Free Republic

There is little doubt that the COVID-19 restrictions in place now have caused major disruptions in our daily life and have had negative economic impacts on California families, especially the working poor. But consider how much worse it would be if we in California hadn’t moved quickly to “flatten the curve.” An out-of-control pandemic would rage through our state at numbers unimaginable and would have much more severe consequences on the health of Californians, as well as the economy. Thankfully, California is once again leading the way by taking major measures such as shelter in place, physical distancing, orders to...

Most mornings at Polk Manor, I woke up to the sound of seagulls. Or car break-ins. Or nothing at all. Living in a single room occupancy in the Tenderloin is actually a lot more quiet than you’d think. For about three years, I lived alone in a century-old 8-by-10 hotel room above a radical feminist bookstore, a cluttered storefront that sold sequined negligees and a massage parlor called Healing Winds that never seemed to be open. Had I not, I’d probably be a completely different person. Single room occupancies, or SROs, are maybe the last vestige of affordable housing in...

The Fed likes to brag about the “We saved the world” recovery. However, the unfortunate truth of the matter is a record Half of American Families Live Paycheck to Paycheck. Does it Matter? Let’s investigate. Unprepared for Nearly Anything * 50% are woefully unprepared for a financial emergency. * Nearly 1 in 5 (19%) Americans have nothing set aside to cover an unexpected emergency. * Nearly 1 in 3 (31%) Americans don’t have at least $500 set aside to cover an unexpected emergency expense, according to a survey released Tuesday by HomeServe USA, a home repair service. * A separate...

In the autumn of 2013 I was in my first term of school in a decade. I had two jobs; my husband, Tom, was working full-time; and we were raising our two small girls. It was the first time in years that we felt like maybe things were looking like they’d be OK for a while. After a gruelling shift at work, I was unwinding online when I saw a question from someone on a forum I frequented: Why do poor people do things that seem so self-destructive? I thought I could at least explain what I’d seen and how...

Richard Florida, from the University of Toronto, had an opinion piece in the New York Times on Sunday, January 4 entitled, “Is Life Better in America’s Red States?” In it, Florida makes this initial observation about “red states”.

The misguided attempt to increase the minimum wage can almost be passed off as institutionalized economic illiteracy. Many people, however, have argued that it’s more than simple ignorance that drives the Left to ignore fiscal sanity and push for a $15 per hour burger-flipping wage. Well, if the latest attempt to institute mandated-minimum-pay illustrates anything, it shows that the Left isn’t that fond of the effort/reward relationship of hard work. Labor groups are now aiming to snuff out the system of tipping servers because… well… because it’s “unfair”.There is a movement to bump the minimum wage for tipped servers (often...

Inevitably, when you talk about white privilege someone will ask the question, “What about poor white people? What privilege do they have?” In January 1961, John F. Kennedy was inagurated as the nation’s thirty-fifth president. In February 1961, he signed an executive order for a pilot food stamp program, one based on the model previously used during the Great Depression. During his campaign, Kennedy had spent much time in West Virginia, and according to his speechwriter Ted Sorensen, “was appalled by the pitiful conditions he saw, by the children of poverty, by the families living on surplus lard and corn...

"Economists say having a job may no longer be enough for self-sufficiency in today's economy."

Is there such thing as “class” in America? Not if you ask Rick Santorum. The once and possibly future GOP presidential candidate spoke to a Republican gathering in Lyon County, Iowa late last week and shared this piece of advice with his party: “Don’t use the term the other side uses.” That includes the “middle class.” Santorum proceeded to tear into President Obama for constantly invoking the term “middle class” in his speeches about the economy. “Since when in America do we have classes?” Santorum asked. “Since when in America are people stuck in areas or defined places called a...

Obama and the Democrat party have begun taking initiatives on the environment. Their plan? Set up an energy tax to discourage people from heating their homes and driving all in the name of the unproven science of climate change. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats are calling for environmental legislation against power plants that produce greenhouse gas, gasoline, heating oil and other essentials with a carbon tax on so called greenhouse emissions. In addition, there would be a cap on greenhouse emissions. The administration and Democrats have also admitted that they aim is to discourage greenhouse emissions by...

The Democratic party. We are told that they are here to stand up for the little guy. We are told that they are here to stand up for the oppressed poor and oppressed masses. They support raising taxes on the wealthy and middle class to pay for programs for the poor. (Programs that are generally useless and promote apathy and dependence) They advocate forcing employers to pay more through minimum wage hikes regardless whether or not they can pay for it. Liberals also want to take taxpayer funds for free food, housing, insurance Ad Nauseum in the name of the...

Despite Germany’s prosperous image, the country faces a widening income gap and growing outrage over “breadline wages” for the working poor, reports AFP’s Arnaud Bouvier. Germany's image is often of a prosperous country with autobahns chock-a-block with Mercedes and BMW cars. But for more than one million Germans, wages are so low they cannot get by without welfare. The fate of the country's 3.6 million unemployed (8.6 percent of the population) often figures prominently among the concerns of politicians. But that of the working poor – a hairdresser earning €3 ($4.50) an hour, or a security guard earning €748 ($1,137)...

WASHINGTON -- The IRS is making a big push this year to make sure certain taxpayers know they can take the earned income tax credit, a benefit for lower income workers and working families that goes unclaimed by up to 25 percent of those who are eligible.The EITC is intended to offset a portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes, thus boosting take-home income in low-wage jobs and providing an incentive to work. It's a "refundable" credit, meaning that after it is figured against your tax liability, the IRS sends you any money you're due.For 2007 tax returns, the maximum...

President Bush’s latest attempt to salvage the Immigration Bill has made it crystal clear that there is indeed a political class of those we elect, who blatantly ignore the wishes of the electorate. Despite the overwhelming outcry against the bill in its present form, the president and many members of Congress seem determined to pass a collection of glued-together agendas, which are far from being a comprehensive solution. The Senate responded to the outcry by voting to not end debate, which prompted Senator Harry Reid, the Majority Leader, to pull the bill from the floor for the time being. That...

Thousands struggle in the shadow of affluence The signs of poverty are everywhere in Long Beach, if you care to look. By Greg Mellen, Staff writer LONG BEACH - Take a walk in Long Beach and what do you see? Stray from the palm-lined streets by the ocean shore, the bustling hubs at Pine Avenue, the Pike or Belmont Shore; leave the manicured lawns of the Virginia Country Club area or the Bixby neighborhoods, and there's another Long Beach. It is the Long Beach that struggles daily to make the rent, rather than the one that plops down a fortune...

The nation's poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent of the population last year, the fourth consecutive annual increase, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. The percentage of people without health insurance did not change. Overall, there were 37 million people living in poverty, up 1.1 million people from 2003.

The working poor also have a tenuous relationship with the big-screen. Conservative critics might see the presence of a big-screen in a dilapidated tract house as a product of misguided spending; for liberals, it could merely represent inchoate class longings. In a heartbreaking example that would satisfy both camps, the Los Angeles Times profiled a family of four—total income: $19,000—who had driven themselves to the brink of insolvency by buying a big-screen TV. In 1998, a Business Week writer described his amazement upon entering the house of a down-at-heels Massachusetts woman: "I beheld the trappings of upper-middle-class comfort. The big-screen...

Brenda Ellis's day begins at 6:30 a.m., when she rousts her 11-year-old son, Imani, from bed, hustles him into the kitchen for breakfast and to the school bus by 7. Tianna, 13, and Dikia, 17, quickly follow. Then she's off, some days to a substitute-teaching job in Prince George's County, others to tax clinics for the working poor, where she is earning credit for a hoped-for career in accounting. If it's a school night for her, Ellis, 41, rushes home to her Landover apartment to quickly fix dinner before bolting out at 5:45 p.m. for the half-hour drive to Strayer...

Forty years ago a young, radical journalist helped ignite the War on Poverty with his pioneering book The Other America. In its pages, Michael Harrington warned that the recently proclaimed age of affluence was a mirage, that beneath the surface of U.S. prosperity lay tens of millions of people stuck in hopeless poverty that only massive government intervention could help. Today, a new generation of journalists is straining to duplicate Harrington's feat—to convince contemporary America that its economic system doesn't work for millions and that only government can lift them out of poverty. These new journalists face a tougher task...

BY THE TIME my mother, sister and I joined my father in America in 1976, he had saved $6,000 after two years of working as a violinist in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. His salary was $11,000 (that’s $36,000 in today’s dollars). The former Soviet dissident considered himself lucky. The $6,000 ($19,600 today) was enough for a down payment on a house in the suburbs, and his salary managed to support a family of four. We had a car — a 1966 Plymouth my dad bought for $60. When Mom started working as a computer programmer at $9,000, our cup was...