I have decided to post some poverty-related news stories from around the world.
A group of economists have criticized the government of Indonesia for failing to reduce the number of people living in poverty in the country despite general economic improvement for the country as a whole. 105.3 million people in Indonesia live in poverty out of the country’s total population of 236.4 million. While it may seem odd that a country’s economy can improve without decreasing the number of people in poverty, I find that it often happens like that because gains in the economy usually correlate with increased inequality. As the rich get very richer, the poor get poorer. And the “average” income still goes up because the rich make more money than the poor lose.
The mayor-elect of Salt Lake City, Ralph Becker, says that he will work to reduce poverty in the city during his term. That pledge apparently came after a coalition of community and faith groups challenged Becker to reduce poverty.
A program director from the University of Oklahoma has decided to hire two researchers to investigate how public schools can reduce poverty. Even without extensive studies, I think most of us can see how grade schools impact poverty. Hopefully, society will start using schools to break the poverty cycle. Personally, I think private schools have much more potential than public schools, but poor children would need to receive some sort of large voucher or loan to attend private school.
You can discuss the above stories and post your own stories in my World Hunger and Poverty Forums. We need to discuss these major problems together so that we can come up with agreeable solutions.