Write 2 paragraphs explaining what is the best way of ending poverty in America.

Notes on Chapter 7

How do we, today, make the poor in America poor?

• First, we exploit them. (120)
  • We constrain their choice and power in the labor market, the housing market, and the financial market, driving down wages while forcing the poor to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. (120)
  • Who benefits from the exploitation of the poor? Corporations, consumers, investors in the stock market, landlords, , homeowners, the banking and payday lending industries, those with free checking accounts. (120)
  • Someone bears the cost of opulence. (120)
• Second, we prioritize the subsidization of affluence over the alleviation of poverty. (120)
  • Government is devoting a considerable amount of effort to underwriting the portfolios and estates of the American aristocracy. (132)
  • The United States could effectively end poverty in America without increasing the deficit if it cracked down on corporations and families who cheat on their taxes, relocating the newfound revenue to those most n need of it. (121)
  • Let the IRS do its job. (121)
  • The well-off should take less from the government. (121)
  • We need to design our welfare state to expand opportunity and not guard fortunes. (121)
• Third, we create prosperous and exclusive communities. (121)
  • The concentration of affluence breeds more affluence, and the concentration of poverty, more poverty. (122)

We need to make sure low-income Americans get connected to the aid for which they qualify. (122)

• People often dont know about aid designated for them or are burdened by the application process. (122). Solution: give information, offer sign-up assistance, make the application process simpler.

In 2020, the gap separating everyone in America below the poverty line and the poverty line itself amounted to $177 billion. This is less than 1 % of our GDP. (124-25)

• Congress should pass legislation mandating that corporations pay a minimum tax on their profits no matter what country they are registered in. (126)
• Increase the marginal tax rate and the corporate tax rate. (126)
• We could raise $25 billion by winding down the mortgage interest deduction. (128)
• Increase the maximum taxable amount of earning for Social Security. (128)
• Treat capital gains and dividends for wealthy Americans the same way we treat income for tax purposes. (128)

Refashioning the American welfare state to support an aggressive antipoverty agenda.

• Universal programs like Universal Basic Income (UBI) (it would cost about $1 trillion a year. (130)
• Universal programs tend to be more expensive. (130)
• Broader tent targeting programs with a higher income threshold, allowing aid to flow not just to the poor, but also to the working and middle class. Example: Earned Income Tax Credit. Providing benefits to families with annual incomes up to $57,414.
• Targeted universalism
• If we want to abolish poverty, we need to embrace policies that foster goodwill and be suspicious of those that kindle resentment. (131)
• The American welfare state: Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Food stamps, Head Start, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare.

• Notes on Chapter 8

  Choice is the antidote for exploitation. So, a crucial step toward ending poverty is giving more Americans the power to decide where to work, live, and bank, and when to start a family. (139)

  • Raise the minimum wage.
  • End subminimum wage.
  • A new labor law that makes unionization easy.
  • A new labor movement that is inclusive and anti-racist, empowering workers young and old. Including those bending in our fields, waiting on our tables, cleaning our homes and offices, and caring for the old and sick. (141)
  • Sectoral bargaining: a form of collective bargaining that provides contract coverage and sets compensation floors for most workers in a particular occupation, industry, or region.
    • This is a way to organize all Amazon warehouses and all Starbucks locations in a single go, and its a way to empower all those independent contractors at Meta and Apple, too. (142)
  • Mandating that corporate boards have significant worker representation (141).
  • Levy heavy penalties on companies that thwart workers organizing efforts. (143)
  • Public Housing: (144)
    • Children who grow up in subsidized housing are healthier, have lower exposure to lead poisoning, and do better in school than their peers living unassisted in the private rental market.
  • Pave the way for more Americans to become homeowners. Program (145)
  • (146)
  • Regulate bank fees(149)
  • Protect and expand women reproductive rights. (151)
  • Becoming a Poverty Abolitionist: conducting an audit of our lives, personalizing poverty by examining all the ways we are connected to the problem- and to the solution. (156)
  • Made possible for poor families to move to high opportunity neighborhoods (163)
    • Replace exclusionary zoning policies with inclusionary ordinances (165)
    • Mandating that new developments set aside a percentage of their units for low income families (166)
  • End scarcity framework. Change it with an economy of abundance. (14-175)

Why do wages for non-college graduates in the United Sates of America are among the lowest in the industrialized world (wealthiest developed countries) according to Matthew Desmond? Identify 4 causes of this situation. Write one paragraph explaining each cause identified.

Grading criteria:

• • • • Students can gain up to 5 points per paragraph written.
      • Each paragraph must identify one cause explaining low wages in America.
      • Each paragraph must demonstrate that the student completed chapter 3 of Poverty, By America.
      • Each paragraph must contain a minimum of 100 words.
      • Students must limit their answers to the ideas presented in chapter 3 of Poverty, By America. No other source of information should be used.

The purpose of this learning assignment is for the student to demonstrate reading and comprehension of chapter 3 of Poverty, By America.. This assignment does not ask for students’ opinion, nor to use other sources of information. Students are welcome to disagree with the author. However, students must demonstrate that they understood the author’s ideas.