Poverty

Last week, in an annual autumn ritual, the Census Bureau released its latest statistics on poverty and income. After falling for four consecutive years, the poverty rate rose to 11.7 percent in 2001. But this figure, whether rising or declining, tells only part of the story about poverty in America: It measures only income. For a more complete picture -- and a more disheartening one -- it is necessary to measure the assets of the poor as well.

Between 1983… more

Johannesburg -- The apartheid system is gone, but many here at the World Summit on Sustainable Development seem to want to bring back a form of "separate and unequal" for South Africa and for the rest of the Third World -- in the form of environmental regulation that would stifle economic development.

Politically correct greens, of course, recoil at the thought of any kind of racism, but actions speak louder than words. So, if ecological activists from the… more

The student demonstrations at Harvard this past spring, to persuade the university to provide a "living wage" for all of its workers, brought unprecedented publicity to a nationwide grass-roots effort to raise American living standards by raising American paychecks. After a generation in which liberalism has been linked with identity politics, mass immigration, environmentalism, and the defense of middle-class entitlements, the living wage campaign is reviving the moderate Left's dormant interest in the well-being of working people.

The initiative is… more