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West Bengal gets a new start after 50 years of mismanagement, corruption and breakdown of law and order, and economic failures, with a new BJP Modi led administration. The speed of the changes are simply astonishing as a state of close to 100 million people -where industrialization never took off as it has in other states, and rural poverty exists in ways thought to belong to the colonial days under the British- gets an administration at the federal level under Modi committed to industrialization, modernization of the economy, on the same rapid scale as that launched in the rest of eastern India. This is a territory half the size of the European Union, once called the Bengal Presidency under the British Empire, comprised of states of Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Assam, and Andhra Pradesh, a region where the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers from the mighty Himalayas flow into the sea. It is a low moment for India similar to the period after the Proleterian Cultural Revolution of Mao in China by 1970 and the few remaining leaders under premier Chou-en-lai making a resolute effort under Deng Xiaoping to make a new effort to modernize and industrialize China working with the US and the European Union. That effort went through the initial phase to 1990 to familiarize Communist China with the US and European market systems, and a new phase to 2010 by which time most of these goals had been achieved. India is poised to make that scale of change today over the next two decades as it is already familiarized with the US and European market systems and its net step is in technological advancement and rapid industrialization at scale something that alone can meet the aspirations of the South Asian region. ...

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French colonial rule and suppression of independence protests at Setif, Algeria, 1945, which led to much of the Arab liberation writings that were to lead to 5 decades of wars in the region. Many of the coups in Iraq and Syria and in Egypt by military men were a result of this period of colonial rule in the Arab world in Iraq, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries of the French and the British. The anti-colonial writings of this period had one bad aspect the fervor led to an uncritical acceptance of the idea that achieving political independence would be enough for better standards of living, education healthcare and infrastructure. Economic freedoms would require a very different approach from the political aspect. These wars destroyed much of the resources, wealth and human other potential in the Middle East leading to economic stagnation by 2026. Gulf kingdoms with small populations pursued grandiose schemes, with the rest of the Middle East stuck in poverty and lack of industrialization, lack of infrastructure development, sience and technological education, that happened in China and South Korea, and is happening now in India. Iraq and Syria, Lebanon are artificial states by the French and British colonial rulers out of the collapsed Arab part of the Ottoman Empire which with their mix of peoples from different Islamic sects are impossible to manage to this day, and the world (China, US, EU, India, Brazil, other nations) has other priorities of their own than getting sucked into these wars. ...

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About 15% of Americans are below the official poverty line of $23,492 for family of four. In 1975 3.7% of Americans were in deep poverty, defined as being 50% below the offical poverty line. In 2012 the Census Bureau Population Survey shows 6.6% of Americans in deep poverty, close to doubling the percentage of people in deep poverty. States in the southern U.S. and midwest have some of the largest increase in deep poverty- Georgia's going from 5.3% in 2000 to 8.8% in 2012. Mississippi and Indiana show similiar increases. And in D.C. with high income levels the deep poverty rate is at 10.4%, affluent communities have high deep poverty rates in their midst, higher than rates in 2009.

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Retirement in America 2026- what to watch out for- $6500 per month full time home health aide. There is  $45.8 trillion in US IRA's 401 (K)  in 2026. It was half that in 2015. People are saving more 8-12% of income. A lot of it invested in arget dated mutual funds. Yet older Americans, seniors are facing poverty- 15% in 2025 compared to 10.7% of older Americans living in poverty in 2021. cost of living has hit this group the hardest. Removing the tax on Social Security could be prescient, popular and fair for these Americans, as suggested by DJT. If invested well this $45 trillion could give the US leadership in investment for decades to come as it grows with good management of investments raising living standards and financing the Nation's rebuilding of infrastructure in all areas.

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Crime by violent street gangs with whole sections of cities controlled by different groups, some a remnant of the guerilla wars, has fueled the migration crisis. Many people have left central American countries of San Salvador, Costa RIca, Guatemala, because of the crime and extortion experienced and the lack of law and order in these countries. Criminal violence by these gangs hurts business which leads to even fewer economic opportunities for young people. This leads to a steady flow of migrants to the borders of Mexico trying to enter the U.S. Experts say 95% of homicides in these central American countries are not tackled, with severe distrust of police.  There are fewer emigrants from Mexico as the economy has improved and population growth has slowed. Most of the faces of migrants are now from the Central American countries. A program is underway to create jobs skills in Honduras. But this a small effort in tackling a much bigger problem of violence, lack of economic opportunity, and the legacy of the civil wars in central America in an earlier period that have left whole sections of urban areas under control of former guerillas and militia turned into gangs.  ...

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According to a report from the Southern Education Foundation about 51% of the students from pre-Kindergarden to 12th grade in the U.S. were eligible for the federal program of free and reduced price lunches, using an analysis of 2013 federal data. With the highest proportion of students in poverty concentrated in states in the southern and western U.S.. States all across the south, including Texas, show high concentrations approaching 60-70%, and states in the west such as California show about 50-60%. Midwestern states such as Illinois and Michigan show rates over 50%. The implications of this data are that these children from poor and sometimes chaotic backgrounds trail other children in educational development, are less likely to have educationally enriching activity, and more susceptible to dropping out or never attending college. Kent McGuire, president of the Southern Education Foundation says the map showing this is striking. He points to the disinclination to invest in young people today, compared to the focus on leadership in areas of creating opportunity and upward mobility in the decades of the 50's through the 80's. Michael Rebell of Teachers College at Columbia University, says reaching this point where a majority of public school children are from poor backgrounds has happened sooner, and the trend has accelerated over time. ...

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The Census Bureau reports that 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty in 2010. This is an increase of 2.6 million over 2009. This is the highest number of Americans living in poverty since 1958, when this statistic was first measured. Poverty is defined for 2010 as income at or below $22,314 for family of four. Also relevant is the median household income which went down to $49,445 in 2010, a decline of 2.3% from 2009. The typical household earned less in 2010 than in 1997, in inflation adjusted terms. The Census Bureau reports 16.3% of Americans had no health insurance coverage in 2010, the same as 2009.

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Government aid in the US played a critical role in helping workers and families cope with the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Government aid played a similar role in Europe and India.

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Shocking decline in reading in UK- NLT Surveys research of 80,000 young people  in UK shows  of 8-11 years old children girls 36% and boys 26% read actively, 14-16 years girls down to 17% and boys down to 10%. Is a similar pattern evident in the US? This is the root of many of our problems. Reading competes with other activities and screen time leads to a severe loss in reading. Teenage reading is especially fragile. Reading ability and wide knowledge helps build working skills and income generation so that it means more people in this generation are poor than previous generations, a general increase in poverty and lower incomes across neighborhoods and families in the UK and US. This also has correlation with health and mental health so that this means the children and growing young adults are in a fragile group in advanced countries of US and Europe, especially fragile when it comes to knowledge, learning skills, health and incomes. A reverse situation in some Asian advanced countries with a hunger for knowledge means the gap is opening up between the US and Europe and these Asian countries. ...

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Mr Wolfson and Ms. Gibbs are deputy mayors of New York City. Here they list all the efforts made by Mayor Bloomberg to fight poverty in New York City and help the homeless during his years in office. They cite a 28% reduction in street homelessness since 2005, a 22% drop in school suspensions, a drop in welfare rolls by 25% with 900,000 New Yorkers moved from welfare to work, and a poverty rate that is flat over the last 12 years while the poverty rate in the U.S. is up 28%. They point to the last Bloomberg budget allocation of $9.2 billion for services to the poor and homeless- 83% higher than Bloomberg's first year in office. Of this $981 million was for services to the homeless, double that in 2002. 175,000 units of affordable housing were built.

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The Guardian sends its reporters along with UN special envoy on poverty Australian Prof. Alston as he spends two weeks in the world's richest country looking at poverty in urban areas.  They look at some of the 55,000 homeless people in Los Angeles, homelessness exacerbated by the tech boom in California that has sent housing costs skyrocketing. LA saw homeless people increase by 25% in 2017. The safety net is not being reinforced as the Trump administration cuts many social safety net programs. Next they visit the Tenderloin district in San Francisco where homeless people can be found at St Boniface Church sleeping in the pews. As the Guardian points out the cuts to social programs disproportionately hurt people of color who make up 39% of the homeless in the U.S. This report looks at the incongruity between the tax cuts that are likely to hurt poor whites who supported the Trump administration, as well as hurt the social protections that are part of today's democracies across the western world. This is most evident when one looks at the European Union. They were put in there in Europe for a reason- fairness is good for all classes, and most of all it protects democracies. Authoritarian regimes arise out of social dislocation from wars, or from lack of social protections and ineptitude of elites. Which is why a Lincoln or a Theodore Roosevelt from the Republican party supported fairness and social protections as much as FDR and Truman from the Democratic Party. The view expressed in this report in the Guardian is that the U.S. may have moved in the wrong direction under the Reagan and Clinton administrations creating the "me first" culture that prevails in the U.S. today. ...

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The U.S. Census Bureau shows incomes of American households, the median household income, surged in 2015 by 5.2%. This increased by $2800 to $56,500. This is the largest increase since 1967. It shows that steadily improving employment and hiring is leading to improvement in incomes for the middle and working class. Ris in minimum wage has also helped . The largest increase was for the lowest 20% of the income tiers. Full time working women did better than men, with increase annually of 2.7% for women, and 1.5% for men. Nocitizen incomes increased 10.5% to $45,100, native born households went up 4.4% to $57,200. The number of people without health insurance also declined from 33 million or 10.4% of the population to  29 million people or 9.1%. Another way the changes are helping lower income households is the decline of the official poverty rate to 13.5% in 2015 by 1.2 percentage points from 14.8% in 2014. Through a series of small incremental steps the path is being set for a recovery of household incomes for the middle class and working class. A bright spot is that the improvement has affected all age groups, household types, regions and ethnic groups, though among full time workers women did better than men. In this recession older white men have had more difficulties getting back into the workforce. This is reflected in the political scene in 2015-2016 for the election season. ...

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According to Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center, 6.1 million Hispanic children lived in poverty in 2010. The poverty line is defined as a family of four living on $22,314. Of the total poor children in 2010, 37.3% were Hispanic, 30.5% white, and 26.6% black. Hispanics were hit hard by the 2008-2009 recession because many are employed in construction and the hospitality industries or blue collar jobs. A majority of the Hispanic children were born in the U.S. 4.1 million have immigrant parents and 2.0 million have U.S. born parents. Of the total U.S. population Latinos are 16%, yet they comprise 23% of all the children in the country. With a quarter of America's children being Latino -and with these numbers expected to grow in coming years because of higher birth rates- the fact that many of these children are less likely to get a college education or acquire technical skills because of poverty levels, has serious implications for America's future competitiveness.

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U.S. Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator Tim Scott describe the event on poverty organized by the Jack Kemp Foundation in Jan. 2016, in which both Congressmen are moderators. Ryan and Scott point out the importance of upward educational and economic mobility for working class and middle class people. The 2 Republican leaders say education, work, opportunity and accountability for federal spending in anti-poverty programs are critical parts of their program for addressing the problem. They suggest trying different solutions by giving states more opportunity to try different solutions.

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Van Dam says its not that great being a worker in the U.S. because it is hard for the unemployed resulting from competing with workers in other countries with lower wages, and for those who are unemployed harder because worker collective bargaining is weakened over 3 decades. He cites a 296 page OECD report showing very little government support for unemployed and at risk American workers. It says this has contributed to higher income inequality and larger share of lower income people than almost any other advanced a nation. Only Spain and Greece are shown as having more households earning less than half the median income- showing large numbers of people are poor or close to being poor. In the U.S. an average of 1 in 5 lose their jobs each year, and 23% of workers 15 to 64 are in their job less than a year in 2016. The job churn hurts workers because of firing and layoffs being frequent, more than is healthy for a economy. The U.S. and Mexico are the only two countries not requiring advance notice before firings. And fewer than half of workers find a job within a year in the U.S. Two in three families with a displaced worker fall in poverty for some time. Unemployed workers with typically 26 weeks support get less support than any other country in the study. Only 12% of workers in U.S. are covered by collective bargaining. ...

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Krugman points out the gains on three fronts evident from the Census Bureau report of 5.2% gain in median income of households in the U.S. He says the first is the growth in incomes of ordinary working class and middle class families, second the large decline in the poverty rate, and third the further rise in insurance coverage in 2015 for people without health insurance. He points to the steady efforts of the Obama administration to improve lives of ordinary families as working based on the Census report though results have taken time, and could have been better. The Stimulus, says Krugman could have been larger following the blow of the 2009 financial crisis and increased unemployment at the time. Janet Yellen at the inequality conference of the Boston Fed in 2014 pointed out the problems of 62 million households having net worth of about $10,000, and why this was running against the American idea of a better life for all Americans. In that sense the Census report is a movement in the right direction but a lot remains to be done.   ...

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Lyrarc Retrospect shows here RFK Robert Kennedy visiting homes sometimes mere shacks in the mountains where disease was rampant, education negligible, and income $60 for large families, shown here in this Washington Post report by  Paul Schwartzman, Feb 21, 2018  After J.D. Vance selection for VP and his book on growing up in Ohio's Appalachian mountain region which covers states of New York, Pennsyslvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, stretching from southern New York to northern Mississippi down the entire eastern part of the US, the question arises did the poverty in this region exist before? The answer is yes and two presidents JFK and LBJ, both Democrats setup the Appalachian Regional Commission to tackle rural poverty in the mountainous regions in 1960's. Its success- increased income by 4% faster than other neighboring counties in retrospect does not look like much. Rural poverty increased since 2000 as the national attention was taken up by the Bush wars and by a general neglect of rural areas under Bush and Obama. Iowa governor, now Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is given the task of addressing rural poverty and a top position in the Biden Administration. Fast internet, housing, income assistance, highway development, child education support, on multiple fronts Biden is fighting the poverty that RFK once saw with his won eyes in 1968 in eastern Kentucky and which stretches across 7 states.  ...

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Earnings of the typical American man working full-time year round declined in 2010, and is now in inflation adjusted terms below the level in 1978, according to the U.S. Census Department. The income of a typical Ameircan family has declined for three consecutive years and is now at $49,445 for 2010. This is the level reached in inflation adjusted terms in 1996. 15.1% of the American people lived below the poverty line in 2010, and 22% of children lived below the poverty line. The poverty line is set at $22,314 for a family of four in 2010. Statisics from the U.S. Census Department.

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DJT calls for 10% cap on credit card interest for affordability crisis for US families. Most of the credit card companies in the US base these operations in places without usury laws such as Nevada, and charge exorbitant rates on credit cards, a practice that is going on for 6 decades since the 1960's. It makes it harder for families to get out of poverty and living from paycheck to paycheck. It is another aspect of the affordability crisis. Democrats have never raised this up for action. “Please be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more,” the president says he wants the cap to start Jan. 20, 2026 If this happens it will be a big win for the American people and end a decades long usury type business in credit cards that violates the idea on which the US was founded of opportunity for all and access to credit as critical in making this happen. Interest rates of 30% are a way to reduce social mobility in the way a feudal order once did in the years before the Modern World and the Scientific Revolution. A society without social mobility is one in decline can be seen in the way Spain went into decline after 1700 and Britain emerged to lead the Modern World and the Industrial Revolution. This is the crisis America faces today- change or cede leadership to China or some other nation. It is about this not the capitalist system or other system as many like to portray it, and Adam Smith was all about growth and social mobility that were part of his system which today is sadly forgotten, yet needs to be bravely put forward. ...

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A Sept 2012 Census Bureau report shows the median income of a typical U.S. family declined or was flat in almost all states in 2011. Median household income declined in Nevada by 6%, in California by 3.8%. In Arizona and Florida incomes declined by 2.9%. For the U.S. median income declined by 1.3% to $50,502 in 2011. Poverty continues to increase, with California showing 335,760 people falling into annual income levels below $23,021 for a family of four in 2011, giving the state a 16.6% poverty rate.

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A proposal by U.S president Obama to increase the minimum wage to $9.00 per hour from $7.25 to reduce poverty and inequality. This was announced in the State of the Union address of 2013.

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US poverty rate increased in 2022 after two years of declines with the end of government aid. It increased by 2.3% and the median income declined to $74,580 adjusted for inflation.

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Without government aid about 12 million more people would have fallen into poverty in the US during the pandemic in 2020-2021. This is evident from census figures analyzed in the WSJ and NYT. The Supplemental Poverty Measure -which takes into account a broader range of income and expenses including hundreds of billions of dollars of pandemic aid -shows that poverty actually declined, dropping by 2.9% to 9.1%, as a result of government taking action in the US under the Trump and Biden administrations. The $400 billion  dollars of stimulus checks and aid during the Trump and Biden administrations in 2021 have made a real difference in the lives of not just poor Americans but Americans in the middle class and all sections of society. Similar aid was delivered in the European Union and Britain. In India government aid was distributed by depositing money directly into hundreds of millions of bank accounts of poor and marginal income people. Aid included food aid in grains, lentils and vegetables directly provided at subsidized prices or free by the government. Right wing or left wing government designations were meaningless as governments of different persuasions acted decisively to provide direct and timely help in US, Europe, and India. ...

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Stephens of NYT shows the effects of zero interest rates in shifting trillions of dollars of wealth away from the middle and lower classes in America. Zero interest rates in 2009 were a response to a financial crisis created by the irresponsible behaviour of Banks and financial firms in the US. The loss of manufacturing and shipping of jobs overseas added to the effects of zero interest rates in increasing poverty and deprivation in the US.