Broke is Beautiful

My net worth is defined by my debt. I have $45,000 in student loan debt, $10,000 in medical debt and $5,000 in back taxes from contracting for nonprofits.  I am not ashamed of a net worth of -$55,000. I am grateful and I am angry.
I am grateful to the people who insisted that I feel no shame by giving me what little they had in the forms of unwavering love and dignity. I am grateful that my communities, family and comrades politicized me to know that my self worth does not directly...

Franklin Evening Star, 1925

Two tweets came up nearly back to back in my world news list today. The first from England: The rich get richer in UK index of the wealthiest people. Followed shortly thereupon by this headline from Canada: No Anti-Poverty Measures in 2015 budget Minister...

Thought provoking post over at Scatterplot today on "the increasing penalty for not going to college." It argues that we are framing discussions about going to college in a misleading way.
Perhaps worse yet, I think this framing – and especially the “increasing returns to a college degree” frame – suggests the wrong trend. Increasing returns to college sounds like a situation where the base wage for a high school graduate has been flat...