Tag: poverty

When it comes to income inequality, study finds we are fooling ourselves

October 4, 2012 at 5:30 pmCategory:NC Budget and Tax Center

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In this space yesterday, I provided an overview of how widespread income inequality is in North Carolina. As a brief reminder, North Carolina households in the top fifth hold more income than all of the remaining households combined in the state. Although income inequality hit a modern high last month in the United States, a 2011 study found that a lot of Americans’ hold a perception that does match up with this reality.   

Duke Professor Dan Ariely and Harvard Professor Michael Norton asked approximately 5,500 Americans (whose median income was $45,000) how they thought wealth is actually distributed in the nation. The study found that Americans perceived the distribution of wealth to be more equal than it actually is. In fact, 92 percent of respondents said their optimal level of inequality was even more equitable than their flawed perceptions, meaning they want to live in much more equal communities. Read More…

Income inequality grows in NC, likely putting downward pressure on already-low levels of economic mobility

October 3, 2012 at 4:14 pmCategory:NC Budget and Tax Center

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Income inequality—the extent to which income is distributed unevenly—is widespread and growing in North Carolina, according to a recent report by the Budget and Tax Center. In a free market economy, a certain level of inequality is to be expected. However, we are experiencing historically high levels of income inequality—levels that are limiting and eroding the equality of opportunity, a core tenet of the American Dream.

Research shows that 42 percent of Americans born into the bottom fifth of the income distribution remain there as adults. This means that one’s financial standing as an adult is largely dependent upon their parents’ financial standing. This is certainly problematic considering 1 in 4 of North Carolina’s children live in poverty. More troubling, the average North Carolinian experiences lower-levels of absolute and upward mobility compared to the average Southeasterner and American. Read More…

POLICY AND POVERTY MATTERS: Our Collective Inability to #TalkPoverty Hurts Us All

September 28, 2012 at 3:25 pmCategory:NC Budget and Tax Center

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An honest and substantive discussion about poverty is, and has long been, virtually missing from the public debates. When is the last time you read a news article covering the issue of poverty in a substantive way? Chances are slim, according to a recent study conducted by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

Of the nearly 10,500 campaign articles published from January to June 2012 that were reviewed, the study found that national media coverage of poverty-related issues appeared in only 17 of the articles. Yet, the study found that “debt” and “deficit” appeared in 1,848 of the articles. How can we talk about fiscal cliffs, scaling back social insurance programs, and improving the weak economic recovery without having a substantive conversation about poverty, the structural factors that are driving poverty, and how it affects us all? Read More…

POVERTY AND POLICY MATTERS: High Poverty Persists, Extends Its Reach Across North Carolina

September 27, 2012 at 4:20 pmCategory:NC Budget and Tax Center

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Poverty continued to disproportionately impact certain geographic communities in North Carolina in 2011, according to a report released last week by the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center. The data show that there was great variability in county-level poverty rates, especially when comparing rural and urban areas.See this chart for more details on county-level poverty rates in 2011.

At this point, the United States Census Bureau has only provided poverty levels for areas with at least 65,000 people. There are 39 counties in North Carolina that fit this criterion. In 2011, county-level poverty rates ranged from 10 percent in Union County to 30.4 percent in Robeson County. Eighteen counties had poverty rates equal to or below the state rate of 17.9 percent and 21 counties had poverty rates above 17.9 percent. Read More…

Prosperity Watch: 2000s-era economic recovery failed to reduce poverty prior to the Great Recession

September 26, 2012 at 12:45 pmCategory:NC Budget and Tax Center

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As North Carolinians are learning the hard way, not all recessions are followed by robust economic recoveries.  For all our concern over the current recovery, however, the years between the 2001 recession and the Great Recession of 2007-2009 also generated historically unprecedented negative economic trends. As the latest issue of Prosperity Watch demonstrates, the nation’s (and state’s) poverty rate failed to drop in the years of the formal recovery following the 2001 recession–the first time since the 1930s that post-recession economic growth proved unable to reduce poverty across the United States.  For more details, see Prosperity Watch.