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> The United States has a whole lot of wounds from decades of racist policies and the criminalization of the poor. In 2011, Columbia did a study that we’ve upda
by save_ferris 7y ago
> The United States has a whole lot of wounds from decades of racist policies and the criminalization of the poor. In 2011, Columbia did a study that we’ve updated: At least 250,000 people die every year from poverty in America. Now, in a pandemic, that’s an open fissure.
That’s an astounding figure, likely much higher than the final death toll for American C-19 cases will be. If we accept that kind of annual figure without collectively reflecting on our current system and its inequalities, what hope do we really have long-term? So much of the country is still denial that this is a real pandemic, we can’t even agree on that.
- microcolonel 7y agoReflect, please, but do not think so highly of yourself to assume that whatever solution you have in your head won't cause more death and unnecessary suffering. We're not the first people who thought we could change the world for the better.
- samatman 7y agoIn 2018, ~2.8 million Americans died, and 11.8% were in poverty as defined by the US Census criteria. Presuming the numbers were slightly different in 2011, I have a cynical picture of how that study came to its conclusion.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agosamatman has a good angle on questioning the accuracy of that number. Still, there's no question that poverty does in fact kill people - if not as bad as Columbia's study says, then still significantly more than zero. The problem is, doing nothing was going to lead to 250,000(ish) people dying in America from Covid, without reducing the number dying from poverty. So that probably is not the right answer. The trick is going to be keeping people from dying from Covid without making poverty a lot worse for a lot of people. I don't have a good answer, but I know that "not stopping everything" wasn't the answer.