The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is America’s most successful poverty alleviation program, but too few families actually claim this benefit.

Many low-income families refer to tax season as “Second Christmas.” Although tax refunds are certainly not gifts that appear whether you’ve been naughty or nice, these refunds are often the salvation that millions of families look forward to every year.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) lifted 5.8 million people out of poverty in 2018, 3 million of those were children. The policy has been around since 1975 and has been expanded by both Republicans and Democrats alike…

Poor access to banks and easy access to payday lenders prevent many communities from achieving financial security

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Americans cannot function without access to banking services. However, 1 in 18 US households (7.1 million families) was unbanked in 2020 according to the FDIC. This inequality persists because the country’s 168,450 bank branches are physically inaccessible in hundreds of US counties. Households lacking banking options often turn to alternative financial services, like payday lending. Families then get caught in endless debt traps, which exacerbate income and wealth inequality. …

Trinity Colon grew up thinking that everyone had asthma and that it was normal to wipe the soot off your windows at the start of summer. She now realizes that 100,000 people die every year from preventable pollution related illnesses.

Pollution is killing Americans in every single state. Our factories cough particles into the air, our cars sputter smog into our communities, and our industries ravage the forests that could reduce the spread of harmful greenhouse gases. …

Mapping inequality & closing the divide

I’m excited to announce that I’m launching a blog series called American Inequality. Every article will dive into inequality topics that don’t get as much coverage — inequality in life expectancy, social services, food access, and more. I’ll present some totally new data visualizations on these topics that show the regional divides that our country is facing.

Inequality is increasing in America and millions of families are getting left behind. We often know exactly the towns, cities, and counties where the divides are the greatest, which is why we need to shed light on these challenges.

America is experiencing the greatest gap in life expectancy across regions in the last 40 years

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America is seeing the greatest gap in life expectancy across regions in the last 40 years. While most people will live to 78, some Americans are likely to die a decade earlier if they happen to be born in a handful of other counties in the US. Average lifespan has generally been increasing over this period as advances in medicine, social factors, and quality of life have helped people live longer, however, many Americans have…

Internet access is not equally distributed in America

The internet was supposed to be open to all, but it is closed to many. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that without reliable internet access, Americans often cannot work, attend school, or access government services. If you’ve ever felt the frustration of losing your WiFi or getting caught in a dead zone with no connection, you know the pain that millions of American feel every day. The difference is that those families cannot just reset the router and go on with their lives.

According to the FCC, 21 million Americans and…

The United States has now hit the worst levels of hunger in decades with 54 million Americans having no reliable access to food.

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Somehow in the 21st century, millions of Americans have no food. Lines for food banks routinely stretch for tens of miles, millions of children go to bed hungry each night, and countless families are stuck making tradeoffs between buying groceries or paying rent. New analysis from the Association of American Medical Colleges and USDA shows that 54 million people are food insecure and 23.5 million live in food…

Internet access is not equally distributed in America

For more stories like this, follow along at American Inequality.

The internet was supposed to be open to all, but it is closed to many. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that without reliable internet access, Americans often cannot work, attend school, or access government services. According to the FCC, 21 million Americans and 10 million school-age children do not have internet access. This means 15% of all children in school will not have the same education as their peers, will struggle academically, and will have fewer economic opportunities as they grow…