Category:Poverty & Inequality
Is culture the key to poverty?
December 20, 2016 | Post
A personal story about Vance’s climb from poor, white Appalachia to a Yale law degree and a white-collar career, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis will make you laugh, cry, and think carefully about the importance of culture for economic wellbeing.
The business of giving: What are we receiving?
December 8, 2016 | Post
A truly caring society depends on building relationships and community norms.
Minimum Wage Is A Cruel Policy For Poor People
November 7, 2016 | Video
The minimum wage is often cast as a humanitarian cause… but it’s not: it harms the very people its supporters are fighting for. Professor Don Boudreaux explains the original reason the minimum wage was established, and its impact then and now.
The welfare state is a (bad) polygamist
October 20, 2016 | Post
The road to tyranny is paved with good intentions.
Reasons to be optimistic
October 17, 2016 | Post
Beneath the surface there’s a lot of progress occurring that should make us all feel a little more optimistic about the future.
5 ways market competition can reduce global poverty
October 17, 2016 | Post
Economic competition in functioning market economies it the best surefire way to reduce global poverty. That, and letting people leave poor countries for rich ones.
Volunteer Work Reveals The Inefficiencies of Government Aid
October 5, 2016 | Post
Cumbersome, top-down aid policies are not agile enough to effectively respond to the diverse needs of our communities.
A Proposal to Reform Welfare and Rebuild American Community
September 26, 2016 | Post
Local communities have a better understanding of their communities’ needs than far off centralized government anti-poverty directives.
Friday Links
September 16, 2016 | Post
Saturday, September 17th will be the five year anniversary of the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street protests. This week’s links cover the protests and what they did (or didn’t) accomplish. The Lasting Effects of Occupy Wall Street, Five Years Later Throwback: What Reason Saw at Occupy Wall Street Protests What Occupy Wall Street Got […]
Foreign Policy Explained, Ep. 12: Can Humanitarians Help Economic Development?
September 15, 2016 | Video
How can we actually stimulate economic development in poverty stricken nations? Just about everyone would agree that humanitarians have a worthy goal and that their hearts are in the right place, but can humanitarian aid actually help stimulate economic development? Professor Chris Coyne discusses the key elements needed for an economy to work and how […]
Friday Links
September 9, 2016 | Post
It was a wild week. Here are some highlights! Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute speaks on the philosophical foundations of the Constitution in this podcast. NYT criticizes Gary Johnson for Aleppo gaffe, misidentifies Aleppo three times. Read the story of how refugees in Hong Kong helped hide Edward Snowden for weeks following the NSA leaks. […]
Friday Links
September 2, 2016 | Post
Here are some links to round out your week and send you off into the long weekend: San Francisco 49er’s Colin Kaepernick on why he’s refusing to stand for the national anthem. Veterans have come to Kaepernick’s defense against his critics. In a bizarre ruling, the 9th Circuit ruled that medical marijuana patients have no second amendment […]
The Fatal Conceit of Youthful Idealism
September 1, 2016 | Post
The real world is a complex, messy, and difficult place and helping those who need it the most requires not just good intentions, but careful planning, advice from those who came before, and, most importantly, strict attention to the wishes and needs of the people themselves, since they are the ones who understand, more than anyone, what they truly need.
Friday Links
August 26, 2016 | Post
Here are some links to interesting stories to close out your week! The Federal Reserve’s new Facebook page the immediate victim of internet trolls. France’s highest court suspends “Burkini ban” in win for religious freedom. CEO at center of EpiPen price hike is the daughter of U.S. Senator Joe Manchin. Who will build the roads? […]
Poverty Declined After Welfare Reform
August 25, 2016 | Post
Raising the cost of making bad decisions makes bad decisions occur less. Conversely, subsidizing poor decisions increases their occurrence.
The Welfare Cliff and Why Many Low-Income Workers Will Never Overcome Poverty
August 24, 2016 | Post
Policies backed with even the best of intentions can still have detrimental effects on those they aim to help. The “Welfare Cliff” is one such example.
It's Time to Stop Banning Child Labor, and This Is Why
July 24, 2016 | Post
What activists don’t see is that, by trying to eliminate child labor, they are taking away one of the few tools that children in impoverished countries have to escape bad situations.
Why Abby Can’t Work, and What Candidates Plan to Do About It.
June 28, 2016 | Post
Abby Hobbs [name changed for privacy] is not the type of person you’d classify as lazy or naïve. As a digital strategist at a small marketing firm, her enthusiasm for and knowledge of her industry are obvious whenever she talks about her job. But, as she told Learn Liberty, getting there wasn’t easy. As a […]
Venezuela, Socialism, and The Unlearned Lessons of Political Economy
June 15, 2016 | Post
The news from Venezuela just keeps getting worse: runaway inflation, rolling electricity blackouts, shortages of even the most basic goods, people dying in hospitals waiting for care that just doesn’t ever arrive. The world looks on, appalled at the spreading miseries, and asks: “Why is this happening?” And, “What can be done about it?” These […]
There's One Really Obvious Problem with Universal Basic Income
May 22, 2016 | Post
Social Security is incredibly difficult for politicians to cut or reform—any changes in the program would deprive a large portion of their voting base of benefits, which could cause politicians to lose the next election. The problem would only be worse with a universal basic income,
Shouldn’t Big Businesses Just Be Nicer?
May 16, 2016 | Post
A small group of workers walked out at Walmart on Black Friday 2012, and the company has been for a few decades now a leading emblem of what is supposedly wrong with the modern global economy. Shouldn’t Walmart just be more generous? Not necessarily. First, the managers of corporations are answerable to their shareholders. This […]
Economic Freedom: Does Child Labor Help Children in Poverty?
May 7, 2016 | Video
Does child labor help the children in poverty who work because they need that extra income to support their families? What are the alternatives? Could the power of free markets eventually raise their living standards? Economics Professor Benjamin Powell offers up a surprising analysis.
Child Labor is Terrible, But the Alternative is Worse
May 7, 2016 | Post
Does the “Made in Bangladesh” tag on your shirt—which could just as easily be read as “Made by Child Labor”—make you feel bad? There’s no question it should make us reflect on the incredible standard of living that we enjoy. But as Texas Tech Professor Benjamin Powell explains, we shouldn’t feel bad or unethical for […]
How White Privilege Could Explain Everything About Donald Trump's Success
April 18, 2016 | Post
There was an amazing, squirmingly funny Saturday Night Live skit (Season 10, 1984), with Eddie Murphy, called “White Like Me.” In it, the Eddy Murphy character dresses in “white face,” and travels around New York City. He finds that the disparity in racial treatment is even larger than he expected—and it takes the form not […]