Category: Poverty & income gap
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Finally, an Anti-Poverty Program that Actually Might Reduce Poverty
by James A. Bacon Most anti-poverty programs are double-edged swords. They alleviate the symptoms of poverty — insufficient money for housing, food, health care — but do nothing to induce poor people to change their behavior and improve their condition. But this program is different: With funding from the the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund…
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Is Inclusionary Zoning the Answer to the Housing Crisis?
by James A. Bacon I have often advanced a common-sense proposition: If you want to create more affordable housing, increase the supply of housing. If the housing stock increases faster than demand, the price declines. A new study on “inclusive housing” policies in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area, which includes Northern Virginia, gives some support to…
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Our Little Five Billion
by James A. Bacon University fund-raisers are like presidential elections — as soon as one campaign ends, another one starts. Here in the Old Dominion, the University of Virginia is in the midst of a $5 billion boodle-building campaign. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech is raising $1.5 billion, the College of William & Mary $1 billion, Virginia…
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Dems & Dom, RGGI Grows, Medicaid & Work
By Steve Haner What Was Lost Is Found Again. Couldn’t they wait at least another few weeks? Anybody foolish enough to believe that Dominion Energy Virginia and the Virginia Democratic Party establishment have really parted ways (as Jim Bacon seemed to think a while back), take note of this from today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch: Governor Ralph…
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Why Are So Many Rural Virginians Stuck in Place?
by James A. Bacon A recurring question on this blog and elsewhere is why don’t more Americans (and rural Virginians) move to areas of greater economic opportunity? Why do they remain stuck in communities with high unemployment and low wages? Americans have always moved to economic opportunity in the past. What’s different now? Those questions…
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UVa’s Booming R&D Program: What It Means
by James A. Bacon One can debate how well the University of Virginia is serving the interests of students, families and the general citizenry through its aggressive increases in tuition, fees, and other costs of attendance. But there is no denying that Virginia’s No. 2 research university has been successful at attracting outside research dollars.…
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Want More Affordable Housing? Build More Luxury Apartments.
by James A. Bacon Planners in the Washington metropolitan area are worried, as they well should be, that continued population growth coupled with housing shortages could turn the region into another unaffordable hellhole like San Francisco or Los Angeles where legions of homeless people are taking over the public spaces and making life miserable for…
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Danville Free Clinic Bites the Dust
by James A. Bacon Before Virginia embarked upon Medicaid expansion, the state had a network of free clinics that provided primary-care services to people lacking health insurance. It was an imperfect safety net, to be sure, but at least it was something. Now, more than a half year into Medicaid expansion, that safety net is…
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The Scooter Murder Capital of the World
Wow, the City of Richmond is one tough market for scooter companies to crack — and the reasons why do not reflect well either on the city administration or the populace. Last summer, California-based Bird began placing scooters around town, but the company hadn’t cleared its initiative with city officials, so the city shut down…
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The New Childcare Crisis: Affordability
by James A. Bacon The cost of full-time infant care in Virginia has increased by 37% in inflation-adjusted dollars between 2008 and 2017, while women’s wages in the state have grown by only 5%, finds a new report by the National Women’s Law Center, “From Shortchanged to Empowered: A Pathway to Improving Women’s Well-Being in…
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Community Colleges and the Opportunity Society
by James A. Bacon What does it take to create an Opportunity Society? One critical element is providing Virginians with the skills they need to be employable in the occupations of the future. Nearly three out of five jobs created between now and 2026 will be “middle skill” jobs requiring community- or career-college training, not…
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Crash and Burn: How Misguided Policies Ruin Lives
by James A. Bacon Give Richmond educators credit for brutal honesty. A presentation of the school system’s five-year plan surfaced some devastating data: Only one in ten Richmond high school students is ready for college and a career, according to College Board criteria. If it’s any comfort, that number is up from 9% in the…
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Those Tenant-Eviction Stats Are Valid
by Marty Wegbreit The August 15, 2019 post, “A Closer Look at Those Tenant-Eviction Stats,” fails to stand up to statistical or critical analysis. The post blames Virginia’s Independent City/County form of government for high eviction rates. (Five of the highest ten eviction rates in large U.S. cities over 100,000 population are in Virginia.) Virginia’s…
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Undercover Billionaire and the Opportunity Narrative
by Don Rippert The show. The Discovery Channel started airing a new series about a billionaire who goes to Erie, Pa with an old pickup truck, $100 and a cell phone with no contacts. His goal is to build a business worth $1m in 90 days. If he achieves the goal he will share ownership…
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A Closer Look at those Tenant-Eviction Stats
Virginia’s eviction-reform movement gained considerable momentum last year when the New York Times, citing data of the Princeton Eviction Lab, published a story asserting that four Virginia cities numbered in the top 10 cities with the highest eviction rates in the country. Richmond supposedly had an eviction rate five times the national average. Armed with…