Authors: George Lakey
88.
In the United States, the trend has been ominous. “Poverty among the elderly is growing. And deep or extreme poverty—defined by the government as a single person earning $5,700 a year or less—has taken a jump that even experts find astonishing. For men over age sixty-five nationwide, the rate of deep poverty increased 23 percent between 2011 and 2012, according to analysis by the National Women’s Law Center, a
nonprofit advocacy group. For women, it went up 18 percent. Overall, that means a total of 442,000 elderly men and 733,000 elderly women were living in deep poverty in America in 2012, the center’s figures show.” Alfred Lubrano, “Extreme poverty rising for elderly,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, October 20, 2013, p. A3.
89.
The study was done in 2007 and published in the
Health Policy Journal
.
www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/images/publications/in-the-literature/2011/sep/preventable-death-l.gif
(accessed January 12, 2015). Health expenditures as a percentage of the GDP use the latest available numbers (2013), and are found in the OECD health data website:
www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm
(accessed January 13, 2016).
90.
Again drawn from the latest available data, 2013, in the OECD’s data website:
www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm
(accessed January 13, 2016).
91.
“Why Pharma’s Patents are a Drug on the Market,”
The Guardian
, May 31, 2011.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/may/31/healthcare-pharmaceuticals-industry
(accessed January 26, 2016).
92.
“Britain tops the fuel poverty league table,” by Simon Read.
The Independent
, March 29, 2013.
www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/britain-tops-the-fuel-poverty-league-table-8554723.html
(accessed July 29, 2014).
93.
Association for the Conservation of Energy. “Energy efficiency and excess winter deaths: Comparing the UK and Sweden,” November 2013.
www.energybillrevolution.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/ACE-Research-Comparing-the-UK-and-Sweden-3.12.13.pdf
(accessed July 29, 2014).
94.
By comparison, the rate in the UK is 154 prisoners per 100,000 and the United States, the highest in the world, has 730.
95.
UN, Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, cited by Wilkinson and Pickett, p. 148.
96.
“Why Violent Crime Is So Rare in Iceland.” BBC News.
www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25201471
.
97.
Public Radio International, December 3, 2013. www.pri.org/stories/2013-12-03/iceland-grieves-after-police-kill-man-first-time-its-history. The chief of police said in his statement: “The police are deeply saddened by this tragic event and would like to extend their condolences to the family of the individual in question.” Grief counseling was offered immediately to the police officers involved.
www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/02/iceland-armed-police-shoot-man-dead-first-time
.
98.
Landon Thomas, Jr., “Thriving Norway Provides an Economics Lesson,”
The New York Times
, May 14, 2009.
www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/business/global/14frugal.html
(accessed May 4, 2016).
Chapter 9: Creating Work/Life Balance
99.
Hiscott, Rebecca. “Sweden to Experiment with Six-Hour Workday.”
The Huffington Post
, June 5, 2014 (accessed July 21, 2014).
100.
OECD Labor Productivity:
stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSet-Code=LEVEL
.
101.
Hiscott, Rebecca, op. cit. Not all workplaces find people becoming more productive, or happier, with a shorter day. Evidence from various countries suggests that the outcome may relate to the kind of job, and also to expectations about the degree of informal communication in the workplace itself. One firm found that within its own worksite, people in some jobs had positive outcomes from shorter days (in both productivity
and morale) and people in other kinds of jobs had less. Michelle Goodman, “Do shorter workdays really make us more productive?”
BBC.com
, July 30, 2014.
www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140729-do-shorter-workdays-really-work
(accessed August 2, 2014).
102.
Schulte’s book is
Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time
, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Sarah Crichton Books, 2014. The
Fresh Air
interview is from March 14, 2014.
103.
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/420178/Norway/214109/Demographic-trends
(accessed November 10, 2011).
104.
Bowles and Y. Park, “Emulation, inequality, and work hours: was Thorsten Veblen right?”
Economic Journal
(2005) 115: F398–F412. Cited in Parkinson and Pickett,
The Spirit Level
(New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009), p. 228. Wilkinson and Pickett found a parallel variability on advertising. In more unequal countries more of the GDP is spent on advertising, with the United States and New Zealand spending twice as much as Denmark and Norway. Presumably, advertising is the carrot held in front of the donkey to keep it working.
105.
Better Life Index, 2013.
www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org
(accessed May 13, 2014).
106.
www.norway.org/aboutnorway/society/welfare/benefits/ (accessed July 31, 2013).
107.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/denmark-happiest-country_n_4070761.html
(accessed July 21, 2014).
108.
According to a 2011 study by Ronald Rindfuss, David Guilkey, Philip Morgan, and Oystein Kravdal titled “Child-Care Availability and Fertility in Norway.”
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3099220/#R21
. In 2004, 72 percent of women with
children under the age of three were employed. www.norway.org/aboutnorway/society/Equal-Opportunities/gender/workforce/ (accessed April 3, 2011).
109.
Statistics Norway 2007
, cited in Øystein Kravdal’s article, “Why Is Fertility in Norway so High?”
110.
James Surowiecki, “The Cult of Overwork,”
The New Yorker
, January 27, 2011, p. 23.
111.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/denmark-happiest-country_n_4070761.html
(accessed July 21, 2014).
112.
Wilkinson and Pickett draw their data from the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the UN, and the OECD. See pp. 22–23 and 174–75.
113.
www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?program-ID=99-P13–00003&segmentID=2 (accessed November 20, 2011). “The Land Tenure System in Norway, and Local Democracy in Relation to Land Issues,”
www.caledonia.org.uk/land/tenure.htm
. Anders Anderssen, Advisor to the County Governor, Sogn og Fjordane (accessed November 20, 2011).
114.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/denmark-happiest-country_n_4070761.html
(accessed July 21, 2014).
Chapter 10: Breaking Barriers to Education and Lifelong Learning
115.
Laura Vanderkam, “The permanent recession: It’s no secret that the educational system in the USA doesn’t stack up well against the rest of the world. What’s less-known is the severe economic consequences.”
USA Today Weekly International Edition
, June 19–21, 2009, p. 7W. It is true that the United States does invest considerable sums in education, but that is often in defiance of the results of educational studies pointing to what is in fact effective. Research for many years has shown overwhelmingly
that learning goes up when the number of students in a class goes down. The new, top-down educational “reform movement” ignores these studies and instead insists on frequent, widespread (and expensive) testing. This not only results in larger classrooms but also, significantly, more taxpayer money diverted into the private sector via testing companies.
116.
Sean F. Reardon, “The Widening Academic Achievement Gap between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations,” in R. Murnane and G. Duncan, eds.,
Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality and the Uncertain Life Chances of Low-Income Children
(New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011), pp. 91–116.
117.
As I write this, the national campaign by the United States’ 1 percent to defund public schools has resulted for Philadelphia in the likely prospect of classrooms with 40 students. The campaign uses the classic strategy, which is first to run down the quality of a public service, then to amplify the public’s dissatisfaction and channel it into blaming the teachers and administrators themselves, thus provoking a popular readiness to “try something else”—that is, educational taxes being placed in private hands.
118.
UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre.
Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries
(Florence: Innocenti Report Card, 2007). Wilkinson and Pickett, p. 116.
119.
Studies in the United States show that enhancing music programs for working-class children in Harlem, West Philadelphia, and Chester, PA, pays off in increased academic achievement as well. These programs are funded by privately raised money, since the running-down of public schools includes abandoning music and arts programs.)
120.
Niklas Pollard, “Insight: Sweden rethinks pioneering school
reforms, private equity under fire,” Reuters, December 10, 2013 (accessed August 29, 2015).
121.
www.kunstfilm.no/english/
(accessed July 23, 2014).
122.
A useful overview of the Norwegian tertiary education system, including an explanation of the loans and grants available to students as income support while they go to school, is:
gse.buffalo.edu/org/inthigheredfinance/files/Country_Profiles/Europe/Norway.pdf
(accessed July 23, 2014).
123.
Thorvaldur Gylfason, “Natural resources, education, and economic development.”
European Economic Review
45 (2001): 847–59.
124.
Education at a Glance, 2013: OECD Indicators
. www.oecd.org/edu/eag2013 percent20(eng)—FINAL percent2020 percent-20June percent202013.pdf (accessed July 24, 2014). This source also presents information on the comparative rates of student attainment in the various countries, including graduation rates and success in gaining jobs.
125.
Goldstein, Dana,
The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession
(New York: Doubleday, 2014), p. 274.
126.
The Week
, November 6, 2015, p. 7.
Chapter 11: Paying for What You Get: The Viking Approach to Taxes
127.
These OECD statistics can be found here:
stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REV
.
128.
Chaflin, Max. “In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism,”
Inc. Magazine
, January 20, 2011. www.inc.com/magazine/20110201/in-norway-start-ups-say-ja-to-socialism.html/7 (accessed August 2, 2013).
129.
Joseph E. Stiglitz,
The Price of Inequality
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2012), p. 28.
130.
Chaflin, op. cit.
131.
The authors respond to frequently asked questions and update their data on the website of a nonprofit,
www.equalitytrust.org.uk/spirit-level
.
The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger
(New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009).
132.
Wilkinson and Pickett, pp. 55–56. In Putnam’s book
Bowling Alone
, he defines “social capital” as the sum total of people’s involvement in community life. “Social capital and economic equality moved in tandem through most of the twentieth century [in the United States]. In terms of the distribution of wealth and income, America in the 1950s and 1960s was more egalitarian than it had been in more than a century … those same decades were also the high point of social connectedness and civic engagement.” R.D. Putnam,
Bowling Alone: The collapse and revival of American community
. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). Eric Uslaner’s book is
The Moral Foundations of Trust
. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.)
133.
Wilkinson and Pickett analyze the grounds for the international condemnation of the U.S. response to Hurricane Katrina: “Countries around the world offered aid and assistance, while their news coverage was filled with criticism.” The authors note that Louisiana is a high-inequality state within the United States and demonstrated the expected lack of social trust and resiliency; pp. 49–50.
134.
AmericanProgress.org
, June 2011 (accessed June 8, 2014).
135.
In the United States, President Reagan’s administration began a march downward in personal taxes for the wealthy (as high as 70 percent). Joseph Stiglitz tells us that, considering that municipal bonds, a favorite haven for the rich, are not even
taxed at all, the 400 top income earners in the United States paid an average tax rate of just 19.9 percent in 2009. The top 1 percent in general pay between 20–24 percent, which is lower than Americans with moderate incomes. Joseph E. Stiglitz,
The Price of Inequality
, New York: W. W. Norton, p. xxxi. Warren Buffett, the second-richest person in the United States, stated that his taxable income was taxed only at 17.4 percent, a fraction of what others pay who earn much less. In 2007, he said, “Dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise. Equality of opportunity has been on the decline.” For that reason, he backs estate taxes. Brian Miller and Mike Lapham,
The Self-Made Myth
(San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2012), p. 76.
136.
www.norjus.no/visartikkel.asp?art=254
.
137.
Kallbekken and Saelen, 2010.
138.
Noting a consistent drumbeat from politicians of both parties decrying increased taxes, a series of polls were taken in Pennsylvania in 2011 to check that out. Fifty-seven percent were willing to pay higher fees for driver’s licenses and registration if the money went toward road and bridge repairs. Seventy-one percent want to tax Marcellus Shale gas drilling. (The governor refused.) Seventy-two percent want smokeless tobacco and cigars to be taxed. Eighty-three percent want to maintain support for public schools even in bad times, and are willing to raise state taxes to do so. (The governor then lowered taxes—on corporations in the state—and substantially reduced funding of public education.) Timothy Potts, “Major parties vs. the majority,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, December 28, 2011, p. A22.