Media Assignment due date changes

#3—Due 4/6

#4—Due 4/18

#5—Still Due 4/27

Assignment due Thursday, 3/16

From Part 4, answer questions 1, 5, and 6 from pages 315-316. Your responses should span a total of at least two full pages. Notice #6 requires more information than either #1 or #5.

Part 5—Poverty, Inequality, and Structural Violence

“20% of the population in the developed nations consume 86% of the world’s goods.

--1998 Human Development Report, UN Development Programme

“A mere 12% of the world’s population uses 85% of its water, and these 12% do not live in the Third World.”

--Maude Barlow, National Chairperson, Council of Canadians

As of 2000, nearly half the world’s population lived on less than $2 per day.

As of 1997, the wealthiest 20% of the world’s countries had 74 times as much wealth as the poorest 20% (318).

5.1—“Inequality in the Global Village,” Jan Knippers Black

Are the recent findings of economic progress telling the whole story?

During the 1980s, “70 percent of the world’s ninety-five least developed countries suffered overall economic decline in the 1980s” (324), thirty six of the poorest being forced to slash education and health budgets by 25 and 50 percent, respectively.

While the World Bank showed a decline between 1987 and 1993 from 34% to 32% of people in developing countries living in poverty, estimates actually show an increase in the number of poverty stricken people by 100,000 million—from 1.2 billion to 1.3 billion total.

Also, “Advances in some areas have come at the expense of decline in others” (325).

While the 1990s have been hailed as largely representing an economic boom, the boom in the US commonly came at the expense of the workers, who made less in real wages in 1997 than they had in 1989.

--But on an aggregate measure, things looked good…

“Between 1990 and 1993, Zambia spent thirty-five times as much on debt payment as it did on education” (328)

17 million die each year in developing countries of curable infections and parasitic diseases

HIV/AIDS afflicts 23 million per year.

In the US, over 47 million lack health insurance. This translates to 800 million worldwide.

“The American Association of State Colleges and Universities reports a five hundred-dollar-per-student decline between 1980 and 1995 in state appropriations for public universities and colleges, largely a result of increased state costs for prisons and health care” (329)

--the US currently incarcerates over 2 million of its citizens

5.2–“Poverty and Inequality in the Global Economy,” Michael D. Yates

Are we really “slouching toward utopia” through capitalism?

http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-229.pdf

What are the trends in poverty?

Who are the poor?

Percentage of population living in poverty—12.7% (37 million)

Percentage of population under 18 living in poverty—17.8% (13 million)

Percentage of Asians in poverty—9.8% (1.2 million)

Percentage of non-Hispanic whites in poverty—8.6% (16.9 million)

Percentage of blacks in poverty—24.7% (9 million)

Percentage of Hispanics in poverty—21.9% (9.1 million)

Percentage of population without health insurance—15.7%

--currently at 45.8 million, up from 45 million in 2003

National unemployment rate—5% (~7.4 million, as of July 2005)http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_jobspict_20050805

Note: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov), only those individuals who are over 16 and who 1) do not currently have a job, 2) have actively sought work in the past four weeks, and 3) are able to work are included in the ‘unemployed’ numbers.

Poverty Thresholds, 2004

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/005647.html

Four people $19,307

Three people $15,067

Two people $12,334

One person $9,645

Federal Minimum Wage

$5.15 per hour

So a single mother of one child can work full time (40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year) while getting paid $5.50 per hour but only make…

$11,440 per year

Top 10% has 71% of the Net Wealth

The Bottom 90% has the other 29%

(Of the 71%, the top 1% holds 47.3% of the Net Wealth)

As of 2003 in the United States….

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$100,000and above

$75000 to99,999

$50,000 to74,999

$35,000 to49,999

$25,000 to34,999

$15,000 to24,999

$10,000 to14,999

$5,000 to9,999

Under$5,000

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The World Bank examines those individuals who subsist on just over $1 per day, and through studies using this measurement, the World Bank has determined that world poverty declined over the 1990s.

--But the World Bank uses and index of prices of all things in a poor country, not necessarily the prices of things that poor people buy.

--these prices rarely change in significant ways

In India, roughly a third of the population lives in dire poverty. In Calcutta, an estimated 250,000 children sleep on the streets each night (334).

“The income of the richest 25 million Americans is the equivalent of nearly 2 billion of the world’s poorest persons (2 billion is 80 times 25 million)” (335).

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita as a measurement of wealth…

Notice that those countries with higher GDPs represent those countries in which capitalism arose earlier, while the poorest countries are those countries that were largely colonized.

But if we look at nonmoney measures of living conditions…

Life expectancy for women

US—80

Switzerland—82

Afghanistan—46

Sierra Leone—39

Infant mortality rates per 1,000 births

Norway—3.98

Ethiopia—100

Much of this inequality is directly tied to the relative power of the workers to the owners (337). It is often seen that more equality exists within countries where the power differential between these two groups is smaller rather than larger.

“It is no accident that the United States has both the weakest labor movement and the most unequal income of any rich country” (337).

“Great and growing inequality saps the political power of those at the bottom, making it more likely that the social welfare programs which help to alleviate the harmful consequences of poverty will be gutted, while at the same time making it more likely that policies which further favor the rich will be put in place” (333)

--How might welfare programs be a reflection of this?

What, then, is the ‘free-market’ that capitalists praise?

‘Free’ for whom? Why and how?

5.3–“Is World Poverty Falling?” Angus Deaton

Poverty in India—

Over ¼ of the world’s poor lives in India.

A huge change or no change? Tweak with the instrument and of course you’ll find a difference…

Does measuring changes in poverty by changes in consumption raise issues?