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Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America
Somini Sengupta and Brian Frank provide this award winning quality of coverage in text and pictures of life in California's San Joaquin Valley, hit by wildfires and scorching heat in the middle of the pandemic. Shown are workers in the fields of one of America's largest agricultural regions fighting heat and the pandemic, struggling to survive on a precarious hourly wage in these conditions.
During earlier periods from 1970 this was an almost picturebook place particularly in the cool and foggy winters, which stretched for miles with apricot, grape, almond and other fruit and vegetable fields. A dry valley using irrigation of fields with water from the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains. Most affected are millions of workers of Hispanic origin originally from Mexico, who provide most of the labor for harvesting of crops. California with a good educational system and without the drought that hit the region, without the effects of Silicon Valley splitting the people of the state in opposite directions most on minimum wage with a concentration of wealth around major cities and spiralling property values, was a very different place in the 1960's and 1970's from what it is today. Increasing wealth concentrated in pockets and not spread out as it was in the early post war period after Truman and Eisenhower has impoverished large areas and segments of the population, creating what Dickens called in his day- "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times," depending on who and where you were.
California 2020 Utopia in Dystopia- Extremes of wealth, sky high housing prices, wildfires and the pandemic
08/27/2020
The California in the early postwar years during the presidency of Truman and Eisenhower when different values prevailed, when Jerry Brown says his mother studied "basically for free", and the California of 2020. A struggle for the lost soul of America- its lost values for what Carl Sandburg called "The People, Yes." The ideas that led to the shipping overseas of America's manufacturing industry with disastrous results were created in some pockets of California such as San Jose and San Francisco.
Grouped Articles
Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America
NYTimes.com 08/28/2020
A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America
The Guardian 12/15/2017
Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty - The Washington Post
Washington Post 01/17/2015
Wildfires around San Francisco Bay Area grow to larger than Rhode Island – live
The Guardian 08/24/2020
California ‘never should have re-opened’ as Covid-19 cases surge to record high
France 24 07/17/2020
How Success Against the Coronavirus Turned to Crisis in California
WSJ 07/01/2020
University of California tution fees
11/14/2013
Grouped Articles
California College Chief Calls for Tuition Freeze
Wall Street Journal 11/14/2013
Napolitano Looks for New Ways to Boost University of California's Coffers
Wall Street Journal 09/09/2014
Playing Chicken With Tax Dollars and Tuition in California
Wall Street Journal 11/22/2014
College Majors Figure Big in Earnings
Wall Street Journal 05/07/2015
California’s Upward-Mobility Machine
New York Times 09/16/2015
Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America
NYTimes.com 08/28/2020
The long drought in California and water restrictions in 2015
04/01/2015
Grouped Articles
California Imposes First Mandatory Water Restrictions to Deal With Drought
New York Times 04/01/2015
Beneath California Crops, Groundwater Crisis Grows
New York Times 04/05/2015
In Parched California, Innovation, Like Water, Has Limits
New York Times 04/07/2015
California Orders Large Water Cuts for Farmers Amid Drought
Wall Street Journal 06/13/2015
Drought-stricken California’s San Joaquin Valley is sinking, NASA says - The Washington Post
Washington Post 08/20/2015
Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America
NYTimes.com 08/28/2020
Drought in California's San Joaquin Valley in 2015
08/20/2015
Grouped Articles
Drought-stricken California’s San Joaquin Valley is sinking, NASA says - The Washington Post
Washington Post 08/20/2015
Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America
NYTimes.com 08/28/2020
A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America
The Guardian 12/15/2017
Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty - The Washington Post
Washington Post 01/17/2015
Wildfires around San Francisco Bay Area grow to larger than Rhode Island – live
The Guardian 08/24/2020
Dark days lie ahead in the dystopia of California
The Times 11/14/2019
California University System and budget cuts
01/14/2010
Grouped Articles
Playing Chicken With Tax Dollars and Tuition in California
Wall Street Journal 11/22/2014
In California Budget Plan, Brown Wins Deal on Tuition Freeze for In-State Students
New York Times 05/14/2015
California’s Upward-Mobility Machine
New York Times 09/16/2015
California Universities Feel the Squeeze
BusinessWeek 01/20/2011
California Budget Cuts Likely as Revenue Lags
Wall Street Journal 12/12/2011
Brown Says More Cuts Needed in California
Wall Street Journal 05/14/2012
The University of California System, low income students and upward mobility
09/16/2015
The UC System in California with campuses in Irvine, Davis, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Los Angeles, Berkeley, ranks high in the number of low income students enrolled, especially from Latino or Hispanic backgrounds. A new NYT index shows how the UC system compares favorably with other colleges across the country, in terms of low income students enrolled.
Grouped Articles
California’s Upward-Mobility Machine
New York Times 09/16/2015
Why millennials love Bernie Sanders, and why that may not be enough - The Washington Post
Washington Post 10/28/2015
U.S. Household Incomes Surged 5.2% in 2015, First Gain Since 2007
WSJ 09/13/2016
U.S. middle-class incomes reached highest-ever level in 2016, Census Bureau says
Washington Post 09/13/2017
Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America
NYTimes.com 08/28/2020
American Cities- A growing divide in 2012-2013 based on the proportion of college graduates in the population
11/02/2008
Cities like Washington D.C., San Francisco, Raleigh, N.C., have high proportion of college graduates in the population- as high as 40% in Washigton D.C.- with resuliting lower unemployment of about 7.5% or less. Other cities like Dayton and Youngstown in Ohio and Bakersfield, California, have a low proportion of college graduates- 20% in Dayton- and high unemployment of about 10.5%
Grouped Articles
Cities Adapt With Mixed Results
Wall Street Journal 09/27/2011
New York Times 06/22/2013
Frayed Prospects, Despite a Degree
New York Times 07/19/2013
A Splash of Green for the Rust Belt
New York Times 11/02/2008
The ’1 Percent’ isn’t America’s biggest source of inequality. College is.
Washington Post 05/23/2014
The world economy: Wealth without workers, workers without wealth
Economist 10/06/2014
California's minimum wage increase to $10 an hour
04/15/2013
Grouped Articles
California Set to Raise State Minimum Wage
Wall Street Journal 09/13/2013
In Washington State, Home of Highest Minimum Wage, a City Aims Higher
New York Times 10/13/2013
Patchwork of Local Wage Laws Fuels Debate Over Raising Federal Minimum
Wall Street Journal 12/01/2013
Germany's Social Democrats Agree to Coalition Talks With Merkel
Wall Street Journal 10/21/2013
New York Times 12/01/2013
Dwindling Tools to Raise Wages
New York Times 12/10/2013
Governor Jerry Brown's effort to revive California's higher education UC and Cal State systems as gateways to the middle class
03/11/2009
As part of this effort Brown makes half of the aid to universities contingent on a tution freeze, pushes for lower executive pay, more online courses, and faculty teaching more undergraduate classes. Under his father Governor Edmund Brown, the state's higher education system functioned in the 1960's and subsequent decades as a gateway to the U.S. middle class, and a beacon for other American states.
Grouped Articles
California’s New Problem: Too Much Money
New York Times 05/25/2013
Brown Set for Victory in California Budget Fight
Wall Street Journal 06/12/2013
U.S. Schools Chief Arne Duncan Labors to Straddle Political Divide
Wall Street Journal 07/22/2013
Brown Cheered in Second Act, at Least So Far
New York Times 08/16/2013
Masterâs Degree Is New Frontier of Study Online
New York Times 08/17/2013
The Great Stagnation in American Education
New York Times 09/07/2013
Poverty in California in 2018
07/03/2018
Grouped Articles
In Los Angeles, Where the Rich and the Destitute Cross Paths
New York Times 07/02/2018
Washington Post 07/04/2018
Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America
NYTimes.com 08/28/2020
A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America
The Guardian 12/15/2017
Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty - The Washington Post
Washington Post 01/17/2015
Dark days lie ahead in the dystopia of California
The Times 11/14/2019
California's drought and the mismanagement of water resources in the state
04/05/2015
Grouped Articles
Beneath California Crops, Groundwater Crisis Grows
New York Times 04/05/2015
In Parched California, Innovation, Like Water, Has Limits
New York Times 04/07/2015
California Orders Large Water Cuts for Farmers Amid Drought
Wall Street Journal 06/13/2015
Drought-stricken California’s San Joaquin Valley is sinking, NASA says - The Washington Post
Washington Post 08/20/2015
Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America
NYTimes.com 08/28/2020
A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America
The Guardian 12/15/2017
The dispute over tution increases by the University of California system and efforts by Governor Brown for efficient spending
11/22/2014
Grouped Articles
Playing Chicken With Tax Dollars and Tuition in California
Wall Street Journal 11/22/2014
College Majors Figure Big in Earnings
Wall Street Journal 05/07/2015
California’s Upward-Mobility Machine
New York Times 09/16/2015
Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America
NYTimes.com 08/28/2020
A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America
The Guardian 12/15/2017
Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty - The Washington Post
Washington Post 01/17/2015
California's minimum wage increase to $15 per hour by 2022
03/27/2016
Grouped Articles
California Nears Deal to Adopt a $15 State Minimum Wage
New York Times 03/27/2016
Trump era confronts organized labor with gravest crisis in decades
Washington Post 12/09/2016
Amazon to Raise Its Minimum U.S. Wage to $15 an Hour
WSJ 10/02/2018
Heat, Smoke and Covid Are Battering the Workers Who Feed America
NYTimes.com 08/28/2020
A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America
The Guardian 12/15/2017
Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty - The Washington Post
Washington Post 01/17/2015
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