workers

By Liz Theoharis | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – In the summer of 1995, when I was 18, I started visiting Tent City, a temporary encampment in an abandoned lot in northeast Philadelphia. About 40 families had taken up residence in tents, shacks, and other makeshift structures. Among them were people of various races, ages, […]

Donald Trump

Sadistic or Crazy? Trump is cutting Food Stamps in the Midst of Pandemic Depression

Jill Richardson

( Otherwords.org ) – Tens of millions of us are out of work. Why on earth is Trump trying to cut food aid? In some ways, this horrible pandemic has brought out the best in humanity. Where I live, neighbors are helping neighbors. A friend who cleans houses for a living says about half of […]

Epidemics

Will Covid-19 Crisis bring Americans together Across Race or Will they Double down on Razing Safety Net?

Inequality.org

By Lewis M. Steel< | - ( Inequality.org) – The new book by New York Times economics reporter Eduardo Porter, American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise, is not for the faint of heart. According to Porter, America’s struggling white middle class, and especially those without college or advanced degrees who once worked in […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Rush to Reopen Economy is a Death Sentence for Some Minority Workers

OtherWords

By Negin Owliaei | – ( Otherwords.org) – Every morning for the last two months, I’ve checked the news in my home state of Florida with growing concern. First came the photos of unemployed people lining up to file for benefits in person, denied access to an overburdened system. Then came the news that only […]

African-Americans

Covid-19: No, we’re not all in this Together; Some Americans are being put at much Greater Risk

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – There is a meme circulating in this time of pandemic that we are all in this together, that Covid-19 is, as New York Governor Cuomo stated, the “great equalizer.” From one vantage point, this appears to be true: last week a staff person to Vice President Pence and […]

Donald Trump

Why Unemployment under Trump is way worse than even the Depression-Era Numbers Suggest

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Friday May 8 unemployment statistics were as dire as many had expected. The US Department of Labor released an unemployment rate for April of 14.7%, the worst since the Great Depression and far surpassing the worst days of the Great Recession. In light of these numbers it […]

Epidemics

Stop Calling them Heroes if You won’t give Essential Workers Sick Leave and Health Care like Every Other Industrialized Country

Juan Cole

By Paul F. Clark | – The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated the degree to which we depend on the work of others. This is particularly true of essential workers like truck drivers, grocery store employees and hospital nurses who are ensuring the rest of us stay safe and are able to get the supplies, food […]

Donald Trump

Unionize! Trump has coerced Workers at Covid-19 Hot Spot Meat Packing Plants into Front Lines

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Me. (Special to Informed Comment) – Should we be surprised that Smithfield[s pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota was a hotspot for the Covid19 virus? No, and here is another no brainer. There are many such hotspots among meat processing plants around the US. How we handle such facts will affect […]

Epidemics

The Curse of Casteism in a Plague Year: Rightwing Indian Gov’t AWOL as Lockdown devastates Poor, Dalits

contributors

By Sanjana Krishnan and Rahul Jambhulkar | – As we rose to another day of peaceful quarantine in the West, we received a message from India. It was an urgent plea to help 80 families of Dalit (ex-untouchable) daily wage earners in an urban slum in Nagpur city in Central India. The families had run […]