Poverty

Indiana American Water Granted New Rates by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) yesterday issued an order approving base rate adjustments on a statewide basis for Indiana American Water following a comprehensive 11-month review process.

Key Points: 
  • The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) yesterday issued an order approving base rate adjustments on a statewide basis for Indiana American Water following a comprehensive 11-month review process.
  • “By making prudent, ongoing investments to maintain and upgrade our water and wastewater systems, Indiana American Water is committed to providing safe, clean, reliable and affordable water service and fire protection capabilities,” said Indiana American Water President Matt Prine.
  • The change will allow Indiana American Water to provide low-cost basic water service for customers on fixed incomes that use a lower volume of water than the typical residential customer.
  • For tips on how to reduce your water bill by conserving water, visit our Wise Water Use page at https://www.amwater.com/inaw/Water-Wastewater-Information/wise-water-use .

Trauma-informed approaches to discipline matter for equitable and safe schooling

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

Yet the disproportionate application of school discipline for Black and Indigenous students remains a significant concern.

Key Points: 
  • Yet the disproportionate application of school discipline for Black and Indigenous students remains a significant concern.
  • We found there is very little research on the relationship between childhood adversities and school discipline.
  • Additional research — particularly from Canada — would provide schools with the knowledge necessary for evidence-based, trauma-informed and culturally attuned approaches to school discipline.

Lack of attention to adversity, trauma

  • Trauma is the negative impact that can happen when exposed to adversity, while adversity is a potentially traumatizing event or the absence of healthy stimulus.
  • While trauma and adversity are related, adversity does not always lead to trauma.

Disproportion in school discipline

  • Research shows that school discipline is disproportionately applied to students who are Black, Indigenous, male, have identified special education needs or live in lower-resourced areas.
  • Considerable research about the disproportionate use of discipline affecting Black communities exists from the United States, with less attention to Indigenous communities.
  • Researchers in other regions have documented how racism against Indigenous and Black students affects students’ school engagement or attendance.

Discipline affects opportunities

  • Time away from school through out-of-school discipline is a barrier to academic success.
  • This affects opportunities for post-secondary education and ultimately who has access to power, money and resources.

Research on adversity or trauma and discipline

  • In our article “Exposure to Adversity and Trauma Among Students Who Experience School Discipline: A Scoping Review” we detail how we searched for and analyzed articles about school discipline and trauma or adversity.
  • This research showed experiences of adversity or trauma play a significant and potentially contributing role in school discipline, including suspension and expulsion.

Canadian research matters

  • Context matters when studying school discipline.
  • This followed the province’s 2006 legislation that students remain in school to age 18.
  • In Ontario, the rate of suspension decreased from 4.32 per cent of students in 2007/08 to 2.23 per cent in 2022.

‘Safe and Caring Schools’

  • Zero-Tolerance policies are still active across many U.S. school districts.
  • Ontario students on long-term suspension or expulsion are now offered programs run through “Safe and Caring Schools” in every school board.
  • These supports enable connection with students and a different approach with students who appear to be coping with trauma.

Expulsions still disproportionate

  • To understand this disproportion and to develop effective policy and practice it is critical for educators in Canada to have more contextual knowledge.
  • Educators who have not experienced or been educated about adversity may not account for or recognize students who are coping with adversity.

Acknowledging adversity

  • This is noteworthy given research identifying the disproportionate application of school discipline among non-white students, and the school-to-prison pipeline.
  • Read more:
    Ontario can close students’ access and opportunity gaps with community-led projects

    When researchers don’t identify expanded forms of adversity like racism and poverty, they are less likely to be recognized.


The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Minister Khera welcomes first Annual Report from Canada's Chief Accessibility Officer

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

Today, in the House of Commons, the Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities, Kamal Khera, tabled the first Annual Report from Canada's Chief Accessibility Officer (CAO), Stephanie Cadieux.

Key Points: 
  • Today, in the House of Commons, the Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities, Kamal Khera, tabled the first Annual Report from Canada's Chief Accessibility Officer (CAO), Stephanie Cadieux.
  • "This first Annual Report from the Chief Accessibility Officer is a milestone moment for the Government of Canada and our implementation of the Accessible Canada Act.
  • Stephanie Cadieux was appointed as Canada's first Chief Accessibility Officer in May 2022.
  • More than 100 accessibility organizations and 6,000 Canadians shared their views and ideas about an accessible Canada.

Acid attacks are a form of violence against women – the law needs to treat them as such

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

Sadly, acid attacks like this are not isolated incidents.

Key Points: 
  • Sadly, acid attacks like this are not isolated incidents.
  • Over the last 15 years, they have been on the rise across the world, including in the UK.
  • Those who target a victim’s face in particular aim to maim and disfigure, but not necessarily kill, their target.

Acid attacks as gendered violence

  • But what is often left out of the discussion is that it is a form of gendered violence that mainly targets women.
  • While acid attacks are perpetrated against both men and women, the vast majority of victims – 80% globally – are women, and the majority of perpetrators are male.
  • As a specialist in criminal justice responses to violence against women and girls, I have provided expert evidence in UK courts on the cultural contexts at play in cases of gender-based violence, including acid attacks.
  • Acid attacks remain common in India and the rest of South Asia, despite bans on the sale of acid over the counter.

How the law ignores violence against women

  • Although few acid attacks result in death, the intention to disfigure the victim permanently can still lead to a murder charge.
  • A number of UK women have reported not being taken seriously by police when they report threats of acid attacks.
  • Acid violence against women usually does not happen out of the blue.
  • This starts by acknowledging that these are not just horrific, random attacks – they are very often targeted violence against women.


Aisha K. Gill is affiliated with the End Violence Against Women Coalition

ICONIQ Impact Announces Grantees of $56M Collaborative Philanthropy Fund to Advance Long-Term Economic Mobility for Underserved Young People in the United States

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

NEW YORK, Feb. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, ICONIQ Impact—ICONIQ Capital's global platform for collaborative philanthropy—announced the 16 grantees of the Education & Economic Mobility Co-Lab. The Co-Lab is a $56 million philanthropic fund supporting organizations that are working to close the opportunity gap in the United States by: (1) providing more equitable career pathways for marginalized young people, (2) supporting mental health to spur academic and professional success, and (3) equipping underserved families with social, educational, and professional support.

Key Points: 
  • ICONIQ Impact's Education & Economic Mobility Co-Lab is supporting 16 organizations that are addressing the urgent challenges and persistent historical inequities that hinder economic mobility in the United States.
  • NEW YORK, Feb. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, ICONIQ Impact —ICONIQ Capital's global platform for collaborative philanthropy—announced the 16 grantees of the Education & Economic Mobility Co-Lab .
  • COVID-19 exacerbated these grave inequities, and it's against this backdrop that philanthropists in the ICONIQ Impact community came together to launch the Education & Economic Mobility Co-Lab.
  • Philanthropists interested in learning more about or providing additional funding for the Education & Economic Mobility Co-Lab should contact ICONIQ Impact at [email protected] .

Ghana’s new vehicle tax aims to tackle pollution – expert unpacks how it’ll work and suggests reforms

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

It’s only the third African country to introduce an explicit carbon tax, after South Africa and Mauritius.

Key Points: 
  • It’s only the third African country to introduce an explicit carbon tax, after South Africa and Mauritius.
  • The tax is intended to address harm associated with vehicle emissions.

Why is the government taxing emissions?

  • The proposed vehicle emissions tax under the Emissions Levy Act, 2023 is one of several environmental fiscal reform measures being introduced by the government.
  • Environmental tax reform aims to shift the burden of taxation to environmentally damaging activities, such as pollution.
  • Ghana’s government believes the vehicle emissions tax is a more cost-effective and equitable way to make sure the polluter pays, prevent harm and protect the public.

What has been done so far to reduce air pollution?

  • In 2021, the government introduced a sanitation and pollution levy on petrol and diesel under the Energy Sector Levies Act to raise revenue to improve air quality, among other goals.
  • The levy accrued GHS452 million (US$55 million) in 2022.
  • These measures weren’t well designed from a tax policy point of view as they were not tied to actual vehicular emissions.

How should an emissions tax work and how does the new tax work?

  • Ideally, the tax should be based on the actual carbon dioxide and other pollutant emissions from a vehicle, measured in grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
  • Each car owner would pay an annual tax for the amount of CO₂ their car emits above that threshold.
  • The tailpipe emissions test would be done during the annual roadworthiness check by Ghana’s Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority.

What are the objections to the tax and can they be accommodated?

  • There is also no clear plan for what the tax will be used for after it is collected.
  • Several critics, especially in the manufacturing and transport sector, say there are already too many taxes.
  • But the government is under pressure to raise domestic revenue as part of its International Monetary Fund conditionalities.

How does Ghana’s tax compare with others in Africa?

  • For example South Africa introduced a carbon emissions tax on vehicles in 2010.
  • A 2018 study indicated that South Africa’s CO₂ emissions tax had failed to influence which new cars consumers were buying.
  • Ghana’s proposed emissions tax for vehicles up to 3 litre engine capacity is not unreasonable when benchmarked to South Africa’s.

Can the tax be implemented and will it meet its objectives?

  • The existing sanitation and pollution levy must first be scrapped and replaced with the vehicle emissions tax.
  • The tax bands should conform to emission standards set by the Ghana Standards Authority and the vehicle licensing authority.
  • Having both the sanitation and pollution levy and vehicle emissions tax operating at the same time amounts to double taxation.

What is the tax collection picture in Ghana?

  • Ghana tax collection is currently around 14% of GDP.
  • Its aim is to get to 18% by 2028, comparable with its peers such as Senegal, Namibia, Togo and Rwanda.


Theophilus Acheampong is affiliated with the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education in Accra, Ghana. He has also consulted for the Government of Ghana on environmental fiscal reform in a private capacity.

Students lose out as cities and states give billions in property tax breaks to businesses − draining school budgets and especially hurting the poorest students

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

Bubbling paint mars some walls, evidence of the water leaks spreading inside the aging building.

Key Points: 
  • Bubbling paint mars some walls, evidence of the water leaks spreading inside the aging building.
  • “It’s living history,” said Mayes during a mid-September tour of the building.

Property tax redirect

  • The lack of funds is a direct result of the property tax breaks that Kansas City lavishes on companies and developers that do business there.
  • Between 2017 and 2023, the Kansas City school district lost $237.3 million through tax abatements.
  • An estimated 95% of U.S. cities provide economic development tax incentives to woo corporate investors.
  • Tax abatement programs have long been controversial, pitting states and communities against one another in beggar-thy-neighbor contests.
  • All told, tax abatements can end up harming a community’s value, with constant funding shortfalls creating a cycle of decline.

Incentives, payoffs and guarantees

  • Incumbent governors have used the incentives as a means of taking credit for job creation, even when the jobs were coming anyway.
  • Fairleigh Jackson pointed out that her daughter’s East Baton Rouge third grade class lacks access to playground equipment.
  • The temporary site has some grass and a cement slab where kids can play, but no playground equipment, Jackson said.
  • “When I think about playground equipment, I think that’s a necessary piece of child development,” Jackson said.
  • The city has two bodies that dole them out: the Development Authority of Fulton County, or DAFC, and Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development agency.
  • The deals handed out by the two agencies have drained $103.8 million from schools from fiscal 2017 to 2022, according to Atlanta school system financial statements.
  • What exactly Atlanta and other cities and states are accomplishing with tax abatement programs is hard to discern.
  • Under city and state tax abatement programs, companies that used to be in Kansas City have since relocated.

Trouble in Philadelphia

  • On Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023, an environmental team was preparing Southwark School in Philadelphia for the winter cold.
  • While checking an attic fan, members of the team saw loose dust on top of flooring that contained asbestos.
  • Within a day, Southwark was closed – the seventh Philadelphia school temporarily shuttered since the previous academic year because of possible asbestos contamination.
  • A 2019 inspection of the John L Kinsey school in Philadelphia found asbestos in plaster walls, floor tiles, radiator insulation and electrical panels.
  • The study estimated that a 21.7% increase could eliminate the high school graduation gap faced by children from low-income families.
  • The same researchers found that spending increases were associated with reductions in student-to-teacher ratios, increases in teacher salaries and longer school years.
  • Other studies yielded similar results: School funding matters, especially for children already suffering the harms of poverty.
  • For families in school districts with the lost tax revenues, their neighbors’ good fortune likely comes as little solace.
  • Throughout the U.S., parents with the power to do so demand special arrangements, such as selective schools or high-track enclaves that hire experienced, fully prepared teachers.
  • If demands aren’t met, they leave the district’s public schools for private schools or for the suburbs.
  • Some parents even organize to splinter their more advantaged, and generally whiter, neighborhoods away from the larger urban school districts.

Rethinking in Philadelphia and Riverhead

  • A school serving students who endure housing and food insecurity must dedicate resources toward children’s basic needs and trauma.
  • But districts serving more low-income students spend less per student on average, and almost half the states have regressive funding structures.
  • Facing dwindling resources for schools, several cities have begun to rethink their tax exemption programs.
  • The Philadelphia City Council recently passed a scale-back on a 10-year property tax abatement by decreasing the percentage of the subsidy over that time.

Kansas City border politics


Like many cities, Kansas City has a long history of segregation, white flight and racial redlining, said Kathleen Pointer, senior policy strategist for Kansas City Public Schools.

  • Meanwhile, Kansas City is still distributing 20-year tax abatements to companies and developers for projects.
  • Developers typically have plans in place when they knock on our door.” In Kansas City, several agencies administer tax incentives, allowing developers to shop around to different bodies to receive one.
  • “That was a moment for Kansas City Public Schools where we really drew a line in the sand and talked about incentives as an equity issue,” Pointer said.
  • After the district raised the issue – tying the incentives to systemic racism – the City Council rejected BlueScope’s bid and, three years later, it’s still in Kansas City, fully on the tax rolls, she said.
  • Recently, a multifamily housing project was approved for a 20-year tax abatement by the Port Authority of Kansas City at Country Club Plaza, an outdoor shopping center in an affluent part of the city.
  • All told, the Kansas City Public Schools district faces several shortfalls beyond the $400 million in deferred maintenance, Superintendent Jennifer Collier said.

East Baton Rouge and the industrial corridor


It’s impossible to miss the tanks, towers, pipes and industrial structures that incongruously line Baton Rouge’s Scenic Highway landscape. They’re part of Exxon Mobil Corp.’s campus, home of the oil giant’s refinery in addition to chemical and plastics plants.

  • The company posted a record-breaking $55.7 billion in profits in 2022 and $36 billion in 2023.
  • A mile drive down the street to Route 67 is a Dollar General, fast-food restaurants, and tiny, rundown food stores.
  • East Baton Rouge Parish’s McKinley High School, a 12-minute drive from the refinery, serves a student body that is about 80% Black and 85% poor.
  • The experience is starkly different at some of the district’s more advantaged schools, including its magnet programs open to high-performing students.
  • Baton Rouge is a tale of two cities, with some of the worst outcomes in the state for education, income and mortality, and some of the best outcomes.
  • “It was only separated by sometimes a few blocks,” said Edgar Cage, the lead organizer for the advocacy group Together Baton Rouge.
  • “Underserved kids don’t have a path forward” in East Baton Rouge public schools, Cage said.
  • “Baton Rouge is home to some of the highest performing schools in the state,” according to the report.

Louisiana’s executive order

  • John Bel Edwards signed an executive order that slightly but importantly tweaked the system.
  • On top of the state board vote, the order gave local taxing bodies – such as school boards, sheriffs and parish or city councils – the ability to vote on their own individual portions of the tax exemptions.
  • And in 2019 the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board exercised its power to vote down an abatement.
  • Edwards’ executive order also capped the maximum exemption at 80% and tightened the rules so routine capital investments and maintenance were no longer eligible, Hansen said.
  • In 2019, the campaign worked: the school board rejected a $2.9 million property tax break bid by Exxon Mobil.
  • In fact, according to Hansen, loopholes were created during the rulemaking process around the governor’s executive order that allowed companies to weaken its effectiveness.
  • By receiving tax exemptions, Exxon Mobil was taking money from her salary to deepen their pockets, she said.
  • Christine Wen worked for the nonprofit organization Good Jobs First from June 2019 to May 2022 where she helped collect tax abatement data.
  • Nathan Jensen has received funding from the John and Laura Arnold Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

Ahead of a major global election year, populism remains strong

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

Ahead of a major global election year, populism remains strong

Key Points: 
  • Ahead of a major global election year, populism remains strong
    Paris, February 15th, 2024 - Ipsos , one of the world's leading market research companies, releases a study across 28 countries highlighting the strength of populism in these countries.
  • In a significant election year, 63% of people on average across 28 countries1 believe their country needs “a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”.
  • Similarly, Ipsos’ Global Trends study finds that 74% fear their government will not provide enough support in the future.
  • The sample in India consists of approximately 2,200 individuals, of whom approximately 1,800 were interviewed face-to-face and 400 were interviewed online.

Daughters of Zion's Homeless Food Truck Launches' War Against Hunger and Homelessness' in Shelby County, Tennessee

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, February 14, 2024

The renowned fighting poverty organization, Daughters of Zion, created the Homeless Food Truck with the purpose of curtailing hunger in their community by using the bait and switch method.

Key Points: 
  • The renowned fighting poverty organization, Daughters of Zion, created the Homeless Food Truck with the purpose of curtailing hunger in their community by using the bait and switch method.
  • The original Daughters of Zion Homeless Food Truck is a Mercedes Benz Sprinter Van food truck with a commercially integrated kitchen that was once meant to serve food to the affluent clients of billionaire investor Marc Lore.
  • While currently operating throughout Shelby County, Tennessee, the Daughters of Zion Homeless Food Truck plans to expand across America to help provide no-cost meals to homeless children and adults in cities with the highest concentration of homeless individuals.
  • To help fight hunger and homelessness, please call the Daughters of Zion Homeless Food Truck helpline at 901-570-3220 or visit us at www.homelessfoodtruck.com

Duane R. Anderson, MD, FAAOS, Receives American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons' Humanitarian Award

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, February 14, 2024

The Humanitarian Award honors members of the AAOS who have distinguished themselves through outstanding musculoskeletal-related humanitarian activities in the United States or abroad.

Key Points: 
  • The Humanitarian Award honors members of the AAOS who have distinguished themselves through outstanding musculoskeletal-related humanitarian activities in the United States or abroad.
  • In 2005, Dr. Anderson departed from a successful orthopaedic practice in Idaho to relocate to Soddo, Ethiopia.
  • There he serves as the chief of orthopaedic surgery at Soddo Christian Hospital, a setting where the demand for orthopaedic care is great.
  • I want to thank AAOS again for the award, and God and my dear wife for helping me the last 18 years."