakes Experiment
(Schrag),
90

California Economic Security Task Force,
40

CalWORKs welfare program,
99
,
104–105

Camden, New Jersey,
130

Canada,
250–251

Caro, Lorenza and Jorge,
22–24
,
209

Carter, Jimmy,
73

Ceausescu, Nicolae,
10

Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR),
244
,
245

Central Falls, Rhode Island,
58

CEPR.
See
Center for Economic and Policy Research

Chavez, Cesar,
83
,
166

Cherry, Elyse,
272

Chicago,
127
,
295–296

Chicago Coalition for the Homeless,
100–101

Child development account programs,
256–257