You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September 2010.
Income is not the only way to determine your class status, but this exercise is interesting nevertheless (this will only work for people living in the USA- sorry!).
Here’s how you calculate your income category. Go to this website and enter your state and county. It will show you the MFI, or Median Family Income for your area. Median is different than average. Find an explanation here.
This is for a family of four.
If you are living alone, take this number and multiply by 0.7.
For two people in your family, multiply by 0.8.
For three, multiply by 0.9.
For five, multiply by 1.08.
For six, multiply by 1.16.
For seven, multiply by 1.24.
This calculation is the median for your area and family size. How do you find out how your income compares?
Like so:
Take your yearly pre-tax income, and divide it by the MFI for your family size. Multiply this number by 100, and that is the percentage of your local MFI that you make. If the number is above 100, that means you make more than your area median. If the number is below 100, you make less.
If you make 0%-30% of the median, your income category is Extremely Low Income.
If you make 30%-50%, you are Very Low Income.
50%-80% is Low Income.
80%-120% is Moderate Income.
120%-250% is Middle Income.
250% and up is High Income.
So now you know.
Example:
MFI in New York City is $78,300.
For an individual MFI is: 78,300 x 0.7 = $54, 810
Say you make $30,000 a year pre-tax. To find your income category, 30,000 / 54,810 = 0.55. 0.55 x 100 = 55%. This means an individual in New York City making $30,000 a year is categorized as Low Income.
I found most of this information in the book “What is Affordable Housing?” by the Center for Urban Pedagogy.
Here’s a tool to look at income category distribution in New York City.
Recently, on Anderson Cooper:
From Tom Waseleski, National Conference of Editorial Writers President:
September 23, 2010
Dear Gov. Perry:
The National Conference of Editorial Writers was stunned and disappointed today when you spoke at our luncheon and did not take questions.
Had it been due to a tight schedule, we would have understood. But, clearly, you had ample time to work the room by shaking hands both before and after your talk. You also gave an extended interview before TV cameras in the hallway, in full view of NCEW members for whom you indicated you had no more time.
This is an affront to any notion of civil discourse, such as the kind you have called for on other occasions.
We believe you and your staff have been disingenuous in the characterization of your schedule. If you had hoped to make a positive impression on this national press group, I must tell you that you utterly failed.
Sincerely,
Tom Waseleski
NCEW President
From Ezra Klein:
We’ve seen a big jump in the poverty rate in the past two years, of course, but we also saw a mild increase in the years before that. Between 2001 and 2007, the poverty rate increased from 11.7 percent to 12.5 percent. But the economy grew in every one of those years. This was the first period since we began keeping records in which the economy expanded but poverty went up — usually, economic expansions bring the poverty rate down. It’s more evidence that the pre-crisis “normal” was an economy that wasn’t working very well for a lot of people, even when it was growing.
H/t Chris P.
What I learned at Ms.Marx:
According to a Seattle news broadcast this morning, coca-cola is closing 3 plants in Washington (Aberdeen, Bellingham, and Marysville) despite having negotiated with striking workers. These plants will close permanently on September 17th, 2010.
…The main issue in the strike was the company’s attempt to raise insurance premiums for workers. Far from a small increase, workers’ insurance rate would increase as much as 800% and retirees would no longer be able to buy into the health care program. Coca-cola cancelled the striking workers’ benefits, leaving them without any health care and forcing them to return to work prior to bargaining, which left them in a tough position at the bargaining table. The strikers then filed a class action lawsuit and unfair labour practices against the company for cancelling benefits.
…A company spokesman cited a new tax as a reason for closing plants. This tax will cost them a total of 2 cents per can (that will likely be passed on to consumers).
That’s interesting… Coca-Cola recorded $1.54 billion in profit during the last quarter of 2009. It seems like these taxes and unions are a real hardship for them.
First time I’ve seen him out of character. This was the final statement of his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law on September 24, 2010.
Oh yes he did. Though he did add: “depend[ing] on your definition of diversity.”
He’s not the racist. PEOPLE OF COLOR ARE THE RACISTS. Against… themselves. That’s his argument. To wit:
“And I would say if you would spend any time talking to any person from what the establishment calls the ‘minority identification,’ the difficulties, the harassment, the intolerance, the abuse that they suffer comes from within their own community — if for example you’re a black person coming to our rally — your own relatives, your own family.”
…”"The first thing you ought to do is marvel that anybody of color dares to have the courage to show up in the company of this grassroots movement.”
Truer words have never been spoken, Dick.
My fave lines: “I snuck up behind him and took his Quran. He said something about burning a Quran, and I said “Dude, you HAVE NO QURAN.” And ran off.”
h/t Caterina
I cannot track down a website for Repent Amarillo, the organization sponsoring this fun family festivity. Clues indicate there once was one, but that it is not currently in operation.
However, this map lists their Prayer Hit List, with hilarious notations!
Also, enjoy their awesome militant theocracy ideation:
I was just apprised of this special invention.
I thought I’d toss this interesting link out there: Resource Generation.
They describe themselves like so:
RESOURCE GENERATION organizes young people with financial wealth to leverage resources and privilege for social change.
I think their book Classified: How to Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use It for Social Change is pretty good.
Classified is a guide for people with class privilege who are tired of cover-ups, who are ready to dig through the buried files and figure out how their privilege really works.Complete with comics, exercises and personal stories, Classified gives readers the tools they need to stop hiding their privilege and instead put it to work.
[This post has been edited to reduce ranty-ness. 9/7/10]
The popular over-population myth is still around—clearly debunking efforts have been insufficient. Over-population is blamed for such woes as famine, pollution, environmental degradation, price increases, child slavery, global warming, “too many Muslims” , war, terrorism, animal extinction, Peak Oil, disease, crime, alcoholism and more. I provided links to some of the more surprising claims so that enterprising readers can see that I am not just making this up!
But wait, an astute reader might say, haven’t most of these things (with the exception of “too many Muslims” and global warming) occurred since time untold? Aren’t famine and poverty and disease, etc. all things which have existed since long before over-population was a twinkle in Malthus’s eye? Why yes, yes they have. Are they proven to be causally linked to over-population? No, not really.
Also, there are some interesting facts to consider. Such as:
The world already produces enough food to equal 3,200 calories per person, per day.
Only certain humans lead environmentally unsustainable lifestyles.
The major role of inequality is ignored by most over-population proponents.
Almost no one mentions that the continuous growth and perpetual consumption required by capitalism has created a global economy which is unsustainable no matter what our fertility rates are.
Also, people keep sounding the “population bomb” alarm, but yet we keep growing and no bomb has gone off.
So inspite of sketchy evidence, why would over-population be the popular, mainstream, one-size-fits-all answer to this shameful list of problems? And why do we automatically think the cause of pollution, hunger or whathaveyou is “fertility rates”, i.e. women’s reproductive choices? And not just any women. When you dig deeper into this issue, you will find that we are talking about certain women, and their unacceptable reproductive choices. Did you know that worldwide fertility rates are falling precipitously? They have actually “dropped by half since 1972, from six children per woman to 2.9.” Some parts of the world have below replacement level fertility, meaning more deaths than births.
So upon a little reflection, it seems wacky at best to blame women’s fertility for the list of woes. Why do it? Well, historically, as now, it is easiest to blame the least powerful for the sins of the most powerful—and make them pay for it. The people with the highest fertility levels continue to be poor third world women of color. Yet they have a vanishingly small environmental footprint and consume a tiny fraction of resources when compared to Western people, wealthy people, and white people.
What’s easier? Blaming the poor third world women of color, or getting the wealthy and the powerful to reduce their addiction to consumerism, capitalism, and The Bottom Line?
Instead of an over-population problem, we have a politico-economic problem. Why do we have mass starvation and impoverishment as well as a small elite who are wealthy beyond imagination? Why do third world countries produce commodities for export to rich countries, instead of growing food for themselves? Why are third world countries always in debt to rich countries, despite being richer in natural resources?
The other half to this myth is that getting impoverished women to reproduce less, without actually alleviating their poverty, will require coercion: forced sterilization, forced abortion, economic penalties for non-compliance, etc. In other words, the Big Solution to over-population right now seems to be abusing the human rights of the world’s most vulnerable populations. Brilliant solution! Review women’s experience with the One-Child Policy if you are in any doubt.
How does a smart person reduce fertility? They start by augmenting, not violating, human rights. The most consistent indicator for low fertility is high standard of living. The more a society satisfies human rights, the fewer babies. So even if you happen to buy into the myth that poor, third-world women of color just have too many dark-skinned babies, it is still clear that destroying wealth inequities and focusing on economic policies that generate sustainable wealth inside third-world countries is the best way forward.
Why do I think discussions of “high fertility” and “over-population” are really about punishing poor, third-world women of color? Well, take a world-wide gander at who has high fertility and who has low fertility. Clue: European and American fertility is currently below replacement rate, i.e. fewer births than deaths, i.e. population decline without immigration. The sick reality is that no one is getting their panties in a knot about “too many” white babies. To the contrary.
I am providing hella links because I know whenever you challenge a popular, useful myth, there will be people who insist you are making it all up and will demand impossibly high standards of proof on your part, while feeling no commensurate responsibility to provide any proof for theirs. So my proof is right here in this rant pudding.
I can only rant for so long today, but FYI, it was instigated by a white, Western feminist pondering government-enforced restrictions on women’s fertility to stop this self-evident “over-population” problem.
PS. Don’t even start with me, because of course I am pro-contraception and pro-abortion, when the woman chooses it. Reproductive choice is reproductive choice is not government restrictions.
A recent Guardian article repeats the misperception that somehow indie music and its fans are more progressive and less sexist than other genres of music.
I am here to tell you, not so. Lived experience and whatnot.
Or, for the sake of a fun example in the empirical world, read this article about how there are more review writers named Mark than women at famed indie music review site Pitchfork. Or this one about the, ahem, “special” language that male Pitchfork reviewers use when discussing female artists.
Via Her $5 Radio.
Check it out and learn a thing or two: here is a list of ableist language with some explanation. A good primer for someone who hasn’t thought much about ableism yet.
From If I Can’t Dance, Is It Still My Revolution?: What You Said, What You Meant To Say
h/t Bhavana
For bonus, here is The SmartAss Guide to Wheelchair Etiquette.
WARNING: Those who think they know what’s best for Muslim women might want to avoid this article for fear of cognitive dissonance.
Muslim Women Who Wear the Hijab and Niqab Explain their Choice
A quote from the article:
“The women have sort of become the banner of Islam,” said Haddad, co-author of Muslim Women in America: The Challenge of Islamic Identity Today. “The little scarf is saying, ‘I am Muslim, and I have a presence here.’”
And this anecdote:
Nadia…did not cover for most of her life. She said she first started wearing the hijab in college after studying Islam more closely and growing closer to her faith.
She added the niqab to her wardrobe after about a year. She says the decision came after a conversation with other Muslim women who covered.
“When I actually got to know them [the women], I understood that they were intelligent people still and they were still full of life and had their own character,” she said. “It didn’t take away from them. But what it added to them, to me, was this increased love for the creator.”
She says that, contrary to the common misconception of Muslim women being forced to cover, her husband, who’d converted to Islam, had nothing to do with her decision.
Photo by Toban Black
Death of the ‘McMansion’: Era of Huge Homes Is Over
Thank god.
CEOs Who Cut Jobs Got Paid More, Study Suggests
Surprise!
Top job-cutters earn 42% more in compensation than average. 70% of the ‘top cutters’ “laid off workers even though their companies ended the year profitably.” Also, CEOs of large companies ‘earn’ an average of 263 their production workers.
America Is the Only Wealthy Country That Does Not Guarantee Workers Paid Time Off
See for yourself:
Recent Comments