Even as the great recession recedes from memory, economic inequality in America widens and the class war rages on. We are bringing you true stories of people who have received welfare, food stamps, and other public benefits. Here is what it is like.
Across America, state governments are pursuing harsh restrictions on public anti-poverty benefits. Each week, we’re publishing true stories from people who receive those benefits. It’s not an easy life.
We are bringing you true stories from Americans who receive welfare, food stamps, and other anti-poverty benefits. Before you consider voting for a politician who would restrict these benefits, consider what life on the dole is actually like.
The fastest way to fight poverty is to redirect money from higher-income to lower-income people. In the meantime, behavioral scientists have some tips on how the present system can do a better job of helping the poor.
What is life like for Americans who receive food stamps, welfare, and other government benefits? It ain’t easy. Each week, we let some of them tell you in their own words. Today, we hear from six moms who are making it work.
As politicians threaten to cut public anti-poverty benefits, we are bringing you true stories from Americans who’ve received various forms of welfare and food stamps. Life on the dole is not as easy as some might think.
Access to food stamps and other government anti-poverty programs is often used as a political football. This amounts to playing with human lives. Each week, we are bringing you true stories from Americans who receive public assistance. Here are your fellow citizens speaking about their own lives.
Amid a nationwide push to restrict access to government anti-poverty programs, we are bringing you true stories from people who receive public assistance. Tight budgets, enraging bureaucracy, and real hunger, below.
More than one in four Americans—many of them employed—receive some type of government anti-poverty assistance. We are bringing you their stories. Today, seven different experiences from people in seven different states.
The city of Los Angeles says it spends more than $100 million per year on homelessness, for a homeless population of 23,000. More than 80% of that money is spent on things that are not "building places for the homeless to live," which could be one reason the homeless population in L.A. is growing.
Across America, there is a significant political movement to restrict access to food stamps and other government aid programs for the poor. Earlier this week, we asked those of you who receive public assistance to send us your stories. The results have been overwhelming.
Today, low-wage workers in 200 cities across the world—fast food workers, Walmart employees, adjunct professors, and more—are walking off their jobs and staging protests to demand better pay
and working conditions. Is there a strike near you? Probably. Leave dispatches in the comment section below.
This Wednesday will bring a nationwide wave of strikes and protests by low-wage workers and their supporters, calling for higher pay. For some context on why, consider this: you, the taxpayer, are already subsidizing these workers to the tune of billions of dollars.
After the Great Recession of 2008 caused mass unemployment, the government expanded some elements of the social safety net. Now, states are moving to make food stamps and other public benefits harder to get. We want to hear from those of you who actually get these benefits.
This morning, a group of low-wage contract workers who do jobs for the federal government are filing a complaint claiming wage theft. Even the janitor who cleans the Secretary of Education's office says she's not being paid what she deserves. [UPDATED below.]
Keeping abreast of the latest movements in America's class war: the rich are still winning.
If you read any of our "Unemployment Stories" series a few years ago, you heard dozens of tales of older Americans who lost their jobs and were unable to get back on their feet. New survey data shows just how bad unemployment in later life can be.
San Francisco is opening a forward-thinking new homeless shelter designed to house entire communities of people who have long lived on the streets. If you would like to be pessimistic about this nice development, consider the big picture.
Farmworkers in Mexico are on strike for the first time in decades, and they probably have a pretty good reason.
If and when America's class war-driven revolution begins in earnest, there would certainly be worse targets for guerilla action than unoccupied $100 million mansions—monuments to pure greed and speculation.
