The Poor Poverty Line

     Government officials tell us how many people are living at or below the poverty line, but they don’t tell us how low the poverty line is. A more appropriate name would be the “near starvation line.” The federal poverty line is based on a formula arrived at in 1963, which set the poverty line at three times the annual cost of food under a “low-cost budget,” without considering housing, fuel costs, or child care costs, all of which have escalated substantially in the past forty-nine years.

A WPA for History: Occupy the American Historical Association

[Partly in response to my calls to the American Historical Association to deal with the jobs crisis in the field, AHA President Tony Grafton organized on short notice a special session at the 126th Annual Meeting of the organization in Chicago on January 6, 2012. The session, entitled "Jobs for Historians: Approaching the Crisis from the Demand Side," was well-attended, with about 250 people in the Sheraton Chicago’s Ballroom VI. Grafton chaired, and I was one of four speakers.

Add another Frustration to Being Unemployed: A Case in Point from Indiana’s WorkOne State Employment Agency

     (I’m sure unemployed workers outside of Indiana have encountered very similar problems, and can relate well to this particular situation; just one more frustration added to the already-present myriad frustrations of being unemployed and not able to find a job. Originally published in the July 2011 Movement, monthly newspaper of the Indianapolis Peace & Justice Center—GF)

Reviving Progressive Activism: How a Human Rights Movement Won the Country’s First Universal Health Care Law

I. Introduction

     On May 26, 2011, Vermont became the first U.S. state to enact a law for a universal, publicly financed health care system. As Governor Shumlin signed Act 48,[1] he set Vermont on course toward implementing a single payer system by 2017.

The End of Welfare As We Knew It

[In the current budget debates, it is taken for granted that the welfare program for families has been a failure and its end has been a blessing. To remind people what the actual record has been, I offer here the section on welfare from a book that I co-wrote. I have added up-dated information.]

Insurance: A Legalized Racket

     "HEALTH INSURERS PUSH PREMIUMS Sharply Higher" headlines today's NY Times, with double-digit increases of up to 80 percent at a time when premiums are averaging over $15,000 a year (up 9 percent from the previous year!)

The Greek and the European Crisis in Context

     AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM, Greece, a weak, peripheral nation in the European economy, was still licking its wounds from the greatest politico-financial scandal in its post-war history -- the collapse of the Athens stock exchange. The wild stock market speculation had been fueled by often-repeated statements from various government officials (with Finance Minister Yiannos Papantoniou leading the chorus) that the upward trend was an accurate reflection of the robust state of the real economy.

Is Something Wrong With Single Payer?

     With all the advocacy efforts expended over the last 20 years, it might be reasonable to expect some results by now for the Single Payer (SP) movement. Of course, SP would be a great way to provide health insurance in America. Instead of thousands of private insurance companies (payers for health care services) competing with each other to see who can fool the most people, there would be one source of payment, the federal government, for doctors, clinics and hospitals.