Econ 309: Income distribution
For interest:
Milton Friedman on "Director's Law" (definition)
State of the Safety Net in the Post-Welfare Reform Era, Marianne Bitler and Hilary W. Hoynes (NBER #16504, October 2010)
The US is coming up with a new way to compute the poverty line. (New York Times, March 2, 2010)
Income inequality around the world, from the CIA World Factbook
How rich are you by world standards? Check the Global Rich List
Piketty and Saez on the income share of the top 1% richest US citizens, Paul Krugman gives nice links to their datasets.
Foodstamps are becoming more important, and their stigma is shrinking but some states make that difficult. (New York Times, Nov. 29, 2009)
More on the role of foodstamps, which are the sole source of income for 2% of American families. Good graphics. (New York Times, January 3, 2009) (And the Onion.)
Interactive graphic on foodstamp usage by US county. (New York Times, Nov. 28, 2009)
Various examples of what foodstamps look like.
The poorest counties in the US. (The New York Times, Nov. 18, 2009)
''My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that.''
-- South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, on government assistance, January 21, 2010
On the other end of the distribution, the top 400 are doing GREAT! (Economic Policy Institute, March 3, 2010)
What does it mean to be poor?
A more nuanced look at the poverty numbers (New York Times, September 16, 2010)
How do we deal with seeing poor people? (Slate, November 11, 2010)
Get involved:
If you'd like to help low-income people in the Evanston area with issues like filing for EITC and foodstamps, then sign up with EconomicProgress.org .
Help out low-income people in the Evanston community with LIFT.