The EPA wants to ease the standards on air pollution. The reasoning is the standards get in the way of economic growth, but there's a trade off. There's a cost much greater than the cost of clean air standards impose on industry.
According to the World Bank...
Air pollution costs the global economy more than $5 trillion annually in welfare costs, with the most devastating damage occurring in the developing world, according to a new World Bank report. The welfare figure incorporates a number of costs associated with air pollution like health and consumption.Sep 9, 2016
Not all at once. And poverty will always be with us, but there is a way out if we can offer hope. Access to good schools, healthcare, electricity and safe water are among some of the basics needed to help people move out of poverty.
"People who believe in their futures are more likely to invest in those futures (for instance going back to school to get a job credential or following good preventive health practices) and to have better outcomes. The hope channel is particularly important for individuals with less means, for whom making such investments requires greater trade-offs. If they do not believe these investments will pay off, then they are much less likely to make them." Carol Graham - The Loss of Hope in Low Income America
The absence of hope defines true poverty
How Many?
Nearly 1/2 of the world's population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day. 1 billion children worldwide are living in poverty. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty.
45 Million Americans Still Stuck Below Poverty Line: Census.
Despite five years of economic recovery, poverty is still stubbornly high in America. More than 45 million people, or 14.5 percent of all Americans, lived below the poverty line last year, the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday.Sep 16, 2014
Declining Numbers
The numbers in the United States declined in 2015 and 2016 as the economy grew. According to the US Census Bureau:
The official poverty rate in 2016 was 12.7 percent, down 0.8 percentage points from 13.5 percent in 2015. This is the second consecutive annual decline in poverty.
Since 2014, the poverty rate has fallen 2.1 percentage points from 14.8 percent to 12.7 percent.
In 2016 there were 40.6 million people in poverty, 2.5 million fewer than in 2015 and 6.0 million fewer than in 2014.
The poverty rate in 2016 (12.7 percent) was not significantly higher than the poverty rate in 2007 (12.5 percent), the year before the most recent recession.
These are just numbers. They suggest that if we throw money at the problem all will be well. Poverty is a lot more than a lack of income. True poverty is the absence of hope. It is despair and misery because there seems to be no way out.
Her research uncovered a growing number of poor whites living in true poverty. Her work shows that poor whites have very little hope for the future on one hand, and high levels of stress, worry, and anger on the other. The lack of hope is manifesting itself in increasing isolation and poor health and preventable deaths (such as suicide, opioid overdose, and alcohol poisoning). It is because the American Dream no longer seems attainable. Growing income inequality is a root cause.
According to the World Bank, moving out of poverty means, "access to good schools, healthcare, electricity, safe water and other critical services remains elusive for many people, often determined by socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, and geography. Moreover, for those who have been able to move out of poverty, progress is often temporary: economic shocks, food insecurity and climate change threaten to rob them of their hard-won gains and force them back into poverty. "
The Cost
The cost of child poverty: $500 billion a year in the U.S.
The United States has the second-highest child poverty rate among the world's richest 35 nations, and the cost in economic and educational outcomes is half a trillion dollars a year, according to a new report by the Educational Testing Service. Jul 25, 2013
About 15 million children in the United States – 21% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold, a measurement that has been shown to underestimate the needs of families. Research shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice that level to cover basic expenses. (National Center for Children in Poverty)
Is It A Big Deal?
Yes! According to Global Issues, "Poverty is the state for the majority of the world's people and nations. ... Such causes of poverty and inequality are no doubt real. But deeper and more global causes of poverty are often less discussed. Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization are global decisions, policies, and practices."
Return the hope for a better future and people will work themselves out of despair. The beginning of new hope comes from listening to those who are living it. From there... positive messages and increasing inclusiveness...not division.
Pew Research and APM's Marketplace are reporting that household income is not keeping pace with increases in rent. According to Pew, after the recession of 2007 - 2009 fewer people were able to transition from rentals to home ownership. Add to that the influx of millennials into the workforce increasing the demand for rentals, and the supply of rentals is down while demand is up.
Millennials are taking a double whammy. Home prices stagnated and fell during the recession and its aftermath have rebounded to the higher prices seen during the bubble of 2007. Millenials are priced out of the market. Millennials aren't the only demographic facing the financial pinch.
17 million are rent burdened and the numbers keep going up. Rent Burdened is defined by HUD as cost-burdened families. Those “who pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing” and “may have difficulty affording necessities such as food, clothing, transportation, and medical care.” Severe rent burden is defined as paying more than 50 percent of one's income on rent.
The Pew study finds 38 percent of all renter households are burdened. Severely rent burdened households—spending 50 percent or more of monthly income on rent—increased by 42 percent. It is now 17% of all renters.
The chart below demonstrates that the problem has been getting worse since 2001.
Less Disposable Income
Households that are rent burdened have fewer dollars to spend. They often make choices between healthcare, food and education. According to Pew's findings: Rent-burdened families are also financially insecure in many other ways:
Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) had less than $400 cash in the bank; most (84 percent) of such households are African-American-headed.
Half had less than $10 in savings across various liquid accounts, while half of homeowners had more than $7,000.
The growing disparity is leading to a growing underclass that is on the outside looking in with little hope of reversing their situation. Our economy is stronger when our citizens are able to participate as individuals and as consumers. Keeping large portions of the population on the outside will only further divide us. And there's a growing cost of poverty. The cost of child poverty: $500 billion a year. The United States has the second-highest child poverty rate among the world's richest 35 nations, and the cost in economic and educational outcomes is half a trillion dollars a year, according to a new report by the Educational Testing Service.
Bob Dylan once wrote, "20 years of Schooling and they put you on the day-shift." It was a smack at a system that was trying to assign all of us a number. Remember, Don't fold, spindle or mutilate? That was a counter culture rebellion against making all of us a data point. Both had underlying motivations in the desire to be valued as an individual. The Graduate was told his future was in plastics, and we snickered.
50 years later the data points have won. The best we can do is prepare for the future.
Gigging Millennials
Millennials are facing the brunt of a sea change in how we find work. The Gig Economy is taking over. Estimates are that 34% of the workforce participates in the gig economy. Intuit is estimating that within two years that in two years 43% will be in the gig economy. Work in the gig economy is temporary, with the best gigs going to people with the right skills. The best jobs are in IT and computers.
Education is how workers get the skills, but the model used by boomers, go to school, learn to think, get a degree and get a job isn't really working anymore. The required skill sets are much more specific.
With that in mind here are some of the weakest majors for today's job market.
A posting from from CollegeGrad.Com ranks the Top Ten Worst majors for Jobs. You'll see a lot of majors that were popular through the 90's. It is not surprising that Liberal Arts tops this list. With liberal arts colleges charging as much as $70,000 per year for a full ride, you might have to question, "Is this really worth it?" It sure seemed that way when I went to school.
Liberal Arts/Liberal Studies
English
Humanities
Journalism
Art
Music
Theater Arts
Marketing
Public Relations
Management
The Only Constant is Change
Change is coming at us faster than any of could have imagined in the 60's and 70's. We're all struggling to keep up, and that includes educational institutions. According to the authors the book Careermegeddon - Cracking the 21st Century Career Code, Marcia LaReau and Neil Patrick assert events are conspiring to make good scarce and hard to retain. They cite six engines of change:
Globalization and offshoring
Technology, artificial intelligence, and robotics
Disruptive business models
Education and the speed of institutional change
Demographics and the aging population
Fiscal policy
With job requirements changing so rapidly, and job skills becoming obsolete within five years, keeping current is the only hope for employment that provides a sustainable lifestyle. That coupled with the trend toward more contract workers makes the work environment a lot less stable. This book is a place to start working on your career plans.
Advancement and Education
Getting the right training and keeping skills current are essential, but are educational institutions able to keep up with the rapid change? When I went to college, we were supposed to follow our dreams. I was encouraged to pursue a career in a field that most closely matched my gifts and my dreams. It would all work out, and for 31 years it did. That is, until the great recession. Changes in how people consume media and age have conspired to force me to re-purpose myself, and I'm not alone.
Millennials and Uncertainty
Could it be as simple as a STEM education? It all depends on the direction. According to the National Science Foundation STEM careers in computing are going unfilled right now with many more jobs than qualified applicants. The same is not true for careers in engineering, physical sciences and mathematics. There are exceptions in engineering. Jobs that deal with extracting mineral wealth from the earth pay well with low unemployment rates. It's a highly skilled position with a limited number of openings. The gig economy has highs and lows matched with uncertainty. It's an uneven ride. We all need to be prepared.
This blog isn't about what you and I might think our listeners ought to be hearing. It is about how a portion of our listeners spend their time listening to the music. I've been through this discussion many times, but in order to serve your audience, you must have your audience in mind. You are here to serve the audience. There is no service of nobody is listening.
Core Values of Music
If you were part of the discovery of the Core Values Project, you might remember the revelation that the classical core used music as a way to help them concentrate on work and other tasks. Classical music has intensive and ambient qualities depending on what the listener brings to the music.
There's plenty of research to support that assumption.
For the most part, research suggests that listening to music can improve your efficiency, creativity and happiness in terms of work-related tasks.
There are even some lines in the article you might want to borrow for your next fund raiser. The benefits of music could be applied to any format and platform.
I read where David Koch said he was going to step up his philanthropic efforts. Koch called it his moral obligation to give more. He says he'll focus on medical research and arts.
There's plenty of up potential among the wealthiest and corporations in this country. Most corporations give less than 1.5% of pre-tax profits and giving is way down.
The national trend, according Lisa M. Dietlin, president of the Institute of Transformational Philanthropy.“Corporate America is giving less and less,” said Ms. Dietlin, adding that overall, corporations constitute 5 percent of all charitable giving nationwide. She made her comments in an article published by the Observer in 2015 about the top ten corporate givers in the tri-state area.
Pew Research published a report about the shrinking middle class. I remember learning that the strength of this country was it's robust middle class. According to Pew the middle class has been eroding steadily for the past four decades.
Looking at the chart below reveals growth of the wealthy ranks and the poorer ranks. The result is an increasing income disparity.
The prospect of increasing crisis, global imbalances and conflicts does not seem to be a bright prospect. If you take the downturn of the middle class and combine it with the growing ranks of impoverished, you can see the consequences of the continued accumulation of wealth among the top one percent and what it means for the rest of us.
