March 2023 Newsletter
Issue #73
It's Expensive to be Poor
It may seem like a contradiction, but being poor can be costly in ways that the affluent can avoid.


  • The poor spend 182% of what they make. The middle class spends 89% and the rich spend 61%.

  • Poor people are often unable to buy products in bulk which can save as much as 20% of the regular price. There are also membership fees for bulk buying at some stores.

  • The poor cannot afford to buy certain items when they are on sale losing out as much as 80% savings (i.e. buying winter clothing during the summer).
Food

  • The poor spend 28% of their income on food. The middle class spends 12% and the rich spend 7%.

  • On average, a day’s worth of the most healthy food (fruits, vegetables, fish, and nuts) cost about $1.50 more per day than the least healthy ones (processed foods, meats, and refined grains.) In addition, eating unhealthier foods leads to greater health care costs
Credit

  • People with poor credit rating pay average rate increase of 76% more for auto insurance. This translates into a hike of nearly $1,180 annually on average.

  • The poor have a greater need to purchase items on credit. Payday loan interest rates can range from 391% - 600%.
Banking

  • 4.5% of Americans —approximately 5.9 million households — were without a bank account in 2021. 13% had bank accounts but also made use of alternative financial services, such as non-bank money orders, check-cashing services, prepaid debit cards and payday loans.

  • Being unable to maintain a minimum balance in a checking account can cost: $7-10/month.

  • The median overdraft for a $36 transaction racks up a median $35 in fees. If an overdraft was treated like a short-term loan with a repayment period of 7 days, then the annual percentage rate for a typical incidence would be over 5,000%.

  • The average cost to cash a payroll check is 4.11% and varies by state: cashing a $500 computer-generated paycheck costs $8.20 in New York, $12.50 in Ohio or $25 in Kentucky
Housing
  • The poor spend 72% of their annual income on housing. The middle class spends 30% and the rich pay 19%. (“Affordable housing” is defined as costing less than 30% of income)
Transportation

  • 45% of American households lack any access to transit, and millions more have inadequate service levels.

  • The poor spend 28% of their income on cars and public transportation. The middle class spends 17% and the rich pay 10%.
Self-Esteem

  • Society often blames the poor for their predicament. About 50% of affluent people believe the poor are not doing enough to help themselves.

For more on Poverty, click here.
Other Resources
How America's Public Schools
Keep Kids in Poverty
A TED Talk, featuring Kandice Sumner, who asks why should a good education be exclusive to rich kids? Points out that schools in low-income neighborhoods across the US, specifically in communities of color, lack resources that are standard at wealthier schools -- things like musical instruments, new books, healthy school lunches and soccer fields -- and this has a real impact on the potential of students. Watch now.

For more on Poverty, click here.
The Paradox of Poverty
A short animated TED video that looks at the skills, drive and initiative poor people bring to the struggle every day -- asking viewers to look again at people in poverty: They may be broke — but they're not broken. Watch now.

For more on Poverty, click here.
A Just Passion: A Six-Week Lenten Journey
By Ruth Haley Barton, Sheila Wise Rowe, Tish Harrison Warren & Terry M. Wildman & others. A collection of short readings, breath prayers, and Scripture passages from the First Nations Version that guides readers through a six-week journey of repentance, lament, worship, and healing. Offers selections from a diverse range of sources, curated to hold in tension the weight and hope of the Lenten season. Read more.

For more Justice resources, click here.
The Compassion Book:
Lessons from The Compassion Course
By Thom Bond. Over 300 pages of concepts, stories, and exercises that provide the "how to" of creating more connection and understanding. Explains and demonstrates specific ways of thinking, speaking, and acting that help readers experience more compassion, understanding, and harmony in their daily lives. Read more.

For more Justice resources, click here.
Center for Social Justice
A division of the Western New England University Law School, the Center advances justice through research, education, advocacy, innovation, and public engagement. Strives to understand and address the root causes of systemic social injustice and develops innovative, human-centered solutions for change. Through pro-bono initiatives, assists marginalized, underserved, black, indigenous, people of color, low-income women, LGBTQ+, and immigrant communities. The Center strengthens collaborative efforts between the Law School and the local region to work toward a more just, equitable, and inclusive society. Learn more.

For more Justice resources, click here.
Practice the Pause: Jesus' Contemplative Practice, New Brain Science, and What It Means to Be Fully Human
By Caroline Oakes. Discusses new developments in brain science that show an intentional practice of pausing for a few minutes of meditation, prayer, or other contemplative practice actually rewires our brain in ways that make us calmer, less reactive, and better able to see the bigger picture. Suggests that this supports what most spiritual traditions have been saying for millennia: by practicing a pause, we become more self-aware and better able to understand others. We become more "God aware." Focuses on the Eastern Christian understanding of Jesus as a master of wisdom and shines a spotlight on Jesus's own centering pause practice as a transformative path for personal and social change. Shows how even a seven-second pause practice can move us beyond the fight-or-flight responses of our egos in our daily lives and actually equip us to cultivate the common good in the world. Learn more.

For more Public Witness resources, click here.
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Third Edition
By Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler & Emily Gregory.
This updated edition provides skills to ensure every conversation―especially difficult ones―leads to the results we want. Teaches readers how to be persuasive rather than abrasive, how to get back to productive dialogue when others blow up or clam up, and it offers skills for mastering high-stakes conversations, regardless of the topic or person. Also addresses issues that have arisen in recent years
such as:
  • Responding when someone initiates a Crucial Conversation
  • The lag time between identifying a problem and discussing it
  • Communicating more effectively across digital mediums

For more Public Witness resources, click here.
With This Light
A documentary that tells the story of Sister María Rosa Leggol, a Franciscan nun who helped more than 80,000 Honduran children escape abject poverty through wide-ranging projects including homes, vocational schools and medical programs. The film follows two young women in her programs as they try to navigate the uncertainty and dangers of modern Honduras. Interweaves their stories with the story of Sister herself, a woman whose faith has sustained her through dictatorships, military coups, narco-states and natural disasters, all the while dedicating herself to society’s most vulnerable. Watch the trailer.

For more Public Witness resources, click here.
Spiritualizing Politics Without Politicizing Religion: The Example of Sargent Shriver
By James R. Price and Kenneth R. Melchin. Maintains that there is need for an approach that can both maintain the diversity of belief and foster values founded on the principles of religion. Provides a framework by approaching issues in politics via a profile of Sargent Shriver (1915–2011), an American diplomat, politician, and a driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps. Focusing on the speeches Shriver delivered in the course of his work to advance civil rights and build world peace, highlights the spiritual component of his efforts to improve institutional structures and solve social problems. Contextualizes Shriver’s approach by contrasting it with contemporary, landmark decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court on the role of religion in politics. In doing so, explains that navigating the relationship of religion and politics requires attending to both the religious diversity that politics must guard and the religious involvements that politics needs to do its work. Read more.

For more Politics resources, click here.
The Climate Book:
The Facts and the Solutions
By Greta Thunberg. Incorporates the wisdom of over one hundred experts - geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists; engineers, economists and mathematicians; historians, philosophers and indigenous leaders - to equip readers with the knowledge needed to combat climate disaster. Charts, graphs, diagrams, photographs, and illustrations throughout underscore their research and their arguments. The author also shares her own stories of demonstrating and uncovering "greenwashing" around the world, revealing how much people have been kept in the dark. Read more.

For more on the Environment, click here.
Into the Ice
A climate change documentary that follows several of the world's leading glaciologists to Greenland to see just how fast the ice sheet is melting, and to understand the consequences of climate change. Watch the trailer.

For more on the Environment, click here.
Going Circular
A documentary that features four groundbreaking thinkers who navigate environmental, economic, and social crises of the modern age. They suggest that the solutions for creating a circular economy and planet have already been perfected in nature itself and imagine a future where humankind not only survives, but flourishes, by rethinking global paradigms and respecting the limits of our planetary resources. Watch the trailer.

For more on the Environment, click here.
Grateful Living
A U.S.-based, global nonprofit organization offering online and community-based educational programs and practices. Committed to the transformative power of personal and societal responsibility. Helps people see the wonder and opportunity in every moment and to act boldly with love, generosity, and respect towards ourselves, one another, and the Earth. Learn more.

For more Simple Living resources, click here.
Woke Church: An Urgent Call for Christians in America to Confront Racism and Injustice
By Eric Mason. Calls the church to a much-needed reckoning. In a time when many feel confused, complacent, or even angry, this book challenges the church to:
Be Aware – to understand that the issue of justice is not a black issue, it’s a kingdom issue. To learn how the history of racism in America and in the church has tainted our witness to a watching world.

Be Redemptive – to grieve and lament what we have lost and to regain our prophetic voice, calling the church to remember our gospel imperative to promote justice and mercy.

Be Active – to move beyond polite, safe conversations about reconciliation and begin to set things aright for our soon-coming King.

For more on Racism, click here.
The Big Payback:
Fear and Reparations in the American Suburb
A documentary from PBS that tells the story looks a rookie alderwoman from Evanston, Illinois, who led the passage of the first tax-funded reparations for Black Americans. The film points out that while Evanston struggles with the burden to make restitution for its citizens, a national racial crisis engulfs the rest of the country. Asks if the debt ever be addressed, or if it's too late for the reparations movement to finally get the big payback from other communities. Watch now.

For more on Racism, click here.
Prayers

All-powerful God,
You are present in the whole universe
And in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love,
That we may protect life and beauty.
Fill us with peace, that we may live
As brothers and sisters, harming no one.
O God of the poor,
Help us to rescue the abandoned
And forgotten of this earth,
So precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives,
That we may protect the world and not prey upon it,
That we may sow beauty,
Not pollution and destruction.
Touch the hearts
Of those how look only for gain
At the expense of the poor and the earth.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
To be filled with awe and contemplation,
To recognize that we are profoundly united
With every creature
As we journey towards your infinite light.
We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle
For justice, love and peace.
Pope Francis

 
Important Dates This Month

Individuals Honored This Month
No one has ever become poor by giving.
March 2nd
We who say we dwell in Christ, should walk just as he walked.
March 3rd
I believe much trouble would be saved
if we opened our hearts more.
March 5th
The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim Him with their mouths and deny Him with their actions is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable.
March 13th
Many powerful people don’t want peace because they live off of war.
March 14th
The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.
March 24th
A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed – what gospel is that?
March 31st
History will judge societies and governments and their institutions not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and powerful but how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.
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