Jezebel: Poverty

These Stories of Anonymous Shoppers Paying off People's Layaway Toys Will Make You Cry Your Face Off

Erin Gloria Ryan — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:45:00 EST

In this big bah-humbug world of ours, it's hard to find a story that defies cynicism. But these tales of anonymous "guardian angel" shoppers who have been paying off the KMart layaway balances for poor families trying to buy Christmas presents for their kids is one of those bawl-inducing items that will make even the smallest of hearts grow three sizes. Hope you've been properly stretching and lubricating your tear ducts, because these are doozies. More »

New Homeless-Inspired Fashion Spread Is Super Tasteful!

Jenna Sauers — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:45:00 EDT

Oh, look: it's fashion, engaging with the social issues of the day again! Are you a homeless poor? Do you sleep on a flattened cardboard box? Do you tote your possessions from place to place in recycled shopping bags? You've just gone into style, darling. More »

The Decline In African Women's Height Is Bad News

Irin Carmon — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:10:00 EDT

It suggests, according to a study using height to indicate nutrition and overall health, that "poor women born in the last two decades, especially in Africa, are worse off than their mothers or grandmothers born after World War II." More »

Over A Quarter Of Women Have Children With More Than One Man

Irin Carmon — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 18:50:00 EDT

A new study of nearly 4,000 women has found that 28 percent of women with two or more children had them by different men. A longitudinal study, it took place over the course of 27 years, with 20 interviews. More »

Antoine Dodson Responds To The Haters

Irin Carmon — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:49:34 EDT

Antoine Dodson has been accused of "turning rape into a joke," and before his viral video fame, he survived sexual abuse and homophobic bullying. But he's not letting any of it get him down, he told me recently. More »

Fun Facts About How Poor Women Are Denied Their Reproductive Rights

Irin Carmon — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:20:09 EDT

"I'm thinking of ways I can fall or what I can do to end this pregnancy," said one woman to an abortion fund counselor. Why? Because she's on Medicaid, and thanks to the Hyde Amendment, her abortion won't be covered. More »

How Depression Harms Low-Income Moms And Babies

Anna North — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:30:00 EDT

Over half of babies born in poverty have depressed moms, and these moms rarely get treatment — revealing yet again that one of the groups most in need of mental health services is least likely to receive them. More »

How A Viral Video Star's Rant Got Him A New Home

Irin Carmon — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:06:51 EDT

There were plenty of reasons to be concerned about the nature of Antoine Dodson's sudden, viral-video-starring fame after the attempted rape of his sister. But now, thanks to their own determination and appeal, there are some reasons to be optimistic. More »

My Mom Reviews Eat Pray Love: "A Waste Of Time"

Dodai Stewart — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:05:00 EDT

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Saturday morning, my mom went to see Eat Pray Love. Her review? "I thought it was horrible." What follows is a total evisceration, in her own words. More »

The Hierarchy Of Food Needs

Lisa Wade, Ph.D. — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:59:00 EDT

Responding to critics who argue that poor people do not eat healthy food choose to eat healthy food because they're ignorant or prefer unhealthy food, Ellyn Satter wrote a hierarchy of food needs. More »

Low-Income Couples More Likely To Divorce, But Why?

Anna North — Mon, 17 May 2010 17:00:00 EDT

We've heard before that college-educated people are more likely to stay married. But what about the flipside: the higher risk of divorce for less-educated, lower-income people, and its potential impact, financial and otherwise, on their lives? More »

Mob Mentality

Anna Holmes — Tue, 11 May 2010 11:10:00 EDT

[Sydney, May 11. Image via Getty]

Ghanian Girls Bend It Like Beckham

LatoyaPeterson — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:40:00 EST

Can soccer help encourage reluctant parents to enroll their girls in school? The small city of Asesewa, Ghana is willing to try, using their renowned teams to encourage parents to invest all of their children - not just the boys. More »

Can Three People End Global Poverty?

LatoyaPeterson — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST

J-PAL is going to change the way we think about poverty. Fast Company writer Ryan Blitstein takes a closer look at the three person team (two women and one man) who are casting a critical eye on development theory. More »

An Education: Shakira Agitates For Schools In The Economist

LatoyaPeterson — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST

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Shakira, who once made headlines for going to UCLA to study Western Civilization, is making it known that she isn't the average pop star. This week, she takes to the pages of the Economist to advocate for education. More »

Shelf Discovery

Anna Holmes — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:10:00 EST

[Gaithersburg, Maryland; November 17. Image via Getty]

The Waiting Game

Anna Holmes — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:10:00 EST

[Mogadishu, November 15. Image via Getty]

Swing Out, Sister

Anna Holmes — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:10:00 EST

[Raducaneni, Romania; November 12. Image via Getty]

Weight And See

Anna Holmes — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:10:00 EST

[Balan, Haiti; November 12. Image via Getty]

A 'Bridge' To Nowhere

Anna Holmes — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:10:00 EDT

[Bridgeport, September 30. Image via Getty]

Share, And Share Alike

Anna Holmes — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:10:00 EDT

[Homestead, Florida; September 21. Image via Getty]

Food For Thought

Anna Holmes — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:10:00 EDT

[Karachi, September 16. Image via Getty]

Feed The Children

Anna Holmes — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:10:00 EDT

[Chicago, June 24. Image via Getty]

Lifting Women Out Of Poverty: Complicated

Dodai Stewart — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:00:00 EST

We've always heard that microloans were a good idea — in fact, we gave to Kiva earlier this year. But Tanglad at Racialicious asserts that microcredit may be too good to be true: More »

Educate A Girl "And She Will Do The Rest"

Anna North — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:40:00 EDT

For developing countries, the road out of poverty may begin in the classroom — with girls like the one at left. So says Jonathan Alter in this week's Newsweek, and he's got lots of data to back him up. Girls who go to school are more likely to have healthy children, forgo genital mutilation for their daughters, and avoid contracting HIV. They're also more likely to share their incomes with their families, while men keep a third to a half of theirs. Unfortunately, lots of obstacles stand in the way of educating girls. More »

Planned Parenthood Brings Sex Ed To Hipsters • Number Of Child Brides Rising

Maria — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Planned Parenthood has launched a new sex education website called Take Care Down There that spreads the message about sexual health with hipsters in t-shirts. • The number of child brides in poor countries who marry before the age of 18 will double to 100 million in the next decade, putting them at risk of AIDS, death in childbirth, poverty, and lack of education. • A new report by the Poppy Project has found that there are over 921 brothels in London being advertised in newspapers with a "large and growing" number of young women who are trafficked as sex slaves. • More »

Poverty Drives The Tragic Infant Death Rate In Tennessee

Margaret Hartmann — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:40:00 EDT

The U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate of the world's 23 richest nations, and within the country, black babies die at three times the rate of white babies. On Friday, the 20/20 report "Babyland" focused on Memphis, the city with the highest infant death rate. Dr. Sheldon Korones, seen in the clip above, was spurred by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. to found a neo-natal unit in Memphis's inner city. He describes the city's high rate of premature births and infant deaths as the result of years of social inadequacies. "There is so much else in that picture, ranging all the way from the proper lifestyle and diet, to the proper education and life itself," he says. "In this community, when a premature baby is born, society has failed." More »

When The Going Gets Tough, Women Are The First To Suffer

Dodai Stewart — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Skyrocketing prices for food and fuel have pushed more than 130 million poor people across parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America deeper into poverty in the past year, and guess who are the "hungriest" and "skinniest" victims? Women. Malnutrition among females is emerging as a "hidden consequence" of the food crisis, reports Kevin Sullivan for the Washington Post. Sullivan's focus is the African nation of Burkina Faso, where he follows the life of a woman named Fanta Lingani, who starts her backbreaking streetsweeping job at 4:30 am and makes $10 a month. More »

Elizabeth Edwards Sticks It To Stephen Colbert

Jessica G. — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Last night, a radiant looking Elizabeth Edwards was on the Colbert Report discussing universal health care and the fight against poverty. Often on the Colbert Report, guests are flummoxed by Colbert's quickness and the depth of his commitment to satire, but not Elizabeth! She made a wry reference to a joke about gas prices from Stephen's opening monologue (which can be seen here) and managed to stick to her talking points without sounding canned or insincere. Clip above. More »

Taking extreme measures in the face of extreme...

Jessica G. — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:45:00 EDT

Taking extreme measures in the face of extreme poverty is not just a problem for India's daughters, but for Afghanistan's young girls as well. According to the BBC, an increasing number of very young Afghan women are being married to older suitors in exchange for money or livestock because their families can barely afford to eat. This is a particular problem in the mountainous Badakhshan region, where 7,000 farm animals have died in the past five months due to a snowy winter and the cost of food has skyrocketed. The BBC interviewed a Badakshan midwife, Hanufa Mah, who says she recently helped a ten-year-old through labor. "The girl was so small. I held her in my lap until the child was born." [BBC News] More »

40 years ago today, Reverend Martin Luther...

Dodai Stewart — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:45:00 EDT

40 years ago today, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. (The picture here was taken the day before his assassination.) Dr. King was in Memphis to speak about poverty, and, in yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, King's son, Martin Luther King III, wrote an op-ed piece urging presidential candidates to create a cabinet-level position to deal specifically with poverty, saying, "The U.S. Census Bureau reports the current poverty rate is just over 12 percent, as it was in 1968, while the number of people living in poverty has grown from 25 million to more than 36 million, including 12 million children. Even worse, a family of four with two children and an annual income of $21,027 is not even considered poor by our government's reporting standards. Many people have become immune to these statistics, but we cannot wait for another Katrina to truly grasp that America is awash in poverty." The piece is worth reading, today of all days. [AJC] More »

Planet In Peril

Dodai Stewart — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:30:00 EST

Charity network ActionAid has published a report stating that women and girls are more likely to be poor, hungry, illiterate or sick than boys and men. In South Asia, while the economy grows, women are getting a shrinking share of the income. African women accounted for 75% of all young people living with HIV/AIDS. Also in Africa, the focus on primary education is hampered because women and children spend 40 billion hours collecting water each year. The report adds: "The disproportionate impact of poverty on girls is not an accident, but the result of systematic discrimination." [Guardian] More »