Category Archives: Income Inequality

‘Enormous Policy Failure’: States Throw Hundreds of Thousands—Including Many Children—Off Medicaid

“We knew this was coming,” wrote one policy expert. “But we still treat these burdens like they’re unavoidable natural disasters.”

By Jake Johnson. Published 5-27-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Ted Eytan/CC

With a green light from the federal government, states across the U.S. have thrown hundreds of thousands of low-income people off Medicaid in recent weeks—and many have lost coverage because they failed to navigate bureaucratic mazes, not because they were no longer eligible.

More than a dozen states, including Florida and other Republican-led states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, have begun removing people from Medicaid as part of the “unwinding” of a pandemic-era federal policy that temporarily barred governments from kicking people off the program.

Continue reading
Share Button

Minnesota Dems Set Bar for State Legislatures, Passing Nearly Every Item on ‘Transformational’ Agenda

“The work we’ve done over the last five months will make a generational impact on our state—it will lower costs, improve lives, and cut child poverty,” said Gov. Tim Walz.

By Julia Conley. Published 5-23-2023 by Common Dreams

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz hugs students at Webster Elementary School in Minneapolis on March 17, 2023 after signing a law that makes school meals free for all public and charter school students. (Photo: @GovTimWalz/Twitter)

Progressives are applauding what Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman called the state’s “transformational” legislative session, which ended on Tuesday after the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party passed nearly every item on its agenda, securing economic justice, reproductive rights, and labor protections for Minnesotans.

With the DFL holding only a narrow majority in the state House and Senate—a six-vote and one-vote margin, respectively—policy researcher Will Stancil said on social media that “the scale of their achievement cannot be overstated.”

Continue reading
Share Button

Critics Slam Amazon’s Billion-Dollar ‘Corporate Welfare’ for Oregon Data Centers

“No other retailer in U.S. history has come anywhere close to such enrichment at public expense,” asserted one opponent of the nine-figure subsidy.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 5-19-2023 by Common Dreams

One of Amazon’s data centers in eastern Oregon is seen here from the air in an company photo. (Photo: Amazon.com)

Opponents of a contentious $1 billion subsidy for online retail behemoth Amazon’s data centers in Oregon on Friday decried what one critic called “corporate welfare” for a company that raked in more than a half a trillion dollars in revenue last year.

Amazon already has four data centers in Morrow County, Oregon and plans on building six more Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-computing facilities there. Earlier this month, Port of Morrow commissioners approved tax breaks for Amazon with an estimated value of $1 billion.

Continue reading
Share Button

Amid Soaring Poverty and Hunger, Amnesty Demands ‘Universal Social Protection’ Worldwide

“We cannot continue to look away as inequality soars, and those struggling are left to suffer,” said Amnesty International’s secretary-general.

By Jake Johnson. Published 5-10-2023 by Common Dreams

An urban slum in Hanoi, Viet Nam. Photo: United Nations/flickr/CC

With global poverty and hunger rising amid the intertwining crises of war, public health emergencies, and climate change, Amnesty International on Wednesday issued an urgent call for governments worldwide to implement universal social protections to ensure that healthcare, childcare, pensions, disability payments, and other benefits are available to all who need them.

Noting that many popular uprisings and mass protests across the globe in recent years have been fueled by economic and social concerns, Amnesty lamented that governments have turned to “repression and unnecessary and excessive use of force” against struggling demonstrators instead of addressing their core concerns, such as high food prices and paltry wages.

Continue reading
Share Button

‘Incredibly Alarming’: Peaceful Protests Not Fit For a King

‘We’re now living in a dystopian nightmare’

By Common Dreams. Published 5-6-2023

Protesters from climate protest group ‘Just Stop Oil’ are arrested by police officers close to where Britain’s King Charles III and Britain’s Camilla, Queen Consort were crowned at Westminster Abbey in central London on May 6, 2023. Photo: Just Stop Oil/Twitter

Thousands of King Charles III’s subjects protested against the monarchy Saturday in London — and heavy-handed police detained many of them for “suspicion of breaching the peace.”

Earlier this week, the Metropolitan Police tweeted that they would have an “extremely low tolerance” of those seeking to “undermine” King Charles III’s coronation day.

Continue reading
Share Button

Rights Groups Alarmed as ‘Unconstitutional’ Attack on Academic Freedom Heads to DeSantis’ Desk

“Prohibiting ideas in the name of freedom is not freedom at all,” said one critic of a bill that would outlaw teaching systemic racism in college courses. “It is censorship.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 5-4-2023 by Common Dreams

Governor Ron DeSantis speaking with attendees at a “Unite & Win Rally” at Arizona Financial Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona.in 2022 Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

Civil liberties defenders on Wednesday decried yet another bill passed by Florida’s GOP-controlled Legislature attacking academic freedom, while calling on Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to take the unlikely step of vetoing the measure.

S.B. 266 would require Florida’s Board of Education and its state university system’s board of governors to establish faculty committees tasked with reviewing and, if deemed necessary, rejecting or adjusting all general education courses.

Continue reading
Share Button

John Roberts’ Wife Made Millions From Elite Law Firms, Major Companies: Whistleblower Docs

“It almost makes you wonder whether the Supreme Court of the United States is suffering a massive, systemic ethics crisis,” said one critic.

By Julia Conley. Published 4-28-2023 by Common Dreams

Swearing in of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Photo: George W. Bush White House Archives

A whistleblower from the legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa says Jane Sullivan Roberts, the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, earned $10.3 million in commissions over seven years from her job as a headhunter at the company, where she placed attorneys with law firms—including at least one that argued a case before the Supreme Court after the placement was made.

Sullivan Roberts earned the money between 2007 and 2014, having taken a job with the company two years after her husband was confirmed to the Supreme Court, according to a report out Friday from Business Insider.

Continue reading
Share Button

​US Spends More on Military Operations in Somalia Than Nation’s Annual Revenue

“What the United States government is doing in Somalia is not peacekeeping, but warfighting,” says author of new report.

By Julia Conley Published 4-27-2023 by Common Dreams

U.S. Forces in Somalia. Photo: Expert Infantry/flickr/CC

The United States’ counterterrorism efforts in Somalia, which were ramped up after the emergence of the armed group al-Shabab in 2006, are worsening the East African country’s instability, according to a new analysis released Thursday as progressives in Congress voted for a withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the nation.

As the Costs of War project at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University said in the new report, the U.S. has spent at least $2.5 billion on counterterrorism operations in Somalia since 2007, including funding for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and the Somali National Army. This figure does not include the undisclosed amount of money the government has poured into intelligence and military operations there.

Continue reading
Share Button

North Dakota GOP Approves Near-Total Abortion Ban After Rejecting Free School Lunches

“Mandating birth is state responsibility. Helping feed those kids is not,” is how Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom summarized the Republican position.

By Kenny Stancil. Published 4-25-2023 by Common Dreams

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Photo: North Dakota National Guard/flickr/CC

Republican Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota on Monday signed one of the nation’s most draconian abortion bans into law, just weeks after the state’s GOP lawmakers shot down a proposal to provide free school lunches to low-income students.

The new forced pregnancy law, which takes immediate effect, prohibits abortion care in nearly all cases. Abortion is allowed in cases of rape or incest, but only during the first six weeks of pregnancy—before many people realize they are pregnant. Abortion is also allowed without gestational limits if terminating a pregnancy could prevent the pregnant person’s “death or a serious health risk.”

Continue reading
Share Button

Experts Demand ‘Pause’ on Spread of Artificial Intelligence Until Regulations Imposed

“Businesses are deploying potentially dangerous AI tools faster than their harms can be understood or mitigated,” Public Citizen warns. “History offers no reason to believe that corporations can self-regulate away the known risks.”

By Kenny Stancil. Published 4-18-2023 by Common Dreams

Image: Mike MacKenzie/flickr/CC

“Until meaningful government safeguards are in place to protect the public from the harms of generative AI, we need a pause.”

So says a report on the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) published Tuesday by Public Citizen. Titled Sorry in Advance! Rapid Rush to Deploy Generative AI Risks a Wide Array of Automated Harms, the analysis by researchers Rick Claypool and Cheyenne Hunt aims to “reframe the conversation around generative AI to ensure that the public and policymakers have a say in how these new technologies might upend our lives.”

Continue reading
Share Button