Poverty

Three-quarters of the Chilean areas hit by the devastating 2010 earthquake have been reconstructed, President Sebastian Pinera told congress Monday. The 8.8-magnitude quake and the tsunami it unleashed on Feb. 27, 2010, killed 551 people, destroyed 220,000 homes and washed away docks, riverfronts and seaside resorts. Pinera said the disaster cost Chile $30 billion, or 18 percent of its annual gross domestic product. "Today I can responsibly say that just over halfway through my mandate and thanks to the effort of all Chileans, three-quarters of the reconstruction efforts are...

WHO Cornel West WHAT The educator, activist, and and former Harvard professor is touring the country with broadcaster Tavis Smiley to stir up interest in their new "poverty manifesto" called "The Rich and the Rest of Us. " Q. Why is the word "poverty" absent from the national debate? All we are hearing about is the middle class. A . I think that in the last 30 years we have moved to the right in terms of our public discourse, and we tend to characterize poor people as undeserving people with character flaws and therefore undeserving of public attention —...

AFTER READING the article about the achievement gap in MCAS scores between schools serving low-income families and those serving wealthier communities, I am amazed at the myopia of our society and its educational leadership ("MCAS scores appear stuck in stubborn income gap," Page A1, Sept. 25). It is absolutely absurd for us to talk once again about the lack of effectiveness of one more year of school reform tactics. Let us face the simple fact that income is tied to every indicator of the health and future of a community and its children.

Three-quarters of the Chilean areas hit by the devastating 2010 earthquake have been reconstructed, President Sebastian Pinera told congress Monday. The 8.8-magnitude quake and the tsunami it unleashed on Feb. 27, 2010, killed 551 people, destroyed 220,000 homes and washed away docks, riverfronts and seaside resorts. Pinera said the disaster cost Chile $30 billion, or 18 percent of its annual gross domestic product. "Today I can responsibly say that just over halfway through my mandate and thanks to the effort of all Chileans, three-quarters of the reconstruction efforts are...

WHAT FUELED the London riots, we were told early on, was the conflict between police and some London citizens. Now Simon Waxman ("Poverty's boiling point," Op-ed, Aug. 16) tells us that poverty was the cause of the riots. I believe that the word "poverty" is being thrown about to fit every possible social conflict, as if no problem could have occurred without it. "Poverty" is an easy word to insert into an essay. It tugs heartstrings, and it's cited so often that it must be true. But I don't buy it. Being poor is no excuse to riot, to steal, to vandalize neighbors and destroy their possessions and...

Over at The New Republic , Jamie Holmes writes about an interesting application of cognitive science to poverty. For decades, psychologists have been exploring the fact that will-power is a finite cognitive resource -- exercising it now means you have less of it later. People living in poverty, he points out, must constantly exercise their will-power, making continual and agonizing financial trade-offs between, say, food and rent. Is it possible, he asks, that the poor live in a state of continual will-powerlessness ?

Poverty has deepened in Boston's poorest neighborhoods, widening the gap between the city's wealthiest and neediest residents, a report being released today finds. The study points to concentrated need in Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury, where 42 percent of children live in poverty, the densest cluster of childhood poverty in the state, according to the study sponsored by the Boston Foundation. In those communities, 85 percent of families are headed by a single parent, mainly mothers, and at least 20 percent of the adults have no high school diploma.

Peter Singer is on a crusade to convince Americans that they can play a vital role in ending world poverty, without undue sacrifice. The Princeton bioethics professor's latest book, "The Life You Can Save," offers a stark indictment of extreme economic disparity in a world where 10 million children under the age of 5 die each year from starvation and treatable illnesses. Americans are generous with their time and money, but little of it is directed at helping those outside US borders.

WHO Cornel West WHAT The educator, activist, and and former Harvard professor is touring the country with broadcaster Tavis Smiley to stir up interest in their new "poverty manifesto" called "The Rich and the Rest of Us. " Q. Why is the word "poverty" absent from the national debate? All we are hearing about is the middle class. A . I think that in the last 30 years we have moved to the right in terms of our public discourse, and we tend to characterize poor people as undeserving people with character flaws and therefore undeserving of public...

GENEVA — Afghanistan remains mired in poverty, corruption, and violence despite an estimated $35 billion in aid being poured into the country between 2002 to 2009, the United Nations said yesterday. A report by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights asserts that more than two-thirds of Afghans live in dire poverty. Many are disillusioned with their government and the international community for failure to provide basic needs such as security, food, and shelter, it said.

Queen Elizabeth II was scheduled Wednesday to set out the British government's annual legislative program in traditionally opulent style — an agenda focused on kick-starting stalled economic growth amid painful austerity measures and a slide back into recession. Hundreds of people are expected to crowd along the streets outside Parliament to see the monarch's horse-drawn carriage parade from Buckingham Palace in a lavish ceremony featuring glittering carriages, sparkling diamonds and canon fire.

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent Two longtime Boston anti-poverty agencies have abruptly severed ties, in a break that has sparked bitter accusations and recriminations. The controversy, which led a neighborhood preschool center to close and relocate its students indefinitely, flared one month ago when Action for Boston Community Development fired two longtime employees, accusing them of mismanagement and misconduct. The employees lead the Allston Brighton Area Planning Action Council, an agency that oversaw some grant...

By Andreae Downs, Globe Correspondent Brookline isn't usually associated with poverty. But not only is Brookline home to about 7,000 households , making less than the federal poverty level, the number of people in need has been increasing even as the recession appears to be winding down. According to statistics provided by the Brookline Community Foundation , which created and funds the 11-year-old Safety Net , the number of households needing help increased in 2011 by 13 percent over 2010 . "We think we're...

When Dr. Jim Yong Kim was a young medical student at Harvard, he joined with Dr. Paul Farmer and colleagues working in a community clinic in Haiti. The effort would grow into Partners in Health, an international nonprofit focused on improving the health of the poor. Farmer, who also worked with Kim on the World Health Organization's efforts to address drug-resistant tuberculosis and as the first leaders of the Brigham and Women's Hospital Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities, is in Rwanda.

By now, memories of the devastation visited on poor communities by Hurricane Katrina may be starting to fade. But "Ameriville," at the Paramount Center Mainstage through Sunday, delivers a fierce and scorching reminder of the lives that were shattered, the governmental incompetence or indifference - take your pick - that allowed it to happen, and the spotlight the disaster trained on uncomfortable questions of race. Created and dynamically performed by the four playwright-actors of Universes, a Bronx-based ensemble, "Ameriville" generates quick-sketch portraits of the...

What does hunger look like? For one mother in Boston, it is a freezer with a bag of brussels sprouts and little else to feed a family of six. Eight women in Greater Boston who live with hunger and poverty while raising their children were armed with cameras over the past year to photograph their daily experiences. The project, called Witnesses to Hunger, was developed by public health advocates and researchers to spur legislation to end poverty and hunger. The mothers' photos and their descriptions -- of empty shelves, trash-strewn parks, and children's...

WASHINGTON — America’s suburbs are bearing the brunt of the highest level of poverty in almost a half century among those of working age, creating strains on dwindling safety-net programs that focus mostly on the urban poor. A pair of analyses by the nonprofit Brookings Institution paint a bleak economic picture for the 100 largest metropolitan areas over the past decade and in the coming years, when the US poverty rate is projected to edge toward 15 percent. They were issued four weeks before the Nov. 2 congressional elections, in which voters anxious over the...

The following was submitted by the Community Action Agency of Somerville: If you're in a room with 10 other Somerville residents, two of them are likely to be poor. Over 13,000 Somerville residents lived below the poverty level last year, according to figures the US Census Bureau released on Sept. 22.  One out of 10 families in this city struggled to survive on an income below the poverty level ($22,050 for a family of four). Somerville is part of a nationwide trend.

WASHINGTON - A World Bank report shows a broad-based reduction in extreme poverty - and indicates that the global recession, contrary to economists' expectations, did not increase poverty in the developing world. The report shows that for the first time the proportion of people living in extreme poverty - on less than $1.25 a day - fell in every developing region between 2005 and 2008. And the recession seems not to have thrown that trend off course, according to preliminary data from 2010.

LINDSTROM, Minn. - Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side, and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government. He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region's long-serving Democratic congressman.