News About Inequality - March 2008

'The Next Slum?'

• The Atlantic, March 2008
  The subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today's McMansions into tomorrow's tenements.

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'As Jobs Vanish and Prices Rise, Food Stamp Use Nears Record'

• The New York Times, March 31, 2008
  Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.

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'The Sting of Poverty'

• The Boston Globe, March 30, 2008
  What bees and dented cars can teach about what it means to be poor - and the flaws of economics.

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'Most Older Americans Living Longer and Better'

• BusinessWeek, March 27, 2008
  Older Americans are living longer than ever and enjoying better health and financial security, a new report finds. Yet there continue to be lingering disparities between racial and ethnic groups.

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'Aging Suburbs Start to Address Citylike Challenges'

• The New York Times, March 23, 2008
  Maplewood, where Ms. Williams lives and works, does not have all the urban characteristics of its neighbor to the east, but it is also not a homogenous suburb, like some communities farther south or west. While it may be a bit of both, it is probably a little more city than suburb - its population is about a third black, it has pockets of poverty, its infrastructure is aging, and there is not much room left for new development that will generate precious property-tax revenue.

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'Depression, You Say? Check Those Safety Nets'

• The New York Times, March 23, 2008
  Is it possible our economy could speed past a recession into a full-blown depression like that of the 1930s? Economists don't think so.

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'Gap in Life Expectancy Widens for the Nation'

• The New York Times, March 23, 2008
  New government research has found "large and growing" disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.

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'Washington's Grand Experiment to Rehouse the Poor'

• The New York Times, March 21, 2008
  When District of Columbia officials tore down the decrepit housing project in southeast Washington where Samantha Jackson lived with her teenage son, they promised that they would build a more attractive, mixed-income community and that former tenants like herself could come back.

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'Supreme Court Inc.'

• The New York Times, March 16, 2008
  The headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, located across from Lafayette Park in Washington, is a limestone structure that looks almost as majestic as the Supreme Court.

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'The War and the Working Class'

• The Nation, March 13, 2008
  The government treats its soldiers the way most corporations treat their workforce--as an invisible, disrespected, disposable means to an end that is contrary to workers' interests. Members of the armed forces come mainly and disproportionately from the working class and from small-town and rural America, where opportunities are hard to come by.

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'Life Expectancy Tied to Education'

• BusinessWeek, March 11, 2008
  Life expectancy in the United States is on the increase, but only among people with more than 12 years of education, a new study finds. In fact, those with more than 12 years of education -- more than a high school diploma -- can expect to live to 82; for those with 12 or fewer years of education, life expectancy is 75.

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'Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old (JK)'

• The New York Times, March 9, 2008
  Children increasingly rely on personal technological devices like cellphones to define themselves and create social circles apart from their families, changing the way they communicate with their parents.

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'The Lost Children'

• The New Yorker, March 3, 2008
  What do tougher detention policies mean for illegal immigrant families?

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'Teaching Boys and Girls Separately'

• New York Times Magazine, March 2, 2008
  Separating schoolboys from schoolgirls has long been a staple of private and parochial education. But the idea is now gaining traction in American public schools, in response to both the desire of parents to have more choice in their children's public education and the separate education crises girls and boys have been widely reported to experience.

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'The Next Slum? Today's McMansions - Tomorrow's Tenements'

• The Atlantic, March 2008
  The subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today's McMansions into tomorrow's tenements.