The Poverty Trap

Joan DeMartin
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A Podcast for those who are fed up with the inequality baked into America's system and want to collectively make change. povertytrap.substack.com

  1. 5D AGO

    Inflation Pain

    Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to individually and collectively make change. Thinking about subscribing? Here’s what one “founding member” subscriber recently had to say about The Poverty Trap: “You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B. Breaking News! According to a New York Times article published just hours ago, the Consumer Price Index, a marker for inflation, soared in April to 3.8%, from 3.3% in March. Here’s a chart fresh from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showing the increase in select categories of goods and services over the last 12 month period. Check out the BLS here for more charts, if you dare. Inflation is painful for tens of millions of Americans, but for those living on a fixed income, mostly seniors and the disabled, it can mean choosing among rent, food or keeping the lights on at the end of each month. Here are the numbers according to the Social Security Administration‘s (SSA.gov) Monthly Statistical Snapshot for April, 2026. — There are over 75 million social security recipients, including retirees, the disabled, their survivors and those receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a means tested program for the poor. Here are a few of the most recent numbers: — The average Social Security monthly payment among all categories of recipients is $1,932.80, and for retired workers the average monthly payment is $2,071; — Social Security monthly amounts are adjusted annually according to the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) formula. Benefits increased by 2.8% for 2026, but the 10% increase in Medicare Part B premiums, which are automatically deducted from social security checks, nearly erases this year’s cost of living increase; — Social Security is the only form of income for over 22 million senior citizens; and… — In the context of poverty, approximately 36 million people in the United States live at or below the official government poverty line as of 2024, the most recent year statistics are available from the U.S. Census Bureau, and approximately 15% or 9.2 million are senior citizens. Some 50-60 million Americans live on a retirement income set by Social Security benefit amounts and perhaps one or more other fixed revenue streams like a pension and/or annuities payments. But these sources of income are typically fixed, with only small “cost-of-living” raises that never come close to matching the increase in prices for basic needs like food, housing and utilities. The problem when fixed incomes meet inflation is that prices for most goods and services go up, but the ability to pay for them stays the same. And speaking of retired folks, 2026 is a historic peak for seniors, with approximately “11,400 Americans turning 65 each day”. Food prices, for example, have gone up 34.6% from 2019, and continue to rise—an enormous jump in just under seven years, A February 2026 article in Nerdwallet does a good job of explaining why food prices have skyrocketed, but the reasons matter little to those with fixed purchasing power. The reasons, including corporate profiteering, should matter to our elected officials, though, who are well aware that millions of their senior constituents are making tradeoffs everyday—cutting back on nutritious food, staying housebound to save transportation costs and forgoing medicine in order to pay the rent and utilities. The enormous, recent spike in oil prices has propelled inflation to greater heights, thanks to the war with Iran, which has not only increased the cost of gas, it has increased the cost of everything that uses oil, like transportation, and everything that is made with oil, like plastics, for example. Meanwhile, soaring prices for necessities continue to penalize not only Americans living on fixed incomes, but lower and middle-income earners, too. A PBS article explains the how and why behind our rising overall prices and how it relates to the surging cost of oil. Yes, consumers at the lower end of the income spectrum are hurting the most from the sudden rise in gas prices. See this NY Times article published about a week ago:: Surging gas prices are inflaming a longstanding economic divide in America, as households with lower incomes struggle to pay more at the pump at a moment when prices are already elevated. And consumers are getting frustrated and angry. The most recent Consumer Sentiment Survey from the University of Michigan released earlier this month shows consumer sentiment about the economy at record lows, the lowest since 2017, in fact. Sadly, retirees seem to be more worried about money than they are about dying. And many are re-entering the workforce if they can, to either make ends meet or save more for their eventual retirement. According to a May 9 article from NBC, Palm Springs: While some re-enter the workforce for a sense of purpose, the primary driver in 2026 is cold, hard cash. According to the latest EBRI Retirement Confidence Survey, 64% of Americans now worry more about running out of money than they do about dying. Data from the most recent Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) Retirement Confidence Survey published March 2026. How is inflation impacting your household? What actions do you think our government should take to bring down the rising costs of goods and services? Please share your thoughts with The Poverty Trap community in the Comment Section below—thanks! The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Poverty Trap at povertytrap.substack.com/subscribe

    10 min

  2. MAY 1

    Reading Round-Up, April 2026:

    Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to individually and collectively make change. Thinking about subscribing? Here’s what one “founding member” subscriber recently had to say about The Poverty Trap: “You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B. There is so much news and other interesting stories to read that all passes in a blur each day, let alone during an entire month. I’ve started and stopped an end-of-the month reading round-up on The Poverty Trap a few times in the last several years, but now I’m going to make it a regular feature posted on the last day of each month. Here are a few noteworthy happenings and interesting reads published (mostly) during the beautiful month of April: — First up is a short AP analysis of the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision that weakened (many say completely gutted), Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This Section put about 70 of the country’s 435 Congressional districts under federal review to ensure racial minorities were appropriately represented. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, the centerpiece legislation of the Civil Rights Movement, succeeded in opening the ballot box to Black Americans and reducing persistent racial discrimination in voting. And here is the full SCOTUS decision. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is not the enforcement behemoth it used to be, at least since Lee Zeldin took over as its director in January 2025. The New Yorker profiled Zeldin and his anti-environmental reign in an April 27, 2026 piece: In a little more than a year, Zeldin has transformed the E.P.A. from an agency devoted to protecting human health and the environment into one that, more or less openly, sides with polluters. He has packed the E.P.A.’s upper echelons with former industry lobbyists, scrubbed entire databases of information from its website, and dissolved whole departments. The EPA has even stopped climate change initiatives and officially come out as “pro coal”. Wow. — Have the Democrats found their voice…in the Maine Senate candidate, Graham Platner? A New York Times opinion writer seems to think so. Published today, her piece lays out the argument for an anti-war Democratic “Tea Party”, of sorts. And Platner, an Iraq and Afghanistan combat veteran lays out his argument in that vein; Platner spoke about the struggles of working people for whom a decent life seemed out of reach, about the disastrous wars he’d fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and about the need for a Democratic Party with New Deal-scale ambitions. And he spoke to people’s feelings of being abandoned to Trump’s depredations by a weak and fumbling Democratic Party. —I’ll end with a New York Times article published in February of this year—before the Iran war sent prices for gas and other goods soaring even higher, and before the tariffs fully kicked in, and just when the American Care Act subsidies were officially eliminated. “For so many people, basic living has become a burden,” said Erin Hatton, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo who studies the labor market. “The fact is that there are so many people that don’t have a couple extra hundred dollars if faced with an emergency or, they can pay their bills but can’t save for their retirement.” A few months later the burden of basic living expenses has reached well beyond the poor to middle income and even higher income earners. ———————————— I hope you enjoy this end-of-month and weekend reading. If you cannot access one or more of these articles because of a paywall, let me know and I’ll send you a gift link. And don’t forget to Like, Share and Restack this post if you can…and please leave your thoughts in the Comment Section below—thanks! The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Poverty Trap at povertytrap.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min

  3. APR 18

    Inequality In The Age Of Trump

    Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to individually and collectively make change. Thinking about subscribing? Here’s what one “founding member” subscriber recently had to say about The Poverty Trap: “You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B. Yes, data from the Federal Reserve through the fourth quarter of 2025 shows economic inequality, both income and wealth inequality, has worsened in the last 15 months since President Trump began his second term on January 20, 2025. A CBS report analyzing this data says: The top 1% of households owned 31.7% of all U.S. wealth in the third quarter of 2025, the highest share on record since the Federal Reserve began tracking household wealth in 1989. That share has increased even as wealth growth for the rest of the population has stalled or slowed, the data shows. Collectively, the wealthiest 1% held about $55 trillion in assets in the third quarter of 2025 — roughly equal to the wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans combined. That last data summary is astounding: the richest 1% of Americans hold approximately the same amount of wealth as a combined 90% of Americans. And the forecast for 2026 and beyond is a continued widening of the income and wealth gap, with stipulations of course. But why did the inequality gap widen significantly in 2025? Here’s what a few experts have to say: — The stock market surged through 2025, but mostly due to AI investments. (Remember Attorney General Bondi shrieking into the microphone that the Dow had hit 50,000?) The rich disproportionally invest in stocks and other securities where they hold most of their wealth. A recent CBS article noted: “A May Gallup poll found that 87% of Americans who own stock live in households with incomes of $100,000 or more.” So when the markets go up, wealthy stock and securities’ investors get even richer. That is in contrast to middle and lower income Americans whose main asset is the family home (if they are lucky enough to own one, likely with a hefty mortgage). Unfortunately, home prices and wage growth (measured against inflation), slowed during 2025 while the price of food, and other goods and services went up significantly, further draining wealth from average income Americans. — But what about those taxes you paid a few days ago? Another unfortunate reality for middle and lower income Americans who pay most of their taxes on straight earned income—they pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthy and uber-wealthy. Why? Because the tax code levies lower rates on passive income (like dividends from stocks and bonds) than earned income from paychecks. Plus, there are more tax loopholes to “minimize the impact of the tax” for the passive income investments held in much higher amounts by the wealthy, than for salaried or hourly workers, like you or me. Don’t understand those complicated loopholes, anyway? Never mind, the wealthy and big corporations can afford tax attorneys and accountants to understand and apply every legal way to minimize their clients’ taxes. Thanks to Jeremy Ney from American Inequality for sharing the graph below on Notes along with the link to access it from The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Here’s what the ITEP article said about how federal taxes break down by income after the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” in 2025: Taking all the policies of President Trump and the Republican majority in Congress into account, all but the richest Americans are paying higher taxes on average in 2026 than they did last year. These policies include: * Dramatically increased tariffs on goods from abroad, a tax that economists widely agree is mostly borne by American consumers. * The termination of the Enhanced Premium Tax Credit (EPTC), which had made health care more affordable for millions of people. * The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which overwhelmingly benefits the rich and corporations. The combined impact of these policies in 2026 is a tax increase for the average American in all income groups except the richest 5 percent. This is illustrated in Figure 1 below. The richest 1 percent, in particular, receive a noticeable tax cut compared to all other groups. [Emphasis added] FIGURE 1 — But wait, there’s more. There was rapid growth of the billionaire class in 2025. According to an Oxfam report published earlier this year: “…billionaire wealth in 2025 increased three times faster than the average annual rate over the previous five years.” And Elon Musk topped the billionaire list with an estimated $668 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Yes, that is the same Elon Musk, who as head of the now-defunct DOGE, fired approximately 270,000 federal workers in 2025, under the guise of “government efficiency”. And U.S. billionaires absolutely pay both an effective lower tax rate and a lower percentage of their annual income in federal taxes, according to an August 2025 paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Why Growing Inequality Matters: The extent of inequality we see today poses risks to pretty much everything, but particularly to our democracy and to our economy. Why? Briefly, here’s what a few experts have to say about the impact of our now egregious inequality: — Glenn C. Altschuler, a Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University, discussed many reasons wealthy individuals and corporations have an outsized impact on our government’s laws and policies. This type of influence can and does skew federal policies in favor of the wealthy: In 2025 alone, 13,000 lobbyists spent about $5 billion to influence Congress and federal government agencies. The top three spenders were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Realtors, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. In 2024, corporate contributions to political candidates and parties exceeded campaign spending by labor unions by a ratio of 16 to one. — Consumer spending has been increasing overall, but the spending is disproportionally from higher income households, and this might indicate a shaky economy. A CBS report from late 2025 lays out the statistics: Consumer spending — which drives over two-thirds of economic activity — is growing overall in the U.S. These days, however, a large and growing share of that commercial activity is driven by upwardly mobile Americans. In the second quarter of 2025, the top 10% of income earners accounted for almost half of all spending, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by [Mark] Zandi [chief economist at financial research firm Moody's Analytics]. And this interesting article, published just a few days ago in The Street, explains why it might be dangerous for the top 10% of wealthy households to contribute over 50% to all consumer spending—when a broad economic base of Americans are not able to buy goods and services, it might be covering up a problem. The author, Hillary Remy, calls it “…a striking concentration of economic activity in a very narrow slice of the population.” This is what Remy says could happen: When wealthy households carry a disproportionate share of consumer spending, the national data can look resilient even when most Americans feel financially pressured. A strong headline number on consumer spending can mask the reality that lower- and middle-income households are dealing with heavier debt burdens and slower income growth… [And] When a single percentage of households controls more wealth than the bottom 90% combined, the economy starts to function differently. Growth becomes dependent on a narrow group of asset owners rather than broad-based consumer activity. That creates a fragile foundation. ———————————————————— I’d love to hear your thoughts on our country’s growing inequality. Are rich people’s spending propping up a fragile economy? What else? Please share your ideas in the Comment Section below: The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Poverty Trap at povertytrap.substack.com/subscribe

    15 min

  4. APR 3

    Pockets Of Poverty...

    Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to individually and collectively make change. Thinking about subscribing? Here’s what one “founding member” subscriber recently had to say about The Poverty Trap: “You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B. __________________________________ “They’re tired of living in a third-world country…” That is how the residents of McDowell County, West Virginia described their current situation: like “living in a third-world country.” Once you see this — water as dark as coffee coming from their faucets, a 45-minute drive to get a gallon of milk, little to no healthcare options, you’ll wonder if this is really 2026 in America. The 13-minute segment, shown above, was reported by CBS 60 Minutes and first aired on February 22 of this year. There are persistent pockets of poverty throughout the United States, located mostly in southern and southwestern states and specifically in several counties within these states, a smattering of other areas where once booming industries have simply gone away for one reason or another, and most Indian reservations. 309 Counties Had Sustained High Poverty for Two Decades According to a U.S. Census Bureau report published earlier this year, based on data through 2024: In 309 or almost 10% of U.S. counties, mostly in the South, poverty rates stayed at 20% or more for two decades, according to the recently released American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates. The latest ACS release allows us to compare changes in poverty rates in most of the nation’s 3,144 counties and county equivalents in five-year periods over the span of 20 years: 2005-2009; 2010-2014; 2015-2019; and 2020-2024. In this analysis, counties are considered in sustained poverty if their poverty rates remained at 20% or higher in each of the four nonoverlapping 5-year periods. [Emphasis Added] This map produced by the U.S. Census Bureau shows the counties in “sustained poverty” over a twenty year period. McDowell County West Virginia is the southern most county in the state and is at the tip of a good-sized pocket of counties extending from southern Ohio into Kentucky and Tennessee. McDowell county was one of our country’s largest coal producers, but the demand for coal decreased as the need for clean energy increased, and the coal companies abandoned the mines, the area and the people. Coal companies also abandoned the clean-up of mine waste, along with the old, failing infrastructure carrying water into residents’ homes that the companies initially installed. Now, the cash-strapped county is responsible for replacing the pipes and cleaning up the environmental contamination from the mines. And neither the West Virginia state legislature nor Congress wants to allocate money or hold the companies accountable to clean up the mess. By the way, McDowell County is considered the poorest county in West Virginia with over 37% of its population living below the poverty line. What is it about these particular areas of the country, drilling down to specific counties, that keep them consistently poor? And if we know this abject poverty has persisted in the same areas for decades, why haven’t elected officials acted to help? Here is how the West Virginia Water Research Institute, part of West Virginia University, is trying to help ____________________________________ Let me know your thoughts in the Comment Section, below. I’d also appreciate it if you could like, share and restack this post—let’s get the word out! The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Poverty Trap at povertytrap.substack.com/subscribe

    9 min

  5. MAR 19

    Mortgage Foreclosures Are Increasing...

    Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to individually and collectively make change. Thinking about subscribing? Here’s what one “founding member” subscriber recently had to say about The Poverty Trap: “You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B. __________________________________ The least pleasant event anyone wants to experience, aside from death, is losing their home. Not to sound overly dramatic, but from personal experience, the foreclosure process oftentimes can make you wish you were dead. I fought foreclosure for years, then sold my home for exactly what I owed on the mortgage during the worst of the Covid crisis. With hindsight, it might have been better for me if I had just ridden out the foreclosure moratorium in place at the time, and then let the home be sold at auction. I survived with the help of good friends, my pets and a tough law firm, which was able to correct, on my behalf, the illegalities of the “puppy mill” foreclosure process after the fact, win compensation and a bit of extra money from the foreclosing bank as punishment for violating the law. But losing one’s home is indeed a traumatic experience. In fact, foreclosure rates high one the scale of traumatic life experiences and can leave lasting physical and emotional scars. At that is exactly what is happening today in our country. As of February 2026, foreclosure rates have increased 20%, year over year. In 2025 and into the first quarter of 2026, over 400,000 U.S. homeowners went through the nightmare of foreclosure. The five states with the highest foreclosure rates are Indiana, South Carolina, Florida, Delaware and Illinois. There are many valid, substantive reasons for the increase in foreclosures in the last 15 months: we are trapped in a declining economy with slowed hiring, rising costs for everything, including mortgage interest rates, home insurance, property taxes, HOA fees, utilities and home repairs that make keeping a home precarious at best. Making the situation worse is the elimination of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which allowed low and middle income earners to purchase health care at semi-affordable prices. Now, yearly costs for health care premiums are estimated to total between $23,000—$40,000 for a family of four. The choice in 2026 for many Americans looks like it’s between keeping your home or buying health insurance. Here’s what a 2026 article from Nolo has to say about the increase in foreclosures — it primarily blames rising home-related costs, soaring prices overall and job losses for the steady increase in home foreclosures, with a gloomy future predicted: Foreclosure activity in the U.S. is expected to trend higher in 2026. …in 2025, there was a marked, sustained increase in both foreclosure starts and completions. According to a September 2025 report from ATTOM, foreclosure filings in the U.S. have surged nearly 20%. This upward trend could be an early indication of more trouble to come in 2026. Yet, there seems to be a lack of expert analysis for this increase in foreclosures. Otherwise reliable property data sites, like ATTOM, are simply calling this recent increase in foreclosures a “market correction” or “normalization” of foreclosure filings. The ATTOM article noted above lays out its reasoning about rising mortgage foreclosures: The increase reflects a continued normalization of foreclosure activity following the historically low levels seen during and immediately after the pandemic period. While filings have risen, foreclosure activity remains well below levels recorded during the housing crisis, with strong homeowner equity, tighter lending standards, and ongoing housing demand continuing to limit widespread homeowner distress…Despite these increases, overall foreclosure activity remains far below the levels seen during the housing crisis, suggesting the current rise reflects a normalization process rather than widespread homeowner distress. What this piece fails to mention is “during and immediately after the pandemic period”, there was a national foreclosure moratorium of federally-backed mortgages in place, so of course there were historically low levels of home foreclosures during the pandemic. The same occurred during the housing crisis of the Great Recession, when there was not only a very short foreclosure moratorium, there also was an extensive federal program in place (HAMP) to help those who fell behind in their mortgage payments stay in their homes. Once HAMP fully kicked in a year or two after it was initiated, foreclosure rates dropped considerably. Is it a valid comparison to say that today’s soaring foreclosure rates aren’t really so bad because the rates are still much lower than during a time of near economic collapse? Is it accepted thinking that banks naturally will “correct” a temporary downturn in home foreclosures which occurred during two national crises by ramping up foreclosures years later? While the data on mortgage foreclosures are no doubt correct, the analyses fail to mention the cost to the individual and to our country, of hundreds of thousands of people losing their homes—the cost of the trauma, shame and continuing economic hardship of hardworking Americans whose paychecks can’t meet the rising price of everything. ———————————————— Please share your thoughts on the steady increase in foreclosures in the U.S., and how we should handle it. Should there be another foreclosure moratorium, given the massive increase in the cost of everything, the elimination of the health care subsidies, the war? Is it good thinking to compare this increase in home foreclosures to, say, the pandemic when there was a moratorium on foreclosures? We will all benefit from your ideas, so please leave a comment below! The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Poverty Trap at povertytrap.substack.com/subscribe

    14 min

  6. FEB 26

    The Power Of Song

    Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to individually and collectively make change. Thinking about subscribing? Here’s what one “founding member” subscriber recently had to say about The Poverty Trap: “You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B. ___________________________ We often forget that music is more than a means of deriving pleasure. In every generation of protest, music has played a key role in defining injustice, the struggle for equality, and the desire for peace. National Women’s History Museum My last post, Power Of The People: Political Protest Then And Now, talks briefly about America’s history of political protest and provides both historical and very recent examples of how people coming together to protest publicly and peacefully can make their opinions heard by the elected officials who represent them and us. It is literally the most powerful tool we the people have to affect change in our personal lives, our community and our country. Yet there is another element, when joined with public protest, that adds an exponential impact to our power. And that element is music—songs that tell a story and push back against government policies and laws we disagree with, and even stop violence perpetrated by our government against neighbors, friends and family. Music is the emotional connection between the people and the cause. One example is folk music, which has been long associated with protest movements in the United States, from its earliest beginning in the late 18th century, to its “revival” after the Depression, through the 1960’s and 1970’s, and straight to today. Acoustic singer-songwriters in the folk music tradition remain the voice of outreach and protest. Listen to what is considered one of the best folk songs, written and performed by Woody Guthrie: And Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind” is right up there with the best. Here it’s performed by Peter Paul and Mary at The March On Washington, 1963…with a bit of commentary from the singers. And here’s a very recent tribute to folk music and protest—a segment on CBS Sunday Morning featuring the singer Jesse Welles, titled “Keeping the spirit of American folk music alive”. This cool, young guy from Arkansas is quickly becoming a national treasure. Let’s not forget the powerful force of Black spirituals and Gospel music to rouse emotions and move people to tears and to action. Listen to Mahalia Jackson sing two hymns at The March on Washington, 1963: ————————— Today we have rousing music from Minnesota community members, who call themselves the “Singing Resistance”, and who were profiled by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Hear them lead protestors in song: And then there is The Boss. A likely billion fans world-wide, including me, are just plain lucky he never quits. Springsteen wrote this anthem to honor two slain American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and to salute the remarkable citizens of Minnesota. In fact, Springsteen just announced a 20 arena/stadium tour across the country, starting in Minneapolis, Minnesota called “ The Land of Hope and Dreams Tour”. For now, peaceful public protest (along with protest songs) against ICE and this Administration’s policies are working, at least in Minneapolis. Listen to “Border Czar” Tom Homan announce ICE’s withdrawal from Minnesota—Hallelujah! https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-border-czar-tom-homan-holds-news-conference-in-minneapolis. See also Axios story on ICE withdrawal: https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2026/02/12/trump-ice-metro-surge-ends-minneapolis ———————————————————— Let me know your thoughts on the power of music, lyrics and singers to propel protest movements. Did any of you fight the good fight to nab Springsteen tickets? What do you think of ICE’s withdrawal from Minnesota? All comments are welcome below—thanks! And if you have an extra moment, please “Like” and “Restack” this post—it will give The Poverty Trap and me a boost! The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Poverty Trap at povertytrap.substack.com/subscribe

    9 min

  7. FEB 11

    Power Of The People

    Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to individually and collectively make change. Thinking about subscribing? Here’s what one “founding member” subscriber recently had to say about The Poverty Trap: “You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B. One Big Thing: Peaceful, public protests are the single most powerful tool a democratic republic has to affect change. __________________________ In 2026, the American people are demanding our government keep its “Hands Off!” our people, streets and places of business in even greater numbers since last April 5, when the first “Hands Off!” National Day of Action rally was held in Washington, D.C. and in over 1200 other locations across the country. The protests were organized by Indivisible, MoveOn, and Third Act, which led over 150 groups, like civil rights organizations, labor unions, climate activists, veterans groups, Planned Parenthood and the American Federation of Teachers in protest against President Trump’s policies, including Elon Musk’s “DOGE’ and its random firings of hundreds of thousands of federal workers. Organizers estimated that nearly 5 million people in all 50 states and more in other countries marched and chanted in protest that spring day. NPR put together photos of the rallies from across the country here, and it is inspiring. Less than a year later, millions more Americans have taken to our streets to show their displeasure with President Trump’s unprecedented and often illegal, actions and policies enacted in his second term. The two “No Kings” rallies —the first on June 14, 2025, drew more than 5 million protesters, and the second gathered nearly 7 million people in rallies across the country. According to Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible, and one of the organizers of both the “Hands Off!” and “No Kings” rallies, the third “No Kings” rally is planned for March 28, 2026, and is in response to the: “secret police force terrorizing American communities.” He expects at least 9 million people for this third spring effort, but I think we’ll soon be talking much larger numbers given ICEs killing of 2 American citizens in Minneapolis, and the massive, near-constant protests in sub-zero weather by thousands of brave Minnesotans. We can’t assume, though, that most or even many Americans are aware of these current rallies against the Trump Administration, or even that our right to peaceably protest our government’s words and actions is written into our constitution. People across the country, both those who vote and those who do not, simply don’t have the time or make the time to stay informed about politics and other news stories that don’t directly affect them. I personally know formally educated and intelligent citizens who think it’s unseemly, or perhaps unnecessary, to take to the streets and question our government’s actions. But when masked, armed men show up by the thousands in their city, rip people out of their cars or shoot citizens dead on their street corners, they look up, get angry and then, well, publicly protest—not just in the communities where this violence is happening, but across the country and the world. How would you feel if you saw this scene in your community? Why It Matters: Because our constitution and the rule of law matter. We the people are our government, and when our government goes astray, tries from the top down to destroy itself, it is only the collective voice of the people that will stop its implosion. According to Britannica, “The following graphic and table highlight the largest protests in U.S. history; each marks a significant moment of collective political and social activism. The key word describing this graphic is “collective”. “…collective political and social activism.” When Americans show up in the millions to protest government policies, we usually prompt change. And today, we can document injustice ourselves with video and photo devices we carry in our pockets, giving evidence to our collective presence . Still photos of injustice, particularly those captured by professional photo journalists, remain as powerful as ever, despite today’s crucial cell phone documentation by private citizens. These two photos are particularly important to me because each captures moments of protestors’ incredible bravery . Incidentally, here is the First Amendment to our constitution in full, courtesy of Congress.gov. First Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Congress also provides annotations to help explain every section of the constitution—there’s no excuse for not having a basic working knowledge of a pretty great piece of writing…is there? —————————————— First, which of the largest single-day protests listed in the Britannica chart above do you think had the most impact, regardless of numbers of people attending? How do you feel about public protests in general, taking to the streets in a collective challenge to government authority? Have your thoughts changed about protests in the last few months? I’d love for you to share your thoughts with me and our readers in the Comment Section below: The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Poverty Trap at povertytrap.substack.com/subscribe

    14 min

  8. JAN 20

    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Today's Political Climate...

    This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thank you! And a hearty “thank you” to my latest free and paid subscribers—I appreciate your support! I’m reposting below, The Poverty Trap’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute from last year that included several past years of tributes to Dr. King. There’s always more to read and learn about this man’s incredible life and legacy, so I’m including a few new writings and stories I discovered in the last few days. — The New Yorker is celebrating its 100th year, and periodically publishes memorable articles from its archive. In the latest issue, it re-published an article from 1987, the second year America celebrated the King federal holiday. The author, Jonathan Schell, visited a second grade class in Manhattan to hear what youngsters had to say about Dr. King. One young student named Ian nailed it: “He didn’t fight with fists. He fought with words and stuff”… https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/02/school-holiday-martin-luther-king-jr — Today’s Fresh Air on NPR discusses “How racism costs everyone” and explores a question researched by Heather McGhee: “Why do so many Americans believe that progress for one group means loss for another? https://www.npr.org/2026/01/19/nx-s1-5680178/how-racism-costs-everyone ———————————— JOAN DEMARTIN FEB 01, 2025 This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thank you! And a hearty “thank you” to my latest free and paid subscribers—I appreciate your support! Photo Credit: Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking in Cobol Hall, Detroit, June 23, 1963. Read and listen to the full speech, here. “The price that this nation must pay for the continued oppression and exploitation of the Negro or any other minority group is the price of its own destruction. For the hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out, and we must act now before it is too late….” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., June 23, 1963. Is the United States heading toward its “own destruction”? I originally planned to share my previous three posts published on MLK, Jr. Day with some additional current commentary, and closer to the actual date of Martin Luther King Day on January 20, 2025. But the timing this year coincided with President Trump’s inauguration and his flurry of shocking (but not unexpected) executive orders. Given the statements of the current president on “DEI” and race made in just the last few days, I’m glad this tribute to Dr. King is published belatedly on February 1— a more auspicious day for Black history than I realized. According to a post published today by the historian, Heather Cox Richardson , President Gerald Ford officially proclaimed February 1, 1976, the first Black History Month: “… asking the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Also on this day in 2023, the family of Tyre Nichols buried their 29 year old son after he was severely beaten by police during a traffic stop. Ms.Richardson closed her post with this alarming information: In 2025 the U.S. government under President Donald Trump has revoked a 60-year-old executive order that protected equal opportunity in employment and has called for an end to all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. This February 1, neither the Pentagon nor the State Department will recognize Black History Month. [Emphasis added] After ordering all federal agencies to immediately end their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) polices during the first few days of his presidency, Donald Trump held a press conference the day after the D.C. plane crash on January 29, and with out knowing what caused the tragic accident, blamed it on President Obama, President Biden and their “insistence” on hiring a diverse workforce, including women, people of color and the disabled, and singled out the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) for its supposed hiring of more diverse workers, thus making flying less safe: Of the F.A.A. under Mr. Obama, Mr. Trump said: “They actually came out with a directive, too white.” At another point he quoted from the website of the F.A.A., which he said indicated that the agency was looking to hire people with disabilities, including “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism,” and said that they “all qualified for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country.” The fact is that every applicant for any federal job must meet the standards and qualifications written for that position. President Trump didn’t just imply that non-white employees made flying less safe, he said so directly: Asked directly how he came to the conclusion that diversity had something to do with the crash, Mr. Trump replied, “because I have common sense.” President Trump also is reversing the policies of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, “which was established by the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination against all people in the United States, with a focus on vulnerable groups”. According to recent reporting by NBC news: Former Justice Department officials and advocates told NBC News they expect the new administration to swiftly carry out sweeping reversals of most major Biden administration civil rights policies. Already, the Trump-run department has issued a memo freezing all action in civil rights cases, including filings and settlements, and withdrawn from multiple cases filed during the Biden administration. These actions do not simply reflect a change in a different administration’s policies, but actually change the clear meaning and intent of the Civil Rights Act, itself. And with that context, you may want to have a read or re-read of my past posts published to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — Last year I focused on MLK, Jr. and poverty. “ ‘There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will.’ MLK, Jr. in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture presented December 11, 1964, where he addresses the failure to end poverty.” Martin Luther King, Jr. and Poverty JOAN DEMARTIN · JANUARY 24, 2024 Read full story — In 2023, I discussed MLK Jr.’s focus on the importance of public service. “I’m also not particularly thrilled to join the chorus of those who extoll his virtues on this one day in January, the approximate day of his birth, 94 years ago on January 15, 1929. And I can’t help but remember those many members of Congress who fought against marking the day of his birth with a national holiday and a day of service to our nation. It took nearly two decades of marches, petitions and Congressional wrangling for President Reagan to finally sign the bill into law in 1983, and the first MLK Day was not celebrated until the third Monday of January, 1986.” The Spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. JOAN DEMARTIN · JANUARY 16, 2023 Read full story — In 2022, I wrote about MLK, Jr.’s push for a universal basic income to eliminate poverty. “In 1967, Dr. King wrote what was to be his final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, in which he laid out his plan for a guaranteed income for all citizens, and reiterated this idea later that year as part of his address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. JOAN DEMARTIN · JANUARY 20, 2022 “I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.” Read full story ___________________________________ Leave your thoughts on the latest updates, previous posts, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and how his ideas contrast with our current administration’s new “policies” on race…or any other relevant ideas you would like to share in the Comment Section below. The Poverty Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Poverty Trap at povertytrap.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min
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About

A Podcast for those who are fed up with the inequality baked into America's system and want to collectively make change. povertytrap.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Joan DeMartin
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    133
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Joan DeMartin
  • Show Website
    The Poverty Trap