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Leaving Homeless Person On The Streets: $31,065. Giving Them Housing: $10,051

Scott Keys Think Progress
A study found that it would cost taxpayers just $10,051 per homeless person to give them a permanent place to live and services like job training and health care. That figure is 68 percent less than the public currently spends by allowing homeless people to remain on the streets. If central Florida took the permanent supportive housing approach, it could save $350 million over the next decade.

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Schooled

Dale Russakoff The New Yorker
Cory Booker, Chris Christie, and Mark Zuckerberg had a plan to reform Newark’s schools. They got an education.

If Walmart Paid a Living Wage ...

In the series "The Secret Life of a Food Stamp," Marketplace reporter Krissy Clark traces how big-box stores make billions from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka food stamps. What's more, the wages of many workers at these stores are so low that the workers themselves qualify for food stamps—which the employees then often spend at those big-box stores.

Tidbits - April 3, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - U.S. Military Policy, Foreign Policy and Aggression; Public Education and New York's Segregated Schools; Obamacare; Bernie Sanders for President - exchange on electoral politics and tactics; Trade Policy; Venezuela; Congress and the 1%; Pope Francis; poverty; Announcement - Call for Tributes and Reflections: The Life and Work of Rod Bush - San Francisco - Aug. 18, 2014

REWIND - A Week of Quotes and Cartoons

Portside
Ending Poverty vs. Paul Ryan's Budget; Military Spending; Immigrant Workers; CIA Detentions, Guantanamo and now Spying on Congress; Beyond Capitalism; GM Recall; Tony Benn; Social Media and Drones...

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Obama Will Seek Broad Expansion of Overtime Pay

Michael D. Shear and Steven Greenhouse New York Times
In a move expected to draw harsh opposition from the business community, President Obama will use his executive authority to push changes in overtime law so that millions of workers who are now exempt will be eligible for premium rates when working more than 40 hours per week.

85 Billionaires and the Better Half

Michael Parenti Common Dreams
"The number of people living in poverty is growing at a faster rate than the world's population. So poverty is spreading even as wealth accumulates. It is not enough to bemoan this enormous inequality, we must also explain why it is happening."

Poverty and Inequality, in Charts

Jared Bernstein New York Times
Not only are we now faced with slower growth, but that lesser growth rate is much more narrowly distributed.

Who has little, let them have less

Marge Piercy Monthly Review - January 2014
New poem from Marge Piercy, how the rich and the rich in Congress despise and hate the poor..."If they could push a button, if they could war on the poor here at home as they do abroad directly with bombs instead of legislation, think they'd hesitate?"
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