A new report by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless counted 70 thousand homeless persons in the City of Chicago this year. This is compared to the official city estimate in January of this year – of 6700 people. Since there most likely was not an influx of 63 thousand homeless people throughout the year, [...]
Hey look, the Economic Policy Institute released their 2006/2007 The State of Working America last week! And if that alone doesn’t rev your engine, maybe this will. It’s a chart from the book, demonstrating the truly disproportionate effects of the Bush tax cut this year. Click on the graph to take a closer look. But [...]
The advantage of blogging about something after the firey debate is over and the coffin is buried is that I can compile some of the best reactions together into one post. I don’t exactly have a high traffic blog, so timeliness is not so much a necessity. Why even blog about it? Because a sociologist [...]
Since school is starting up next week, I thought I’d post a favorite classroom assignment of mine, especially in introductory classes. It’s a comparative community demographic assignment, good for thinking about your own location in the spectrum of social inequality. American FactFinder can be found at the U.S. Census website, and is used by many [...]
It’s hot folks. Last night Sarah and I walked to the lake (the big one bordering Chicago) and stood in the surprisingly ice cold water for a while. Then we walked up the shore on super soft sand, enjoying that cooler-by-the-lake breeze. It was so refreshing that we discussed camping on the beach last night. [...]
It is a sad day when Democrats must vote against a minimum wage bill. But that is exactly what happened yesterday in the House of Representatives. Why? Because the Republican-led committee slipped in language cutting the estate tax (“death tax” as Bush calls it), and even titled the thing “Estate Tax and Extension of Tax [...]
That is, if Daley doesn’t veto our city coucil ordinance. He opposes the measure, and Walmart says that this action “puts politics ahead of working men and women” … um, don’t they mean that it puts politics in front of supereffinrichbastards? Come on, the owners of Walmart are some of the richest blokes in the [...]
Of all the discussions about immigration this year – an issue all but dropped by Congress as we approach mid-term elections – this OpEd by Michael Dukakis (yes, that Michael Dukakis) and Daniel Mitchell is the most straight forward argument I’ve seen. If only Dukakis could have been our President in 88, for two terms, [...]
Auto loans. Home mortagages. Check cashing services. Remittance charges. Furniture for your house. These are all things that you will pay more for if you make under $30,000 a year, according to a new report by the Brookings Institute (short executive summary pdf here). According to blackprof.com, this is called a ghetto tax because “the [...]
I read this piece on public housing in New Orleans at the Black Commentator a little while back, and was disturbed by extensive list of poverty sociologist-researchers who support what amounts to near exile of the majority of the city’s poor. Namely, mixed-income housing is the issue du jour in N.O. today. And the New [...]
