TheCity NYC: WiFi Sign of the Times as New Yorkers Gather Outside Libraries for Free Internet. “One New Yorker uses the free WiFi in front of libraries to research music. Another watches movies on Netflix as she charges her computer, while a man videochats with a friend on his laptop. Across the city, people without internet service at home or with limited service on their phones huddle in front of or near some of the city’s 207 branches for access at all hours.”
income inequality
Business Wire: Teaching Our Way to a More Equitable Economy (PRESS RELEASE)
Business Wire: Teaching Our Way to a More Equitable Economy (PRESS RELEASE). “Rutgers University today unveiled a major redesign of the world’s only online library dedicated to employee share ownership, a business model that can reduce wealth inequality in America and help save jobs during the COVID-19 recession. The newly relaunched Curriculum Library for Employee Ownership (CLEO) features more than 600 resources designed to help college professors teach about employee share ownership in their classes. It is also a valuable resource for company leaders, researchers, and the public.”
NBC News: For richer and poorer, Uncle Sam’s coronavirus response widened the gulf
NBC News: For richer and poorer, Uncle Sam’s coronavirus response widened the gulf. “The government’s treatment of two businessmen — one Black, one white; one struggling, one thriving; one left to fend for himself, one supported despite no apparent need — reflects the much larger story of the federal response to the coronavirus crisis. It has pumped trillions of dollars into America’s wealthiest companies and investors, along with smaller chunks for lower- and middle-class families, in ways that reinforced and widened disparities between races and between economic classes, according to economists.”
Phys .org: Social distancing varies by income in US
Phys .org: Social distancing varies by income in US. “Wealthier communities went from being the most mobile before the COVID-19 pandemic to the least mobile, while poorer areas have gone from the least mobile to the most mobile, according to a study by the University of California, Davis.”
India coronavirus: ‘More than half of Mumbai slum-dwellers had Covid-19’ (BBC)
BBC: India coronavirus: ‘More than half of Mumbai slum-dwellers had Covid-19’. “More than half the residents of slums in three areas in India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, tested positive for antibodies to the coronavirus, a new survey has found. Only 16% of people living outside slums in the same areas were found to be exposed to the infection. The results are from random testing of some 7,000 people in three densely-packed areas in early July.”
Vice: The Eviction Crisis Is Already Here and It’s Crushing Black Moms
Vice: The Eviction Crisis Is Already Here and It’s Crushing Black Moms. “Amid widespread job loss, reduced hours, and pay cuts, more than 12.5 million renters, like [Lacresha] Lewis, were unable to make their most recent payment, according to survey data collected last week and released by the U.S. Census Bureau Wednesday. And nearly 24 million people have little to no confidence in their ability to pay next month’s rent, Census data show. Approximately 56% of those anxious renters are Black or Latinx — the populations that are also more likely to rent, and more likely to spend a bigger portion of their income on housing. That’s while Black and Latinx people have been disproportionately harmed by the virus itself, and the resulting job loss. ”
San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area parents rush to form ‘pandemic pods’ for the school year. The backlash is fierce
San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area parents rush to form ‘pandemic pods’ for the school year. The backlash is fierce. “In the past week alone, tens of thousands of families in the Bay Area and across the country have found each other on Facebook, created contact lists organized by city or school, and formed ‘pandemic pods’ — in some cases offering educators $100 an hour or more to tutor or teach small groups in the homes of the children or the teachers. Then came the backlash.”
NBC News: Coronavirus surge brings suffering to the impoverished, underresourced Mississippi Delta
NBC News: Coronavirus surge brings suffering to the impoverished, underresourced Mississippi Delta. “Chad and Kelsey Dowell, both doctors in this small, impoverished town in the Mississippi Delta, have cried a lot in recent weeks. The reason is the same every time: the coronavirus. … Their emotions are stretched thin by the flood of patients they see struggling to breathe, their own inability to respond to the pandemic with the limited resources at their rural hospital, the immense nursing and staffing shortages they face, the resistance members of their community feel to keeping themselves safe during the outbreak and the rising number of deaths from the disease that seem to come as a result.”
America’s hidden economic crisis: Widespread wage cuts (Politico)
Politico: America’s hidden economic crisis: Widespread wage cuts. “Millions of Americans who managed to hold onto their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic have seen their incomes drop as employers slashed wages and hours to weather what they expected to be a short-term shutdown. Now, with the virus raging and the recession deepening, those cuts that were meant to be temporary could turn permanent — or even pave the way for further layoffs. That could portend deep damage to the labor market and the economy because so many workers who have kept their jobs have less money to spend than a few months ago.”
CNN: Half of US adults live in households that lost income in pandemic
CNN: Half of US adults live in households that lost income in pandemic. “The coronavirus pandemic has generated a lot of eye-popping statistics as it wreaks devastation across America. Here’s the latest: Half of US adults live in households that lost income from jobs.”
BNN Bloomberg: Richest 25% of Americans cut spending the most during pandemic
BNN Bloomberg: Richest 25% of Americans cut spending the most during pandemic. “The richest quarter of Americans cut their consumer spending more than any other income group during the height of the pandemic, according to a study by a group of Harvard University researchers. As a result of high-income earners sharply reducing their expenditures, the revenues of businesses that cater to affluent households suffered, the study from Opportunity Insights, a Harvard research group led by Raj Chetty, John Friedman and Nathaniel Hendren, found.”
The Atlantic: It Didn’t Have to Be Like This
The Atlantic: It Didn’t Have to Be Like This. “The coronavirus outbreak has crippled the economies of most of the wealthy countries it has afflicted. But the particular desperation of American workers in its aftermath was not inevitable. It was the predictable impact of a series of policy decisions and missed opportunities in the past few decades that benefited the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. The food lines in San Antonio, and across the country, are an indictment of the past four decades of policy making. But it was Trump who vowed to confront a rigged system, to drain the swamp, to break the power of entrenched elites whose greed had left the American people behind. Instead, tens of millions of hardworking Americans were swiftly forgotten by the man who vowed to remember them.”
The Scotsman: Nicola Sturgeon ‘hugely anxious’ about Covid-19 impact on poorest young people as attainment gap analysis suspended
The Scotsman: Nicola Sturgeon ‘hugely anxious’ about Covid-19 impact on poorest young people as attainment gap analysis suspended. “The first minister said she was aware that children and young adults in vulnerable or impoverished settings were being forced to bear a ‘disproportionate impact’ during the pandemic, but stressed to leave “no stone unturned” in ensuring they did not suffer more than those young Scots from more prosperous backgrounds.”
New York Times: Pakistan’s Deficit and Poverty Rate to Soar Due to Coronavirus
New York Times: Pakistan’s Deficit and Poverty Rate to Soar Due to Coronavirus. “Pakistan’s fiscal deficit will be significantly worse than projected this fiscal year, with the fallout from the novel coronavirus pandemic pushing millions into unemployment and poverty, according to government estimates reviewed by Reuters.”
STAT News: Coronavirus pandemic threatens to take crushing toll on rural areas, data show
STAT News: Coronavirus pandemic threatens to take crushing toll on rural areas, data show. “Some are areas where concerns have already been raised — including segments of the Deep South, where some governors were slow to implement physical distancing measures, and sparsely populated expanses in Western states outside larger cities. Others, like the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which has suffered hospital closures, have received less attention.”
