Poverty

Late last month, YouthSave’s core Research Advisory Council (RAC) member Carolina Trivelli was sworn in as Peru’s first Minister of Social Inclusion. Trivelli was most recently Director at the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and has worked with Proyecto Capital and NAF on linking conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs with financial inclusion strategies.

Last week, Ms. Trivelli graciously agreed to answer some questions about her appointment and upcoming plans.

In this podcast, Reid Cramer, director of the Asset Building Program at New America, describes the new dynamics of inequality that emerged in the wake of the Great Recession and have given rise to the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Without dramatic changes to the housing market and policy efforts designed to get families out from under the overhang of debt, significant wealth inequality will persist for years to come. This is particularly apparent when recognizing  the staggering growth of the racial wealth gap. Today, November 17th, marks the two month anniversary of the protests, which should be applauded for initiating a national conversation about equality, mobility, and opportunity.

CASA of Oregon, Neighborhood Partnerships, and NeighborWorks Umpqua hosted Rebuilding the Path of Opportunity: An Oregon Asset Builders' Conference on November 9-10. Rachel Black presented "Recovery and Resiliency" at a plenary exploring the landscape of policy options to expand savings opportunities among lower-income households from the local to the national level. In the presentation, she gives a federal policy perspective and argues that helping households build financial resiliency through savings should be a core part of the economic recovery agenda.

This presentation was given at an event hosted by the American Action Forum, "Income Growth and Inequality: What is the Reality?"  The presentation offers perspectives on income and wealth inequality, looking at the unequal distribution of assets across race and household net worth. Pervasive inequality undermines the core American values of democracy, meritocracy, and social mobility and must be addressed in a multifaceted way.

It's an incredibly uncomfortable scene. Michael Scott returns to the class of student to whom he made the pledge 10 years earlier that if they graduated from high school, he would pay for their college. Now as they anticipate this promise being fulfilled, they perform a song to demonstrate their appreciation:

Here at the Asset Building Program, we believe that helping people build their savings and assets will allow them to get (and stay) out of poverty. The recession has been hard on low and middle income Americans, especially those who commute to work in a car. When gas prices rise, they are forced to cut spending in other areas (food, medicine, education, etc) in order to pay for gasoline.

Tomorrow, October 20th, Justin King from the Asset Building Program is speaking at a briefing organized by the Congressional Out of Poverty Caucus. See the details below from the briefing invitation.

In April 2011, Reid Cramer presented at the Color of Wealth Policy Summit about the impact of the Great Recession on the racial wealth gap and emphasized the need for continued attention to the role of assets in the widening racial wealth gap. Specifically, he drew attention to the burst of the housing bubble and stock market tumble as contributors to a divergence that will make it increasingly difficult for middle income people to grow assets and will disproportionately burden families of color.

Tarnish on the Golden State, a new report issued by the New America Foundation, exposes how medical debt can lead to ill health and financial insecurity for individuals and families. Tens of millions of American families struggle to pay health insurance premiums and medical bills. In 2010, 44 million working aged American adults had medical debt or medical bills they were paying off over time. In California, over two million people had medical debt prior to the recession and the problem has likely become worse since then.

The release of the 2010 U.S. Census data about poverty spawned a flurry of writing, thinking, and, of course, tweeting about the causes, status of, and solutions to widespread poverty in the U.S. This post is a smattering of analysis of the poverty numbers from the past week with our reactions and links to past work on the topics being discussed. Other organizations have compiled great, comprehensive lists of news and publications on the data release so this post chimes in and builds on that conversation.