I just finished reading a great book a few days ago: Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre-Feminist, Anarchist, Genius. I love Voltairine de Cleyre’s writing! She wrote about various topics, but poverty came up often. In her essay Why I Am An Anarchist, she wrote something with which I completely agree: “The problem […]
Author Archives: Scott Hughes
How Poor People Get Nickel and Dimed
Megan McArdle recently posted about how poor people get forced into higher-priced alternatives. She credits that observation to the book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. Basically, poor people do not have enough money saved up to make big purchases or investments. People from more affluent backgrounds will have money saved up […]
Poverty Priorities
I often stress the importance of education and raising children in the fight against poverty. Education empowers people, and people empowered with education will have the skills to take care of themselves, to take care of their families, and to help uplift society as a whole. We do need to find large-scale ways to provide […]
A Minimum Wage Increase Will Not End Poverty
I want so much for our society to eliminate poverty. I believe we can, and I hope we will soon. However, I do not think increasing the minimum wage will significantly help end poverty. I have a few reasons for this. Generally, I see governments and politicians as inherently dishonest. They pander to people with […]
The Cure For Poverty Starts With Children
I just read an informative letter to the editor from a newspaper in Michigan, where about 1 in 5 children live in poverty. In the letter, Jack Kresnak points out that the cure for poverty starts with children. I especially like that he emphasized how much of the first 5 years of a children’s lives […]
Child Poverty Hinders Children’s Development
I just read a great op-ed by Paul Krugman about the ways that living in poverty hinders the development of children. He reported that the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their […]