#socioeconomic-inequality

#socioeconomic-inequality

We are a white, well-off (not extremely wealthy, but doing fine) family living in a mid- to lower-income neighborhood in a major coastal city. Our first grader goes to a Title I public school and a well-known, national non-profit (we'll call it "the ABC program") runs the school care. Our youngest will start kindergarten this fall. I grew up in a wealthy suburb with very minimal diversity of any kind, and I really appreciate that my children are growing up in a more diverse environment.

These ghosts of our nation drove overdose deaths to record highs during the pandemic. More than 100,000 Americans ODed in a 12-month period ending in April 2021, up almost 30 percent from the prior year. The majority of these deaths of despair, about 70 percent, were among men between the ages of 25 and 54, men who should be creating or influencing or building cars or welding high steel.

Life in the United States can look very different depending on where you live, and for Black Americans, those differences are often influenced by longstanding factors. These include social, economic, and political conditions. Access to quality education, affordable housing, healthcare, and employment opportunities varies widely from state to state, affecting everything from annual income to overall well-being. While racial progress has been made nationally over the decades, disparities tied to race continue to affect daily life in meaningful ways.

This Tuesday, award-winning journalist and author George Packer reads from, and speaks about, his new novel, The Emergency. Known for his work as a staff-writer for The Atlantic as well as his nonfiction books, Packer's latest is a fiction piece about the human connection between generational and socio-economic boundaries. He uses the story to clearly lay out many of the traumas and difficulties humanity is facing in today's modern world in a way that's easily digestible.

It's only the fifty-fourth largest city in the United States-down from fifth largest two hundred years ago-but it occupies a much larger place in the national mind than, say, Arlington, Texas, or Mesa, Arizona, where more people live. There's the food, the neighborhoods, the music, the historic architecture, the Mississippi River, Mardi Gras. But the love for New Orleans stands in contrast to the story that cold, rational statistics tell.

The film examines how market-driven water management increases the rich-poor divide and contributes to broader environmental issues in South Africa.