A listening tour focusing on poverty came to Humboldt; we’ll share what folks struggling locally told them and how it bumps up against prevalent ideas about poverty. We’re also looking at the connections in Robert Benson’s sculpture show at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Goudi’ni Gallery. And we’ve got some Halloween humor to kick off the holiday. […]
Poverty
Posted inNews
Some Seniors and Disabled People Will Miss Out on New California State Payments
Some 23 million Californians’ bank accounts will get a boost of $200 to $1,050, thanks to a new round of payments approved by state lawmakers. But the payments, aimed at mitigating higher prices for gas and other goods, will leave out lots of low-income Californians. Among those passed over are some seniors, many living on […]
Posted inNews
California Moves to be First State to Fund Pilot Universal Basic Income
Universal basic income was championed by Martin Luther King Jr., promoted by Silicon Valley citizens as the “social vaccine for the 21st century” and endorsed by 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang, but it has never really caught on. Now its time may have come. On Thursday California lawmakers approved the nation’s first state-funded guaranteed income program. […]
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Huffman Votes to Pass ‘Historic’ $1.9 Stimulus Bill
North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman joined a majority of his colleagues today in passing the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package, sending the landmark legislation on to President Joe Biden’s desk. According to a press release from Huffman’s office, the package — if signed into law, as is expected — will […]
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How COVID is Deepening California’s Income Inequality in 5 Charts
The decade dawned on a California that was both “the richest and poorest” state in the nation, in the words of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Wages for the top 10% of California’s earners had grown three times as fast as those of the bottom 10% of earners since 1980 — all as the cost of buying or […]
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Huffman Helps Pass Minimum Wage Bill; Legislation DOA in Republican Senate
North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman joined a majority of his House colleagues this morning in voting to gradually increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an to $15 an hour over the next six years. If approved by the Senate and signed by the president (both of which seem unlikely), the legislation would increase wages […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
‘I’m Indoors’
This is a new beginning after a story that has been long, slow, painful and ever so drawn out. I am (finally) back indoors, in an actual apartment! Not some long-term, extended stay motel nor the local Rescue Mission nor a cold and lonely tent in the middle of nowhere. A real apartment. It’s a […]
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FCC Takes a Step Over the Digital Divide
A divided Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 Thursday to modernize Lifeline, a program that subsidizes critical communications services for the poor, to include broadband Internet access. The vote means that, by the end of the year, Americans with a household income at or below 135 percent of the federal poverty line will be eligible for […]
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UPDATE: No Plans for Local Minimum Wage Initiative in 2016
UPDATE: Local activist and former Arcata City Councilmember Dave Meserve tells the Journal that, in the wake of Measure R’s defeat, he attempted to drum up support for a countywide initiative that would immediately bump the minimum wage to $12 an hour, working up to $15 over a three-year period. Meserve says he met with […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Polar Extremes: How We View Ourselves Vs. How the World Views Us
Poverty. Sadness. A psychoactive tinge? Dudes, did you know we have a landscape that is “very psychedelic?” That’s according to photographer Curran Hatleberg, recipient of a 2015 grant from Magnum Foundation’s Emergency Fund and the 2014 Individual Photographer’s Fellowship from the Aaron Siskind Foundation. Hatleberg, who spent the 2013 fall semester teaching photography at College […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Humlandia
Our hearty rhododendrons lack the delicate grace of Portland‘s famed roses; Eureka’s bridges are fewer in number — and much less spectacular — than the spans that etch the skies of the Rose City. Portland’s Mount Hood offers killer skiing an hour away from downtown; our nearest source of powder is Mount Shasta, a four-hour […]
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Conflicting Reports
Shortly after Sandra Lingle moved to Eureka from San Diego 32 years ago, something made an impression. “I saw somebody walking their dog at 11 o’clock at night — a woman — and I was thrilled,” she recalled last week. To Lingle, the sight reinforced that she’d moved to a safe place, a community where […]