The head quote for this chapter, “You know, Mom, being poor is very expensive,” is a good point of entry into the chapter’s content. Two themes intertwine here...the first, institutional efforts to improve the lives of the working poor, and the second, institutional practices which harm the lives of the working poor. The chapter considers all sorts of institutions, public and private. At the Center is the program known as the Earned Income Tax Credit. Make sure that you understand what this program is and how this program works. Take note, too of the alphabet soup of programs designed to help the working poor, including SCHIP and WIC. Are there reasons why these programs are not always effective?
ALSO
There is a wealth of information on anti-poverty programs available on the Internet, and I want you to broaden your individual knowledge base and thereby broaden the knowledge base of the class as a whole. One organization which has provided a collection of data is the Finance Project, which describes itself and its mission thus:
The Finance Project was founded in 1994 with support from a consortium of national foundations interested in ensuring the viability and sustainability of promising initiatives that contribute to better futures for children, families, and communities.
Our Mission: To support decision-making that produces and sustains good results for children, families, and communities. The Finance Project develops and disseminates research, information, tools, and technical assistance for improved polices, programs, and financing strategies.
I’d like to have each student in this class select one from this list to download, read, and bring to this class. I’d like to have as great a variety of these chosen possible, and to ensure this, I’d like to try this as an experiment.
I’ve put a new Link on on Blackboard. You’ll find it on the left hand side of the page, called Finance Project. Here’s how to proceed.
Choice will be on a first-come, first served basis.
1.Open two browser windows or tabs... one at the Blackboard link, and one at the Project Finance Resource List .
2.Look over the previous postings on this Project Finance EITC link on Blackboard. Those previously claimed by other students are no longer eligible.
3.Choose yours from the remaining ones eligible.
4.Add your name and choice to the list to preserve your claim, by titling your entry with the last name of the author, the first word of the title, and the year of publication.
There are ample (386 at last count) articles from which to choose, so everyone should be able to find one or more of personal interest. I want you to be able to refer to these informally in these initial discussions, and then as appropriate bring them back into the discussions as we work our way through Shipler's book.
For Thursday, February 12 (Happy Lincoln's Birthday)
A Comparison Project.
I’d like to have you compare your community with another, using resources available on the internet: Google Earth, Google Maps, and the United States Gazetteer. You will need to download google earth to your home computer, if you haven’t done so already. It is free and lots of fun. Installing it is simple. Go to http://earth.google.com/, and follow the simple instructions.
Part I.
A visual Comparison of your community with another community, using Google Earth and Google Maps.
These two Gogle programs allow one to search for a location by zip code, and while zip code boundaries aren’t quite the same as community boundaries they are close enough to give one a sense of what is available. The layers on Google earth allow one to experiment and see what resources are available within the boundaries of a zip code... civic resources and social/cultural resources as well.
1.Enter the zip code for your home address. Turn on the postal code boundaries, and see what’s there.
2.Do the same thing for any one of the zip codes below. I’ve included a few from each New England state, save Vermont. Vermont doesn't have enough on Street View to make it useful for this exercises.
3.How are these areas different? How are they the same?
Part II.
A Statistical comparison of your community with another community using the American Fact Finder
The American Fact Finder is a service of the Department of the Census. We’ll have recourse to using it and other census features frequently.
1.Enter the Zip code for your home address.
2.Do the same thing for any one of the zip codes below. I’ve included a few from each New England State.
3.How are these different? How are they the same?
4.Make sure you look at the mapping data, which breaks down the zip code data into smaller census tracts.
Make a simple side-by-side chart comparing your zip with the zip you’ve chosen. Come prepared to talk about this on Thursday, and save it for use later in the semester. Put this in your journal. Below is the kind of data set which is available.