Category Archives: Data

What Tax Time can do for the Working Poor

By Joseph Martinez and Walen Ngo, United Way of Greater Los Angeles The EITC, or Earned Income Tax Credit, has been known for over thirty years to be one of the more successful anti-poverty programs in the nation. The tax relief program is geared toward only workers earning income below a certain income threshold andContinue reading “What Tax Time can do for the Working Poor”

And the winner is…

Most of the world – outside the U.S. anyway – was fixated over the last week on South Africa to learn the draw for next summer’s soccer World Cup. The 32 teams that qualified for the competition were divided into eight round-robin groups. The top two teams from each group then go into the single-eliminationContinue reading “And the winner is…”

Wall Street vs. Main Street part deux

I recently introduced the authors of the American Human Development Report at a presentation and made the point that just as the GDP has been criticized for not reflecting how the economy affects everyday people, the last year has driving home how out of touch stock market performance is with most regular folks. As thisContinue reading “Wall Street vs. Main Street part deux”

New Homeless Numbers for L.A. What did we expect?

We’ve been suffering through the worst economic recession since the Great Depression over the past year, leading many of us to assume that social conditions have been worsening. Poverty and unemployment, and foreclosures have clearly been on the rise, and certainly we’ve expected that homelessness – the most extreme expression of poverty and insecurity –Continue reading “New Homeless Numbers for L.A. What did we expect?”

Trends in LA and CA over the next few years

A common problem in trying to discern trends in poverty and inequality is that the data that we often have at hand are usually not particularly recent. The lag between when data are collected and publicly available can be significant, especially in a rapidly changing economy like we’ve been in over last several months. Also,Continue reading “Trends in LA and CA over the next few years”

Los Angeles Foreclosures

We hear nearly everyday about the growing number of foreclosures in our country, particularly in boom-and-bust markets like Los Angeles. This chart provides a historical picture that shows what a unique moment we are in. In the last LA housing bust during the early 1990s, foreclosures doubled from under 15,000 in 1992 to over 33,000Continue reading “Los Angeles Foreclosures”

We all should care about the state of public education

Good public education has long been a staple of American democracy and social mobility; but that promise is increasingly threatened. Nowhere is this more evident than in the state where I live, California. The Golden State’s educational system from kindergarten to the university was affordable and excellent for decades; but today we have a systemContinue reading “We all should care about the state of public education”

Yeah, it’s a slow economy

I went into my local bicycle store this morning to get a long-overdue tuneup and saw clear evidence of how the horrible economic situation is affecting retailers. First, I was the only customer in the store: this on a Saturday morning, when that store is usually filled with cyclers passing by the bike route inContinue reading “Yeah, it’s a slow economy”

The impact of the recession on the poor, and what’s in the stimulus bill for the hardest hit anyway?

As highlighted in my previous post, accurately measuring poverty is difficult enough, but another challenge is the timeliness of the data. Even when we have good numbers there is usually a significant lag time between when residents were surveyed and when the final data are released. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty hasContinue reading “The impact of the recession on the poor, and what’s in the stimulus bill for the hardest hit anyway?”