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Category Archives: Poverty

IRS Continues Targeting Poorest Families for More Tax Audits During FY 2022

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse Report – “The latest Internal Revenue Service (IRS) statistics covering federal income tax audits through February of 2022 reveals that the agency is continuing to target audits on the poorest wage earners. So far it has completed 132,922 audits of these low-income wage earners with less than $25,000 in total gross… Continue Reading

EPI Family Budget Map

Economic Policy Institute Family Budget Map: “EPI’s Family Budget Calculator measures the income a family needs in order to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living. The budgets estimate community-specific costs for 10 family types (one or two adults with zero to four children) in all counties and metro areas in the United States.… Continue Reading

Migration, Refugee and Asylum Data Explorer

Our World in Data: Migration, Refugee and Asylum Data Explorer “Explore the migration of people across the world.Poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, war, existential risks, and inequality: The world faces many great and terrifying problems. It is these large problems that our work at Our World in Data focuses on.Thanks to the work of thousands… Continue Reading

IRS Audits Poorest Families at Five Times the Rate for Everyone Else

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC): “A large increase in federal income tax audits targeting the poorest wage earners allowed the Internal Revenue Service to keep overall audit numbers from further declines for Americans as a whole during FY 2021. That resulted in these low-income wage earners with less than $25,000 in total gross receipts being… Continue Reading

Poverty in the United States in 2020

CRS Report – Poverty in the United States in 2020, February 10, 2022: “Calendar year 2020 saw the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an accompanying risein the poverty rate—the percentage of the population living in poverty (economic hardship characterized by low income). Under the Census Bureau’s official poverty measure, the nation as a whole… Continue Reading

UN Environment Program: “…One-third of all food produced in the world – approximately 1.3 billion tonnes – is lost or wasted every year. Globally, if food waste could be represented as its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the United States. The resources needed to produce the food… Continue Reading

The Broken Promise of Retirement

The New York Review: “If the US does nothing to fix its retirement system, 2.6 million formerly middle-class workers will be plunged into poverty by 2022….Pensions represent more than their economic value. They carry a powerful moral recognition: workers deserve financial stability and the freedom it brings throughout their lives. Municipal and state employees contribute… Continue Reading

Why more public libraries are doubling as food distribution hubs

The Conversation: “In the summer of 2021, public libraries everywhere, from Idaho and Oklahoma to Tennessee and Arizona, will offer free meals to families with children in their local communities. What might look like a new role for libraries builds on their long tradition of serving as innovation spaces, community centers and sanctuaries for people… Continue Reading