People file for unemployment following COVID-19 outbreak, at an Arkansas Workforce Center in Fayetteville, Ark. April 6, 2020. REUTERS/Nick Oxford
Today's economic demons resemble the 'Panic of 1893.'
People wait in line to receive free food at a curbside pantry in the Brooklyn, New York. April 24, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Sega
Samuel Cruz didn't want to choose between faith and politics. Then he found liberation theology.
Portrait of Thomas Robert Malthus by John Linnell. 1834.
Love him or hate him, Malthus is one of those figures who doesn’t go away.
A woman sells fried chicken at her open stall along a street, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Nairobi, Kenya April 19, 2020. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya/File Photo
The number of people facing acute food insecurity could nearly double this year to 265 million due to the economic fallout of COVID-19, the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.
Eugene V. Debs making a speech. 1921.
'He was of the working class and loyal to it in every drop of his hot blood to the very hour of his death.'
Trump’s daily press briefings resemble the kind of public idolatry that ancient Caesars engaged in.
A view of Bourbon Street amid the outbreak of COVID-19 in New Orleans. March 25, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman
Jubilee is appearing all around us amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The church is called to meet Jesus in the streets with the homeless — for in a time when people are called to shelter in place they have no place to go. The church must also meet Jesus in places like Flint, Mich. where poor people who are already suffering from respiratory conditions related to contaminated water are amongst those at highest risk.
Ditlev Blunck. "The Vision of the Prophet Ezekiel." Via Wikimedia Commons
Before a plague, God always sends prophets, often sick and impoverished themselves, to tell the powerful to reject wickedness.
A worker in a face mask walks by trucks parked at an Amazon facility as the global coronavirus outbreak continued in Bethpage on Long Island in New York. March 17, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
The federal government is big, and it intervenes. The question is, for whom?
Former Vice President Joe Biden listens as Senator Bernie Sanders speaks during the 11th Democratic candidates debate of the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign in Washington, D.C., March 15, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
We don’t have to guess at the damage that will be caused by financial barriers to care.
June 8, 2019: Large group of people gather for the first ever Medicare For All Rally led by Bernie Sanders in downtown Chicago. Credit: Shutterstock
“Every week, almost daily, I see patients who cannot afford care, can’t afford their medication."
Photo by Joshua Davis on Unsplash
For health journalist Colleen Shaddox, capitalism is incompatible with loving your neighbor.
Credit: Shutterstock
Why split public and societal critique from personal care and comfort? Whose ends does this split serve?
An abandoned home in Detroit / Erin Kirkland / Redux
“THE BRIGHTMOOR NEIGHBORHOOD has one of the highest percentages of water shutoffs—and high rates of infant mortality, due to shutoffs. The ground is dry. People are very tense. You see a lot of skin diseases and rashes, especially on kids. You see it in guarded conversations. People aren’t going to come right out and tell you, ‘My water is shut off,’ but they may say to you, ‘I can’t boil those hot dogs—they’ll have to go in the microwave.’
We hear the narrative so often that people should just pay their water bill, but you can’t budget your way out of poverty. I am a disruptor of narratives. No, the lack of water is not because of your sin, or because you’re a bad parent, or because you buy a hair weave or spend money on a cellphone. None of that is true. Why don’t people have water? Because of unjust systems—because people are commodified, that’s why. If I saw you as a human being, I would be concerned that your baby doesn’t have enough bottles because you don’t have the water to make them with.
The Bay Area will be without electricity for at least a day and a half in order to prevent power lines from sparking wildfires.
Credit: Shutterstock
Lost in the debate was concern about the employees preparing the sandwich, their hours, and compensation.
Jeronimo Perez Flores with toiletry donations for the campus food pantry.
When Jeronimo Perez Flores was accepted into San Jose State University, he never imagined that enrolling in college would lead him to homelessness.
"The Fearless Girl" statue facing Charging Bull in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Credit: Shutterstock
As African-American faith leaders committed to the social justice tradition of the Black Church, we would like to raise our voices to point out that it is not lost on us that Larry Summers and the establishment economists have done immense damage to the communities we serve, as well as to the broader American public, via their influence on economic policymaking. We recognize in the new school of economic thought, called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), a credible, highly impressive, and genuinely public-spirited alternative to the disastrous economic stewardship offered by the old guard. MMT also offers a powerful theoretical defense of the Federal Job Guarantee, a proposal that was pioneered by America’s first black economist, Sadie Alexander, and a centerpiece of the activism of civil rights icon, Coretta Scott King.