Jesse Gonzalez, owner of Liberty House Realty in Nashville, detailed how he became a successful business owner after being born into poverty in Texas on Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
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Poor students in Ohio struggle more to recover from COVID-19 era learning loss than wealthy ones, according to a new report.
The Education Recovery Scorecard, a collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard and The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford, shows students improved between 2022 and 2023, but poorer districts struggled.
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The U.S. poverty rate rose for the first time in 10 years as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with job losses, especially in the country’s biggest cities, among the largest contributing factors, according to a recently released U.S. Census Bureau report.
The rate increased from 12.3% in 2019 to 12.8% in 2021.
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For much of the post-World War II era, America has been expected by many of its citizens to be a benevolent King Midas to the rest of the world. We have attained unprecedented levels of prosperity, and we are expected to share that with anyone seeking to improve their conditions.
While such philanthropy may cause hearts to swell with good feelings, it often comes at a steep price. At a time when America is showing all the characteristics of an empire in decline, that price has now become a crippling burden.
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Black History Month has drawn to a close, and former NFL player and author Ben Watson acknowledged its end by highlighting that the greatest injustice in black history still continues in the hundreds of thousands of black babies aborted each year.
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Immigration remains not only one of our nation’s most pressing issues but also one of the most divisive. The common media narrative boils this topic down to say that progressives are kind and welcoming to those experiencing hardship while conservatives are cold-hearted monsters. Sadly, this narrative hides a much more sinister reality: Charitable immigration can severely hurt the global poor and destabilizes the nations that these immigrants come from. Indeed, by accepting mass amounts of immigration, the U.S. is actively working against the very people it is claiming to help.
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Over 60 years ago, we were introduced to the idea of “the two cultures” in higher education—that is, the growing rift in the academy between the humanities and the sciences, a rift wherein neither side understood the other, spoke to the other, or cared for the other. But this divide in the academy, real as it may be, is nothing compared to another great divide—the rift today between our common American culture and the culture of the academy itself.
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Employees in Connecticut are now earning a minimum wage of $14, and one industry expert says the wage isn’t enough to support a family.
Connecticut increased its minimum wage on July 1 for the fourth time since 2019. Fred Carstensen, director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis at the University of Connecticut, said many of the jobs available are lower-wage jobs that don’t offer benefits such as health care.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed co-author of Created Equal, Michal Pack to discuss his new documentary and book about Clarence Thomas’s rise from poverty, radicalism, and ultimately becoming a Supreme Court Justice.
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Florida ranked first in a nationwide analysis of states’ efforts to combat child sex trafficking.
According to a new report by Shared Hope International and the Institute for Justice and Advocacy, the majority of states, 40 out of 50, and the District of Columbia received failing grades for their anti-child and youth sex trafficking efforts.
Florida was the only state to receive a C grade. Ten states received D grades and 40 states received F grades. No states received A or B grades.
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The top quarter of American income earners can expect to live a decade longer than the bottom quarter, medical research shows. This health disparity seems downright cruel. Not only do those in poverty have to pay more for things like credit and insurance, they also pay more years to the Grim Reaper.
Unlike income inequality, transferring years of life from the rich to the poor is not a feasible option. To find a real solution, we must know what drives the inequity.
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As COVID-19, violent conflicts, and natural disasters persist around the world, an increasing number of people face an additional crisis: food insecurity. Although food insecurity existed in many low- and middle-income countries prior to 2020, it is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic has escalated this global challenge.
Today, according to the United Nations World Food Program Live Hunger Map, an estimated 870 million people live on insufficient food consumption. This figure has increased since 2019, when an estimated 821 million people did not get enough food to eat.
Within the 79 countries in which the World Food Program operates, the number of people suffering from acute malnutrition or worse has doubled to 270 million people since 2019.
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Virginia’s Health Equity Leadership created two new dashboards displaying equity data in a style similar to pandemic metric dashboards. The dashboards display data on current conditions in Virginia and on mitigation efforts.
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If Joe Biden gets his way, the federal minimum wage will soon more than double, from the current $7.25 to $15 per hour. To quote our commander in chief, “if you work for less than $15 an hour and work 40 hours a week, you’re living in poverty.”
To rehash the minimum wage debate would be redundant. Anyone with business experience should see what’s going to happen. Many small independent businesses, retail stores, and restaurants that pay minimum wage will go under.
Meanwhile, major corporate chains will automate, shedding workers and raising prices, consolidating their grip on every market sector where they’re active. Unionized government workers will automatically get raises because their wages are indexed to the minimum wage—putting even more pressure on government budgets and taxpayers. People in the private sector who have spent decades learning a skill—and as a result can command wages upwards of $25 or $30 an hour—will become justifiably disgruntled, because they will no longer be making much more than minimum wage. The underground economy will explode.
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The guaranteed income movement – which advocates for providing cash to low-income families with no restrictions on how they can spend it – is coming to Florida.
This year the Gainesville City Commission voted to implement a guaranteed income pilot program slated to begin in October. Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe has been part of a national initiative, “Mayors for a Guaranteed Income,” to supply monthly, direct cash payments to people who are struggling. The Gainesville pilot program would begin by giving cash to people with criminal records and who are looking to rehabilitate their lives.
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The U.S. poverty rate saw its sharpest increase since the 1960s as the coronavirus pandemic devastated the economy in 2020, according to a recent study.
The poverty rate increased 2.5 percentage points from 9.3% in June to 11.8% in December, according to the study released Monday by economists Bruce Meyer, of the University of Chicago, and James Sullivan, of the University of Notre Dame, Bloomberg reported. In total, 8.1 million Americans were added to ranks of the poor, according to the researchers.
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One way of understanding California is simply to invert traditional morality. What for centuries would be considered selfish, callous, and greedy is now recalibrated as caring, empathetic, and generous. The current ethos of evaluating someone by his or her superficial appearance – gender or race – has returned to the premodern values of 19th-century California when race and gender calibrated careers. We don’t pay medieval priests for indulgences of our past and ongoing sin, but we do tweet out displays of our goodness as the penance price of acting amoral.
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A groundbreaking study by Just Facts has discovered that after accounting for all income, charity, and non-cash welfare benefits like subsidized housing and Food Stamps – the poorest 20% of Americans consume more goods and services than the national averages for all people in most affluent countries. This includes the majority of countries in the prestigious Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including its European members. In other words, if the U.S. “poor” were a nation, it would be one of the world’s richest.
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For many low-income Ohioans who have lost their drivers licenses for minor or unintentional offenses, there is no greater frustration than paying your debt to society, only to be denied your ability to drive legally because you can’t afford a government fee. Thankfully, relief is in sight for thousands of these individuals. House Bill 336 (HB 336), passed late last year, officially went into effect January 31. The bill established the Reinstatement Fee Amnesty Initiative, a six-month program intended to reduce or waive reinstatement fees in certain conditions. This program could remove a tremendous burden for more than 400,000 Ohioans. To even be considered for the program, the charge that led to the loss of your license cannot involve “alcohol, a drug of abuse, combination thereof, or a deadly weapon.” In addition, the individual must have completed any and all court requirements related to the offense beyond the fee. This could be anything required by the court from a mandatory driver’s improvement program to community service. Lastly, it must be at least 18 months since the end of any court-ordered suspension. This program, however, will only wave all fees in specifics instances. If an individual completed all of the above requirements and can prove that they are “indigent,” in a state of…
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by Rev. Ben Johnson She was the brightest girl in her class, and 13-year-old Maureen dreamed of an education that would get her out of the poverty that bogged down her hometown of Mudzi, Mashonaland, Zimbabwe. Her parents promised to pay her tuition – but her family hit hard times. Instead, her father married off the young adolescent to a middle-aged man. “When my parents told me about the marriage I couldn’t believe it, because they had always given me the impression that I was their most intelligent child and I would pursue my studies,” the child toldthe Guardian this month. “The man was abusive, he called me names and beat me several times, especially after I lost my baby.” She is far from alone. Approximately one-third of all girls in Zimbabwe end up as child brides, often traded for dowries so small the girls find them insulting. For instance, another Zimbabwean family gave their 14-year-old girl to an older man for less than 50 cents. But economically, families see more value in receiving even a pittance than from investing in their daughters’ human capital: educating them, teaching them skills, and preparing them to find employment … or even to finish raising…
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Public education is not “broken.” Public education policy is “broken,” and neighborhood public schools are suffering the consequences. Here are nine of the most critical and challenging issues in public education we should address in 2019 in Tennessee.
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Tennessee is increasingly adopting “a two-generation approach” to fighting poverty, which combines the focus on parents and children when it comes to food stamps and other cash assistance programs. The approach may indeed pay off and is being implemented across more and more states, yet, it still appears to be an experiment without much hard data to back it up as ending in significant success. Meanwhile, many have argued for years that such programs only extend and even expand poverty. From 2013: Since 2007, the number of Americans on SNAP has exploded, going from approximately 22 million people at the start of the recession in 2008 to more than 45 million in 2013. The program provides these families a much-needed safety net as they struggle to get back on their feet, according to Jennifer Brooks, policy director with the progressive Corporation for Enterprise Development based in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, calls to reform the system from the Right, as with this one from the Heritage Foundation, often go ignored. For now, this seems to be the direction Tennessee officials are choosing and only the future will determine if it’s a success. Tennessee’s agency that administers food stamps and cash assistance programs…
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Media giant Gannett has compiled a list of what it says are the 50 worst cities to live in, and some of the top locations are towns where it operates newspapers, including two in Tennessee. USA TODAY compiled the list using data from 24/7 Wall Street, a website that publishes financial news and opinion. 24/7 Wall Street created an index of eight categories: crime, economy, education, environment, health, housing, infrastructure and leisure, to identify the 50 cities. Memphis comes in as the 4th worst city in which to live, just ahead of Cleveland, Ohio, at 5th worst. The 36th worst is Knoxville. Gannett owns The Knoxville News-Sentinel and The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. Nashville, home of The Tennessean, did not make the list. USA TODAY admits that quality of life is a subjective measure. “Quality of life is subjective, and difficult to measure,” Gannett’s story says. “Still, there is a wide range of quantifiable factors that can impact quality of life in a given area. Affordability, safety, job market strength, quality of education, infrastructure, average commute times, air quality, and the presence of cultural attractions are just a few examples of factors that can influence overall quality of life. “Cities…
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Poor and starving people are not particularly appealing news stories, but fighting poverty is and should be a moral imperative for citizens in our cities, state and nation. Educators are often on the frontlines.
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All children in Tennessee deserve an exceptional education. School improvement is only possible when accompanied within a framework of collaboration and support.
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Our economy goes hand in hand with quality education. A strong educational system is essential not only to the successful functioning of a democracy, but also to its very future.
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Today, with inclusion being the norm, a teacher is given the unenviable task of teaching all students with individualized lessons appropriate for them. In some schools, there may be support from teacher aides or education specialists, but society demands (and rightly so) that each student be given the same opportunities.
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An engaging and challenging education is the proven path to prosperity and a life-long love of learning. Teachers consistently tell us that “testing” and “preparing students for a test” are among their top concerns in our internal surveys.
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More than 16 million children are growing up in poverty, meaning that 22% of all children live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level of $23,550 a year. Research has shown that children living in poverty have a higher number of absenteeism and dropout rates than those coming from middle class or higher.
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Bill O’Reilly has gone on quite a killing spree. I think he should also write one called Killing Public Education. Let’s not wait until the autopsy or until Bill O’Reilly writes another book to explain that educators must be given a more active role in determining the policies that concern their students and the teaching profession.
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