Nearly one million people who seek help for civil legal problems, such as foreclosures and domestic violence, will be turned away this year. A new report by the Legal Services Corporation, a non-profit established by Congress in 1974 to ensure equal access to justice, finds that legal aid programs turn away one person for every client served. The full report, "Documenting the Justice Gap in America" is available here (pdf). The 2009 report is an update and expansion on a 2005 report (available here) finding that 80% of the poor lacked access to legal aid. [more inside]
posted by lunit on Sep 30, 2009 - 8 comments

Too Poor to Make the News "The super-rich give up their personal jets; the upper middle class cut back on private Pilates classes; the merely middle class forgo vacations and evenings at Applebee’s. In some accounts, the recession is even described as the “great leveler,” smudging the dizzying levels of inequality that characterized the last couple of decades and squeezing everyone into a single great class, the Nouveau Poor, in which we will all drive tiny fuel-efficient cars and grow tomatoes on our porches.

But the outlook is not so cozy when we look at the effects of the recession on a group generally omitted from all the vivid narratives of downward mobility — the already poor. From their point of view “the economy,” as a shared condition, is a fiction."
posted by nooneyouknow on Jun 17, 2009 - 74 comments

The High Cost of Poverty : The Washington Post explores why the cost of living is proportionately higher in poor areas. Double Jeopardy: Why the Poor Pay More (pdf): a report on payday loans, the cost of homeownership, medical debt, and banking in poor communities.
posted by desjardins on May 19, 2009 - 230 comments

Influential billionaires like Carl, Thomas, Kirk, and Warren have been losing their shirts. And it's being felt around the world. [more inside]
posted by gman on Nov 20, 2008 - 65 comments

Children's Letters to God? Check. [more inside]
posted by Lacking Subtlety on Nov 18, 2008 - 55 comments

The America We Never Seem to Talk About. Brenda Ann Kenneally captures the female working poor and culture of incarceration in Troy, N.Y., where the presidential race has little resonance.
posted by chunking express on Nov 4, 2008 - 53 comments

Attach syringes full of oil to the temples of a pair of double-lensed magic Harry Potter eyeglasses and let poor people see.
posted by orthogonality on Aug 4, 2008 - 57 comments

Food insecurity may not be as sexy a cause as climate change, refugees or terrorism, (or bird flu for that matter) but for many people around the world, rising food prices are driving them to riot . [more inside]
posted by Megami on Apr 9, 2008 - 44 comments

Invest wisely. End poverty.
posted by gman on Oct 25, 2007 - 30 comments

Marriage in America: The Frayed Knot. "As the divorce rate plummets at the top of American society and rises at the bottom, the widening “marriage gap” is breeding inequality."
posted by chunking express on May 25, 2007 - 133 comments

Victorian Workhouses
I sometimes look up at the bit of blue sky
High over my head, with a tear in my eye.
Surrounded by walls that are too high to climb,
Confined like a felon without any crime...
posted by Miko on Sep 18, 2006 - 14 comments

Rich state, poor state, red state, blue state: a November 2005 statistical analysis [PDF] and presentation [PDF] on the the relationship between income and voting. Republicans are richer than Democrats, "blue states" are richer than "red states," and income matters more in "red states." Recent writeup by E.J. Dionne, with a response by the paper's authors. Discussed earlier at the Washington Monthly.
posted by kirkaracha on Mar 15, 2006 - 11 comments

About ten hours (over the course of two days) and exactly two bloodshot eyes later, it was complete. I had 100 letters to 100 different companies — stuffed, sealed, stamped, and ready to go. I put all 100 letters into the mail on Friday, February 24, 2006 at 9 AM. Now all that was left to do was sit back and wait for a response (or two?) via
posted by Kwantsar on Mar 4, 2006 - 62 comments

UN Hits Back at US in Report Saying Parts of America are as Poor as Third World Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality.
posted by zouhair on Oct 15, 2005 - 95 comments

Simputer : High tech meets extreme poverty
posted by troutfishing on Sep 29, 2005 - 22 comments

Being Poor ... what it actually entails. More from Body and Soul, and from Making Light, and from here's a whosit. And this article, in which ...they were trying to rescue people with a helicopter and the people were so poor they were afraid it would cost too much to get a ride and they had no money for a "ticket." Dupree was shaken telling us the story. He just couldn't believe these people were afraid they'd be charged for a rescue. ...
posted by amberglow on Sep 11, 2005 - 35 comments

Why some people stayed behind in New Orleans Wealth buys many things, not the least of which is safety and connections. What role does the society have in looking after all the poor? Should it have a role and if so, why? What could these people have done to help themselves? Why did it only take a few days for society to fall apart?
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Sep 4, 2005 - 21 comments

Throwing the Book at Em'. 2,500 words about a memoir of growing up poor in South Boston. It seems like a great idea, but the book has glaring errors and many Southie faithful consider it a work of fiction. Nevertheless, it has to be a better educational tool than this Southie memoir written by a sociopath.
posted by Cassford on Feb 11, 2005 - 10 comments

The Workhouse 'is an institution that often evokes the harsh and squalid world of Oliver Twist, but its story is also a fascinating mixture of social history, politics, economics and architecture.'
posted by plep on Mar 3, 2004 - 3 comments

Why Poor People are pretty much f*cked. No one can make reading about the growing gap between the rich and the poor as fun as the Onion; but other than describing the issue in humorous terms, the story makes it more accessible than your typical article in a newsmagazine.
posted by gregb1007 on Dec 9, 2003 - 33 comments

22 year old schizophrenic Farrah Russell was rebuilding her life. But when the plug was pulled on the state program that allowed her to subsist, she took her life. Her heartbreaking story is a cautionary tale of the dark consequences of state budget cuts. While politicians argue over tax stimulus proposals that benefit the wealthy, while wild numbers are applied to war budgets, the States have been forced to cut social programs in order to survive. Whether it's California teachers, Connecticut and New York residents dreading tax hikes, Pennsylvania public transportation, or Texas prescription drug coverage for the poor, the States, supposedly United, have been left out to dry. While the States have been forced to cut their programs, groping for survival, Washington remains silent in its mission. It does not remember history. Why do we turn a blind eye to the hidden costs? What can be done about this? And how do we make it stop?
posted by ed on May 5, 2003 - 53 comments

A Special Kind of Poverty This great article appeared in yesterday's Washington Post Sunday Magazine. Its subject: the trials and tribulations of the poor seeking treatment for their infertility. I don't think I have to list the whole raft of issues this subject raises. As touching as it is thought-provoking.
posted by tommyspoon on Apr 21, 2003 - 77 comments

Quick returns dilute tax credit.
Many lower income people, families fall prey to these businesses. Another example are the Payday Loans, courtesy your friend, Mr. Cash.
posted by four panels on Jan 14, 2003 - 24 comments

A flood of homeless at city shelters. '"I think that there must be a greater segment of our population that has tenuous connections to family and friends, and therefore has fewer resources to fall back on when something very bad happens like when they lose their job," he said.' How can there be so many people, who have no one to count on? Are we getting some serious payback from the nuclear family society?
posted by mmarcos on Dec 18, 2001 - 32 comments