South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Around The Dial – November 21, 2011

Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:

• Rortybomb mulls Census data on internal mobility.
• Off the Charts points out that the government isn’t like a family.
• Jonathan Gruber discusses the future of health care reform.
• Simon Johnson asks, “Why not break-up Citigroup?”
• E.J. Dionne thinks the Super Committee should fail.

“Down But Not Quite Out”

The New York Times reports on the prospects of the 51 million Americans with “incomes less than 50 percent above the poverty line.”

Of the 51 million who appear near poor under the fuller measure, nearly 20 percent were lifted up from poverty by benefits the official count overlooks. But more than half were pushed down from higher income levels: more than eight million by taxes, six million by medical expenses, and four million by work expenses like transportation and child care.
…
Demographically, they look more like ‘The Brady Bunch’ than ‘The Wire.’ Half live in households headed by a married couple; 49 percent live in the suburbs. Nearly half are non-Hispanic white, 18 percent are black and 26 percent are Latino.
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Perhaps the most surprising finding is that 28 percent work full-time, year round.

Right To The Point

Time magazine offers a frank assessment of the core issue in the fight over the future of the United States Postal Service.

In the end, the debate about the USPS is simple: it’s the privatization of a service that is supposed to be universal. But universal access doesn’t exactly sync with the market’s guiding hand. That’s why UPS and FedEx don’t ship everywhere. It’s just not profitable for them. So where do they turn for last-mile delivery? To the postal service. Those private mail carriers are two of the USPS’s biggest customers.

Around The Dial – November 18, 2011

Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:

• The New York Times notes the shrinking of middle-class areas.
• The PBS News Hour reports on a lack of dental care in the United States.
• Working Economics finds its ludicrous that “faster deficit reduction” always is the answer.
• Felix Salmon shakes his head at the abuses of unemployment insurance debit card systems.
• The Washington Post debunks the idea that regulations cause mass job losses.

Spotlight On The States

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a foundation-funded effort to inform policy debates about social policy, recently released an interactive database that allows individuals to quickly access key socioeconomic data, policy information, research, and news on a state-by-state basis. To access the Spotlight on the States, database click on the map below.