Poverty, by America

The first is that many of us understandably have a hard time viewing a tax break as something akin to a government check. We see taxation as a burden and tax breaks as the state allowing us to keep more of what is rightfully ours. Psychologists have shown that we tend to feel losses more acutely than gains. The pain of losing $1,000 is stronger tha

Because of the generous unemployment benefits—alongside stimulus checks, rental assistance, expanded Child Tax Credit, and other forms of relief—poverty did not increase during the worst economic downturn in nearly a century. Instead, it fell, and by a tremendous amount. The U.S. economy lost millions of jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there

In Japan, Great Britain, Estonia, the Netherlands, and several other countries, citizens don’t file taxes; the government does it automatically. In those countries, taxpayers check the government’s math, sign the form, and mail it back in.

Poverty isn’t simply the condition of not having enough money. It’s the condition of not having enough choice and being taken advantage of because of that.