A Reflection on the Gig Economy
I am no stranger to the gig economy. I have relied on it from time to time to supplement the income from my small business.... Read More
The Work to Be Done This Labor Day
On Labor Day 2018, it’s hard to maintain hope. Many will labor on Labor Day (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Growing up in a... Read More
Happy Day Before Payday!
While summer 2018 has been a scorcher, the high for February 1st and 2nd made it to 11º in Kari Fisher’s hometown in Minnesota, and single... Read More
Poverty Constrains Your Wardrobe – and You
I will always remember December 2013. It was a particularly cold winter, and downtown Los Gatos was in the low 30s. My friend Jane rented... Read More
Weighing Every Cost: A Genteel Poverty
I am the youngest of 10 siblings. My dad built a successful plumbing business, bought his own shop and employed a few helpers at the... Read More
Why Do You Want to Be Poor?
Growing up poor on Long Island builds character. While trying to balance personal responsibilities with maintaining a GPA high enough to make myself a competitive... Read More
A Total Commitment to First Gen Students
Instead of a program located in one department, Mount Holyoke provides a dynamic, collaborative initiative focused on ensuring that the august institution is meeting the... Read More
Feel the FLoW
Throughout my first years of college, I couldn’t help but notice I was different than my peers. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but... Read More
Malnourishment: A Case Study on U.S. Food Insecurity
The final report of the 1996 World Food Summit states that food security “exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access... Read More
Andy’s Story: Class and Homelessness
Before the year 2004, the word “classism” was not in my vocabulary. As a music teacher at a prestigious private elementary school and a private... Read More
Environmental Classism/Racism and the Sides of Human Rights
On November 29th, Boston City Council unanimously passed a plastic bag ordinance that aims to reduce our reliance on disposable plastic bags. Stores will charge... Read More
What Happens When Degrees Aren’t Enough?
Being a first generation college student often feels like being perpetually caught between two or more worlds. Many of us learn that we must... Read More
Trump’s Presidency: What We Deserve
Type “Trump voters deserve” into your search bar, and the two suggestions that pop up are “Trump voters deserve what they get” and “Trump voters... Read More
The Poverty Catch-22
The High Costs of Destitution Cause a Vicious Cycle Nothing is more infuriating than the ill-informed critique that “the haves” like to lob at “the... Read More
Gig Economy Hustle
I stare through wild green houseplants out my bedroom window. A robot voice over the phone guides me through my student loan servicer’s menu. “Lower... Read More
At the Center of Giving
Philanthropy has an inherent obligation to place marginalized communities at the center of giving. It’s no secret that in the world of charitable giving strings... Read More
Beyond Trump: Creating Class-Race Alliances
Part of the White, Working Class, and Worried about Trump (#WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump) Campaign*: I grew up in economically depressed, though beautiful, northeastern Vermont. My family was on... Read More
My Summers on the Cape
Working, Not “Summering,” on Martha’s Vineyard Summer rolling around means vacations for many. But for others it means seasonal migration to restaurant and hospitality work.... Read More
Brexit – A Class Issue
Two weeks on, a lot of progressive people in Britain are still in deep shock or fury or despair – or alternating rapidly between all three... Read More
Choosing Not to Go Into Debt for College
Nicole Brown wrote the following after reading, and being so affected by, last month’s (May 2016) Classism Exposed blog post on the possibility that students are deciding not to... Read More
Avoiding Loans at Any Cost
Recently, community college students in a class taught by Classism Exposed contributor L.A. Kurth (see her note at the bottom of the post) responded to... Read More
Forgoing College to Forgo Debt
In education, we are headed toward a perfect storm. Increasingly large numbers of capable students are so afraid of incurring debt that they are deciding... Read More
Crowdfunding as Community
Crowdfunding, a type of online fundraising where many people come together to contribute small amounts of money to fund a larger project, is happening now... Read More
When Pregnancy Is the Biggest Scare
Stephanie Jones, writing in Class Lives, says, “But poor girls are so strapped by their finances, we can’t imagine a pregnancy: the furniture needed, time... Read More
Work It, Girl
Sister, I see you. I see you, with your shitty paycheck I see you, with your kids, your bills, your debt, your dreams I see... Read More
Health Class
There is a wealth of data that tells us that class is a huge determinant of your health. This information is critical for policy change.... Read More
Health Equity: What’s Working
We have lots of ways to measure what’s not working in the United States. We can quickly pull the latest numbers that track growing inequalities... Read More
To Advisors of First Gen Students: Tell the Truth
I can still vividly remember my first days on campus as a first generation, first gen, college student. How lush and expansive if felt in... Read More
White People with Money: Class, Free Markets & Race in Medicine
Medical ethics state that everyone be treated equally, but the pressures of the free market and individual prejudices often bend that ethic. Part of the... Read More
We need more than holiday charity to reduce income inequality
The holidays are a time of joy for many. They are when families celebrate being together with loved ones, workplaces honor the accomplishments of employees,... Read More
Spare Some Change? Institutional Change Must Be Guided By Leadership Who Listen
Many years ago, I worked in a shelter that served chronically homeless women. My organization focused on supporting the rights and self-determination of our clients... Read More
How the non-homeless talk about homeless people
I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was this bad! I had a chance to ask over 500 people to write down... Read More
Broke vs. “Broke” vs. Broken
Nicole Brown’s blog post, “Broke vs. ‘Broke’,” explains one of the many ways class identity affects the college experience, especially in graduate school. Everyone I... Read More
Broke vs. “Broke”: Bothered by Humble Brags
This summer, I had a “stay-cation,” meaning I stayed put in DC where I moved last year to attend grad school. My “stay-cation” was awful,... Read More
Through the Front Door
In recent news, New York City council members revealed that a new Manhattan high-rise, in which 20% of the units will be reserved for subsidized... Read More
SOTU: Quick reactions to class themes in President’s speech
Half of Americans are working-class or poor, yet all I heard about in the State of the Union address was the middle class, and now... Read More
Destroying Labor Law in the “Sharing Economy”
Many a magazine, including the usually liberal New Yorker, has gone ga-ga about Taskrabbit, AirBnB, Elance, and other new companies that in one fell swoop... Read More
Becoming “The Others”
There are so many ways to suddenly become disabled – a fall, a virus gone rogue, bike accident, stroke, tick bite, infection that causes blindness... Read More
Tell Congress to End Child Poverty – Support the RISE and WORK Acts
The Global Women’s Strike, Women of Color in the Global Women’s Strike and the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network and more than two... Read More
Linking Voting Rights Act with gay marriage
This week the Supreme Court made two widely publicized decisions (and one non-decision). In one, the court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).... Read More
Race and Class: The more we get together the stronger we are
Labor unions, welfare rights campaigns, and the fight for pay equity are historical struggles for justice that have impacted the shape of the wealth distribution... Read More
Poem: White Trash Beaner (to my 11-year-old confused self)
Grama says I’m Indian. Mama says my dad was “a Mexican” and that if he really loved me like “Mexican daddies do” he woulda found... Read More
Need vs. Greed: Greed Wins
I’ve been interviewing people and carrying out research lately on housing affordability in San Jose, and what I’ve found has been both heartbreaking and enraging.... Read More
Beasts of the Southern Wild: Class themes in Oscar nominees #1
A darling of the film award season this year, the American fantasy drama film Beasts of the Southern Wild (BOTSW) has been nominated for numerous... Read More
Les Miz: Class themes in Oscar nominees #2
The poverty in the Les Miserables movie seems more realistic than most poverty portrayed in fiction in one crucial aspect: the way desperately poor people... Read More
The Myth of the Ultra-Rich Job Creator
You would think from watching “Downton Abbey” that the only reason enormous estates existed was to provide jobs. Every time a change comes up, the... Read More
Obama’s State of the (Dis-)Union Speech, 2013
If you ain’t poor (by America’s low poverty standards), you are “middle class.” That is the current political and pundit mode of understanding the USA.... Read More
Action on inequality: Getting class recognized as a protected category
As the economic inequality gap continues to widen, students at Grand Valley State University in Traverse City, Michigan, started saying that they were tired of... Read More
Santa Claus, Imagination, and Class
I must have been around seven, living in far northern Wisconsin—not classy Minoqua and other Chicago playgrounds, but the dregs of the timber industry, the... Read More
Cross-class College Interactions
College, they tell us, is the great middle class-making machine. When I think back on my own cross-class interactions at college, I mostly feel gratitude... Read More