Economic Opportunity Commentaries
Posted August 23, 2010
Posted August 16, 2010
Investing in Young Entrepreneurs Addressing Poverty in America. Posted March 9, 2010
"Instead of rethinking, redesigning, and rebuilding the world, WEF’s best minds might consider devoting a full day to understanding what worked the past forty years and figuring out how to 'repeat' it."
A New Focus for Nonprofits and Government. Posted February 1st, 2010
Giving Workers the Right Skills
"[F]ascinating stories of several of our best and brightest young men and women in low-income neighborhoods who competed for a $10,000 prize in how to devise working plans for a small businesses"
Ensuring that People Who Need Good Jobs Get Them
"If you're a minimum wage employee, your job will pay more, but only if it still exists. These days, most companies are scrutinizing every position on the payroll to make sure it's worth the cost"
"Latin America's cultural problem is apparent in the persistent Latino high school dropout rate - 40 percent in California, according to a recent study - and the high incidence of teenage pregnancy, single mothers and crime"
"Transit keeps low-income workers on the job and helps them avoid being saddled with car payments and escalating fuel costs"
"[W]ill give summer employment to hundreds of disadvantaged and low-income young people, ages 16 to 24, to maintain park trails, build boardwalks and observation areas"
"Certainly, UTEC has proven its worth over the years, earning accolades at the state and national levels, and expanding its services to low-income youths"
"The irony is that the second economy was born of desire to help the poor, alleviate suffering, and provide a basic social safety net. The results were a counterproductive economy"
"[T]he president needs to also focus on other significant issues that matter to those who elected him: Passage of a universal health care bill, raising the minimum wage and reforming No Child Left Behind"
"The number of workers earning poverty wages approached nearly 25 percent of the workforce at a time when corporate profits doubled from 2001 to the recent economic downturn"
"Minorities consequently endure lower pay and fewer benefits, quicker layoffs, harsher supervision, drearier housing, weaker education, and all the other familiar liabilities of poverty"
"This is a place where high school dropouts, homeless men and women and ex-convicts will be able to get themselves on the path to employment and a stable life"
"[T]he government's meddling in the housing market to bring home ownership to low-income families, which became a prime cause of the current economic and financial disaster"
"It is easy to understand why people in Eastern Kentucky resent the impression given once again that extreme poverty defines the entire region"
"Imagine yourself jobless and struggling to feed your family while the governor of your state threatens to reject tens of millions of dollars in federal aid earmarked for the unemployed"
"For the past several decades, Kentucky's leaders have tried to lift our commonwealth from poverty, and most agree that education plays a key role in attracting jobs and preparing our young men and women for a lifetime of employment"
"The poverty population, after expanding by 7 million in the late 1970s, dropped by 4 million in the 1980s"
"Tax refunds to people who don't pay taxes. Free health insurance for people who make up to three times the local poverty income level. Subsidized health insurance for people laid off"
"[T]he growing number of people dependent on government and thus politicians, who will never show them the way out of poverty but give them only enough money to sustain them in poverty"
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