The Redder Your State, The Poorer You Are?

The Article: Life Expectancy Shortest In Southern ‘Poverty Belt’ by Katy Hall and Jan Diehm in The Huffington Post.

The Text: Living in a high-poverty area often means a lifetime of struggle with underperforming public schools, limited job opportunities, higher crime rates, and poor nutrition, health care and housing — all of which can add up to a shorter, sicker retirement.

Americans who live in the South can expect to live fewer healthy years past 65 than those who live in other parts of the country, according to a new report from the CDC. Health disparities among seniors in their final years align closely with profound geographical differences in poverty. The region where more than 30 percent of people live in high-poverty areas — dubbed the “poverty belt” by The Atlantic’s Richard Florida, falls right over the states with the lowest healthy life expectancies. As inequality in the U.S. climbs steadily, this public health crisis may only expand.

Why Most American Media Is Harmful To Public Health

The Article: Weapons of Mass Distraction—Why the Media Most Americans Consume Is Harmful to the Public Health by Bill Moyers and Marty Kaplan in AlterNet.

The Text: Across the world — Greece, Spain, Brazil, Egypt — citizens are turning angrily to their governments to demand economic fair play and equality. But here in America, with few exceptions, the streets and airwaves remain relatively silent. In a country as rich and powerful as America, why is there so little outcry about the ever-increasing, deliberate divide between the very wealthy and everyone else?

Media scholar Marty Kaplan points to a number of forces keeping these issues and affected citizens in the dark — especially our well-fed appetite for media distraction.

“We have unemployment and hunger and crumbling infrastructure and a tax system out of whack and a corrupt political system — why are we not taking to the streets?” Kaplan asks Bill. “I suspect among your viewers, there are people who are outraged and want to be at the barricades. The problem is that we have been taught to be helpless and jaded rather than to feel that we are empowered and can make a difference.”

An award-winning columnist and head of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California, Kaplan also talks about the appropriate role of journalists as advocates for truth.

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CIA Neglects To Call Over 400 Dead Via Drones ‘Civilians’

The Article: Leaked report shows high civilian death toll from CIA drone strikes by Chris Woods in Salon.

The Text: A secret document obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveals for the first time the Pakistan government’s internal assessment of dozens of drone strikes, and shows scores of civilian casualties.

The United States has consistently claimed only a tiny number of non-combatants have been killed in drone attacks in Pakistan – despite research by the Bureau and others suggesting that over 400 civilians may have died in the nine-year campaign.

The internal document shows Pakistani officials too found that CIA drone strikes were killing a significant number of civilians – and have been aware of those deaths for many years.

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The Real Lives Of Fast Food Workers

As we showed you guys last week, McDonalds paid labor advocates an inadvertent favor recently via an unveiling of their benevolent, Visa-partnered employee budgeting exercise, where they proved that a full-time minimum wage employee simply cannot make ends meet with only one job. Translating the paperwork to a person, the five people below present a pretty sobering image of the lives of the men and women who ask “Would you like fries with that?”

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Tyree Johnson works at two separate McDonald's restaurants in Chicago to get enough hours to make ends meet. He's worked at the fast food chain for 21 years, but said he still struggles to pay for a monthly bus pass and his prescription drugs. "I pray to God that I can come out of this situation and try to better myself," he said.

Each month, Kyle Steele gives half his paycheck to his daughter's mother. What's left is not enough to pay his gas and car insurance bills. He tries to keeps his food costs down by eating most of his meals at McDonald's. His gas bill, at $160 each month, eats up a big portion of his budget. He said he often borrows money from friends and family to get by.

It's been near impossible for Christopher Drumgold to raise two kids while making $7.40 an hour at McDonald's. His kids attend a Detroit charter school that doesn't have a bus. So he has to pay for bus or cab fare for them to get to school everyday. What's more, Drumgold said his 12-year-old son is "as big as Shaquille O'Neal," with a size-13 shoe. He constantly outgrows his clothes or needs a haircut, all of which adds to expenses. "I had to find a bootleg barber to get him an affordable haircut," he said. He pays about $15 a month for haircuts, another $100 on childcare and another $100 on prescription drugs.

Devonte Yates, 21, is working to get an Associate's Degree in criminal justice and logs in about 25 hours a week at a McDonald's in Milwaukee. To cut down on costs, he lives with his mom and little sister. Still, he struggles to pay his $180 tuition bill each month. He's only able to pay about $90. He said that the school is more forgiving of him not paying his bill in full while he is still taking classes. But when he graduates next semester, he is worried about how he's going to pay it back. Besides tuition, some of Yates' expenses that fall under the "other" category are $40 per month for contact lenses and $50 on clothes. Food, at $300, is his biggest monthly expense, as it is for most of the other workers interviewed.

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The Article: The real budgets of McDonald’s workers by Emily Jane Fox in CNN Money.

Gender Discrimination’s Not Real? Add “Mr.” To Your CV And See What Happens

The Article: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume and landed a job by Kim O’Grady in Quartz.

The Text: It was the late 90s and I was at an interesting phase of my career. For the first time in my life I possessed relevant qualifications, experience and could also show a successful track record in my chosen career path. I had the job seeker’s trifecta. It was also summer and my current employer was pissing me off with its penny-pinching ways, so after three years of ball-busting effort I decided a break and a job change was in order. Displaying characteristic overconfidence in myself, I quit my job (without burning any bridges) and set about applying for others.

I was experienced in managing technical and trade supply businesses. I also had engineering and sales experience, and had demonstrably excelled at accomplishing every sales and profit target I had ever been given. I started applying for roles that would stretch me and lift my career up a notch. There were plenty of opportunities around, and I usually had a few applications on the go at any one time. I was an experienced guy in an experienced guy’s world; This wouldn’t be hard.

Then the rejection letters trickled in. I could take rejection—it goes hand in hand with business—but after the first few months I was frankly confused. I hadn’t had a single interview. Instead of aiming high, I lowered my sights and started applying for jobs where there was no career advancement. Now I had everything these employers could possibly want. It would be a shoe in. But still not one interview came my way—not even a phone inquiry.

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