Global poverty qualifies as a difficult task. It must be, because even with all the money spent on helping to lift people out of poverty - an estimated $150 billion in 2013 alone - 4 billion of the world's nearly 7.5 billion people still live on an average of less than $4 a day.
And here are some other daunting statistics on the effects of poverty: 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water.
2.5 billion people practice open defecation, spreading diarrheal diseases such as cholera, typhoid and intestinal worms that kill a child every 20 seconds.
1.6 billion people live off the grid, and another 1 billion have unreliable grid access.
3 billion people cook on open-wood fires, creating indoor air pollution that prematurely kills 4.3 million people per year, mostly women and children.
Small farm-holders are among the 3 billion people worldwide who are excluded from current financial systems - unable to invest in simple things like drip irrigation or fertilizer to increase their yields, or refrigeration to store things like milk generated from their cows and goats.
African-American men who live below the poverty line had the lowest overall survival of any group, according to new research that looks at the effects of sex, race and socioeconomic status.
The study, which sampled both white and black men and women, found that African-American men below poverty levels had almost a 2.7 times higher risk of mortality than African-American men above poverty levels. The research was published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study also found that white men above the poverty line had approximately the same risk as those below, whereas white and African-American women below poverty levels had a higher risk than those above. The risk was similar between races for women, though.
The study is only a look after five years of a larger study called the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) study. By examining the intersection of sex, race and socioeconomic status, HANDLS is able to separate each effect on mortality.
Researchers defined poverty levels as above or below 125% of the U.S. federal poverty guidelines. In 2016, the federal poverty line is $24,300 for a family of four. Even under these less stringent parameters, the effects of economic status are still seen on mortality.
SPOTLIGHT ON PRACTICE: UNSTACKING THE DECK FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN ENTREPRENEURS
Assets & Opportunity Network, July 20, 2016
This severe imbalance has dramatic repercussions for African-American entrepreneurs when it comes to absorbing losses typical of young businesses and weathering financial risk down the road. We've already built a much more nuanced understanding of these problems from our recent conversations with 35 small- and microbusiness practitioners and financial institutions in nine southern states. These findings are summarized in Unstacking the Deck: Toward Financial Resilience for African-American Entrepreneurs.
Despite what this report uncovers, there's still much to learn. Last week, CFED's Entrepreneurship and Applied Research teams traveled to North Carolina and Georgia, and in a few weeks, they'll head to Mississippi. On the road, they're meeting with African-American entrepreneurs and collecting their stories as they work to piece together an understanding that might help transform more black-owned businesses into asset-building enterprises for their owners.
Social and economic conditions have changed dramatically since the passage of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Yet 46.7 million people in the U.S. live in poverty, 15.5 million of whom are children. As the U.S. Census Bureau reported in its annual estimates on income, poverty and health insurance coverage, the poverty rate for 2014 was 14.8 percent, unchanged from 2013. This Poverty Trends webinar series will offer in-depth information on the state of poverty in America and will provide participating agencies with resources on how to analyze their community data on the poverty level and provide tools for anti-poverty advocacy on the local and state level.
This webinar series is designed to improve the effectiveness of Community Action agencies working on the front line of addressing family homelessness. Building on the research and information shared in ourprevious twowebinars, this next presentation will provide a deeper dive into the various processes and challenges of implementing innovative homelessness strategieswithin the Community Action network.
During this webinar, you will hear from experts in program design and implementation, policy advocacy and coalition building in and with communities and organizations of color. Come to learn and to share your own ideas and experiences. You will leave with resources, ideas and a renewed commitment to addressing racial wealth inequality through your own programs, advocacy and partnerships.
