One of the odd things about the United States has long been the immense range of people who consider themselves to be middle class – and are deluding themselves. Low-paid workers who would be considered poor by international standards, say with incomes below half the median, nonetheless consider themselves lower-middle-class; people with incomes four or five times the median consider themselves, at most, upper-middle-class.

But this may be changing. According to a new Pew survey, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people calling themselves lower class, and a somewhat smaller rise in the number calling themselves lower-middle, so that at this point the combined “lower” categories are close to a plurality of the population – in fact, closing in on, um, 47 percent.

This is, I believe, a very significant development. The politics of poverty since the 1970s have rested on the popular belief that the poor are Those People, not like us hard-working, real Americans. This belief has been out of touch with reality for decades – but only now does reality seem to be breaking in. But what it means is that conservatives who claim that character defects are the reason for poverty, and that poverty […]

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The biggest issue facing the American economy, and our political system, is the gradual descent of the middle class into proletarian status. This process, which has been going on intermittently since the 1970s, has worsened considerably over the past five years, and threatens to turn this century into one marked by downward mobility.

The decline has less to do with the power of the ‘one percent” per se than with the drying up of opportunity amid what is seen on Wall Street and in the White House as a sustained recovery. Despite President Obama’s rhetorical devotion to reducing inequality, it has widened significantly under his watch. Not only did the income of the middle 60% of households drop between 2010 and 2012 while that of the top 20% rose, the income of the middle 60% declined by a greater percentage than the poorest quintile. The middle 60% of earners’ share of the national pie has fallen from 53% in 1970 to 45% in 2012.

This group, what I call the yeoman class – the small business owners, the suburban homeowners , the family farmers or skilled construction tradespeople – is increasingly endangered. Once the dominant class in America, it is clearly shrinking: […]

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A sobering report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that out of the top 35 developed nations in the world, the United States comes 2nd to last in childhood poverty.

While many of the Scandinavian and Western European countries (i.e. countries with a robust social safety net) have very low rates of childhood poverty, America only just narrowly beat Romania for the worst. Poverty is a reality for at least 22 percent of American children (and considerably higher by other estimates).

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Before breathing a sigh of relief for at least not being last, let’s take a look at a few of the countries America didn’t manage to do better than.

Spain has been dealing with an absolute disaster of an economy and even six years removed from the global financial crisis continues to see an astonishing 25% unemployment rate. It stands to reason that many of their children would fall below the poverty line. Latvia’s entire GDP is less than that of North Dakota. Yet, they both still manage to keep more of their children out of poverty than the U.S. America continues to rebound from the recession and it’s economy is strong. Despite these positive gains in the economy, […]

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A new study has found that around 60 more people have been murdered each year since the state of Missouri made it easier to buy a handguns without going through a background check.

In the study which will be published in an issue of the Journal of Urban Health, a team of researchers led by Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research Director Daniel Webster found that between 55 to 63 more people were murdered each year after Missouri repealed its permit-to-purchase (PTP) handgun law in 2007.

‘This study provides compelling confirmation that weaknesses in firearm laws lead to deaths from gun violence,” Webster said in a press release. ‘There is strong evidence to support the idea that the repeal of Missouri’s handgun purchaser licensing law contributed to dozens of additional murders in Missouri each year since the law was changed.”

After the law was repealed, unlicensed sellers were no longer required to perform background checks before selling their guns.

While murders in Missouri spiked between 2007 and 2012, bordering states experienced no significant increases. And the overall murder rate in the U.S. declined by 5 percent during that same period.

‘Coincident exactly with the policy change, there was an immediate upward trajectory to […]

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Just like their historical forbears, American believers like to blame bad things on the devil. But what if he’s just a convenient way to hide from the truth?

In America, much like God, Satan works in mysterious ways. Just how mysterious depends on who you talk to.

For instance, a good number of Christians became convinced that Satan made an appearance at last month’s Grammy Awards. While Christians detecting Satan’s presence at large music gatherings is hardly novel, the fact that Satan showed up right smack in the middle of a performance by Katy Perry and Juicy J. caused this particular sighting to be deemed more buzzworthy than most. Some evangelicals even speculated about whether or not Perry, while singing ‘Dark Horse,” had enacted an ancient satanic ritual, one that had actually summoned the Prince of Darkness to join her on the Grammy stage.

So, did Perry & Co. really usher in forces of demonic destruction? Nobody knows for certain. The presence of Satan is difficult to confirm. Besides, among most Satan-fearing Christians, things like confirmation and proof are overrated.

That said, not only did Perry’s alleged invite to Satan cause a gnashing of tweets, but the spectacle was demonic enough to send one […]

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