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Oct 6, 2023Liked by Jeremy Ney

...jb said it...W O W

this was outstanding

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Thanks so much Lulie

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Hmmm.... interesting how this trend started with the Biden Administration taking over. Also, the the worst state in the country with a poverty issue is arguably the most progressive one. Why no recognition of the horrific quantitative easing policies that were started by Trump and then doubled down twice by Biden and company? This on top a horrible Covid response by our government and governments across the globe causing the rampant inflation which has pushed people into poverty and this rate.

If was more taxes and programs were the solution, than California would be a shining beacon of how this problem should be fixed, instead of being the worst performing state.

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Way to take any semblance of nuance and bludgeon it with the easy political answer.

The fact that CA, FL, and MS are in the top three demonstrates that this more than a red/blue or left/right problem.

A quick glance at states in the dark blue does not lend itself to simplistic narrow sighted interpretation either.

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Part of what I wanted to convey is that poverty doesn't care about politics - California (a blue state) and Mississippi (a red state) both experience poverty deeply. One of the solutions, which is to provide funds to low-income families with children like the expanded CTC did, is also a bipartisan approach. In fact Reagan expanded the EITC during his presidency.

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That was my take away from the article as well. Neither side can be solely blamed.

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Wow I had no idea

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When COVID hits, and we started hearing that people in the global South were falling back in poverty despite recent progress, I was skeptical. Am I the only one who thinks that someone who only needs a pandemic to fall back into poverty hadn't escaped it in the first place? Can we say poverty is reduced when all it takes to fall back into it is the removal of tax cuts and subventions ? We can't let people be under perfusion forever, unless we are talking about UBI. What we should be talking about is Wealth. Wealth let's you survive a year after a job loss and still feed your family. That's what we should be pursuing, even though I agree that putting food on kids table is important.

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People can also lose wealth in the blink of an eye - their house could be repossessed, the stock market can tumble, a car can get totaled. Poverty is a specific measure of how much income a person or family is making relative to the rest of the country. In 2024, the Federal Poverty Line is $15,060 for an individual, $20,440 for a family of two, $25,820 for a family of three, and $31,200 for a family of four. A lot of programs helped boost incomes for people so they could get above that line, but when those programs dried up people fell back below those lines. I'm 100% with you that we need more stable measures to give people lasting opportunity that do exactly what you said to survive years afterwards.

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