reports about the poor are unfortunately not a new thing over the years we've seen a steady flow of papers studies and reports about the growing poverty in ited states and what seem to many people some obscene numbers separating the rich and the poor the haves and have nots as we say with all of this information and data being delivered revealing the staggering level of poverty in the country we may need help to break it all down and put it into the proper perspective and in that regard we are fortunate and honored to have just such a person joining us now is a professor of economics of merit to us at the university of massachusetts and her friends are richard will professor we're very pleased to have you join us again. thank you bob glad to be here so let's start with a benchmark i mean you teach classes and look at these sorts of things all the time as an income inequality always existed in the u.s. . the answer simply is yes it has our economic system and there's no

nice way to say this our economic system capitalism is at least as efficient in reproducing poverty as it is in reproducing wealth it has tried over and over again to say that it is confronting the problem of poverty but if it's true that it did so it failed to solve the problem because here we are three hundred years into our history and we're still confronted with serious amounts of poverty and serious degrees of extreme poverty as the u.n. and others have been documented right up to this moment well there's another report out to professor it may go along with that but i want to get your take on it it's the united way the nonprofit organization they have a project called alice it's that action acronym but it's geared toward trying to quantify and describe the number of u.s. households that are are struggling financially and the result of that work indicates that more than fifty one million homes and there are actual people least

one person in these homes cannot afford basic necessities like food housing transportation and we have a total of about three hundred twenty five million people in the state so what do you make of the report and do you think that figure is accurate. there's no question that it's accurate it's been reinforced and validated by other comparable studies what's remarkable about the united way documents is that it gets away from formal statistics of the government to really look at what a family's situation is it's not just do you have enough food this evening on the table but can you rely on next week and next month when your children go to school knowing that there's food that they'll be heat in the house when they come on to do their homework in other words are the basic qualities of life secure and adequate or not and for them to have discovered with no axe to grind that somewhere between

a third and a half of the american people aren't secure in the most basic way is the most profound criticism of our economic system that i could imagine it's really disconcerting and we you know that's why i said there we're asking the question no they're not just homes are real people that live live there and you know bring it to a personal level we often hear about people and politicians tell these stories sometimes about how difficult the decisions are between choosing between you only have a certain amount of money in your paycheck between health care and housing or health care and food to eat and you know those are tough choices that all folks that are financially strapped have to make but when we consider the basic necessities like those things i was in food health care etc which of these has become so privily expensive for some that they're just increasingly inaccessible. i think the key culprit among several is housing the problem with housing is we

allow that in this country to be a private profit making enterprise and to put it as simply as i know how the money to be made the profits to be made in building housing is building housing for the one percent the luxury apartments the luxury mansions the luxury condos and all the rest and that's where the money goes meaning that the mass housing for the mass of people isn't growing and so what happens is there's a scarcity not in the sense that we couldn't produce the housing but that we don't in a private profit driven economy with the result that the rents are going crazy and we believe in general that a family should never spend more than twenty to thirty percent of its income on housing because if it goes above that it starts eating into the minimal levels of

everything else education transportation health care and so on and we have a reality in america that if you look at what's happened to housing particularly rental housing it has driven people into that precarious state that the united way discovered so much is being spent for housing that they literally cannot provide the basics in the case of a third to a half of our households of what's needed in a modern society like ours professor just got a little bit of time but let me ask you do you see any signs of hope for reversing this trend wage and income inequality. well as your report from the london. you know documentary library there shows no the trends we are stuck with now are trends that do not give us hope they are trends in which this system works to make the rich richer and everybody else a spectator of their wealth and that's why many of us are realizing we really have

to change the system if we're going to deal with one of its worst outcomes which is this level of poverty after hundreds of years of seeing that it's a problem that needs to be solved and i want to keep an eye on it we appreciate folks like you speaking out will try to do our part here a boom bust professor richard walter resurrected nomics america security methods and earth were in your debt sir only for your time thank you. and we mention the united nations report with the professor the report looks at poverty in the united states are to correspond on your part bill looks not only at the report but at some of the reactions surrounding its recent release. for fifteen days in december twenty seven thousand professor philip alston the un special rapporteur to or on extreme poverty and human rights travel to the united states in order to quote evaluate and report to the human rights council on the extent to

which the government's policies and programs aimed at addressing extreme poverty are consistent with its human rights obligations his findings paint a dire picture of life in the us the report states that a staggering forty million americans live in poverty eighteen point five million in extreme poverty and a whopping five point three million americans toil under third world conditions characterized as absolute poverty of the thirty five member states in the organization for economic cooperation and development the report finds the united states has the highest youth unemployment rate and highest in. infant mortality rate among comparable countries the us also has one of the lowest voter registration levels in the o.e.c.d. the report reads quote its citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other ridged democracies are radical tropical diseases are increasingly prevalent and it has the world's highest incarceration rate and the

highest obesity levels in the developed world professor alston's conclusions have drawn a harsh response from members of the trumpet ministration us ambassador to the un nikki haley wrote in a letter to senator bernie sanders of vermont quote it is patently ridiculous for the united nations to examine poverty in america the special repertoire wasted the un's time and resources deflecting attention from the world's worst human rights abusers and who can sing instead on the wealthiest and freest country in the world and haley may have a point about the united states being one of the wealthiest countries in the world it just so happens that the vast majority of the nation's wealth is hoarded by an ever shrinking elite in march of this year for example amazon c.e.o. jeff bezos amassed an estimated net worth of one hundred twenty seven billion dollars and that amount is equal to the combined wealth of the two point three million poorest americans and november two thousand and seventeen

a report by the institute for policy studies found the three richest americans bezos bill gates and warren buffett were worth two hundred forty eight billion dollars combined that number is equal to the wealth of one hundred sixty million americans who make up the bottom half of the country's population when measured in dollars following the report's release senator sanders in one thousand other members of congress sent a letter to the trumpet ministration urging it to address the growing poverty rates the letter says trump's one point five billion dollars in tax cut signed into law last year quote overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality and while many headlines concerning the report emphasized the trump administration's. role in exacerbating poverty professor alston makes this important note successive administrations including the current one have determinately rejected the idea that economic and social rights are full fledged human rights meaning if you're poor in the united states your government has never seen you as a priority in washington on your part r.t.

. time now for a super fast break but stay close because when we get back the c.e.o. of straw mark our friend you know report which tells us about the wealthiest nations not including the u.s. and the poorest nations around the globe plus r.t. correspondent trinity as does the picture of island florida for a special report on the wealthiest zip code and on the other end of the spectrum archie correspondent dan towing looks at the more on fortunate and analyzes poverty united states notably even here in the gilded capital that is coming right here will be back in a flash. nobody

could see coming that false confessions would be that prevalent in the spot place the fall will converge. at any interrogations out there what you'll see is threat promise threat promise threat lie a lie a lie the process of interrogation is designed to put people in just that frame of mind make the most comfortable make them want to get out and don't take no for an answer don't accept their denials she said if i were poor or very sad statement then i would be home by that time the next. there's a culture on accountability and police officers know that they can engage in misconduct that has nothing to do with solving their crime. amazon already has a significant portion of all u.s. commerce something approaching twenty percent i guess their goal is to get fifty

percent of all commerce in america it would be amazon commerce and they need artificial intelligence to do that an artificial intelligence needs data to run effectively so jeff bezos but the call out to all the cities and they said we may come to your town just give us all the data all the people living in your town and will dump it into our computers and our ai systems and by the way you don't get anything. negative please go camp site down you can't for people that can't decide and they're like so vampires. this is like a safe housing and they don't have to talk about what they go through but that's because we understand her daughter g.t. was diagnosed with a very rare son sensitive condition if i get sunburned i heal she doesn't feel patients and they have problems with the walk to talk to some of the brains that are actually shrinking inside the scolded sleeker in france that small. the

pain is indescribable it's feels like a really really bad chemical burn but it goes through your skin in your muscle although it down to the bone. it is no relief. so we're not sure this is just over. and now we take a more global view about inequality from a national perspective to help. well so long we are joined by the c.e.o. of marker for and hillary ward which it's great of you to be with us thank you so much tell me. about what are the wealthiest nations in sort of the poorest nations and let's just take g.d.p. by g.d.p. right a great to be about thank you so the wealthiest nations are outside of the u.s.

that is china germany japan and closely followed by the u.k. the poorest nation actually probably not many of our viewers have maybe even heard of tuvalu which used to be former ellis island in the polynesian islands but the poorest nations are actually a lot of the former communist countries and sub-saharan africa and then good and then in the middle east the big bright star of course is saudi arabia ok and. if you look at growth rates in the different regions you know sure. how are they looking for growth rates going forward yes and some of the hot spots coming up actually there are some of the emerging nations and then there are just growth rates so one of the most outstanding growth rates that continues and as outpaced all nations actually is australia and that's really due to their brilliant immigration policies to get into australia i mean you have to have a certain network you have to come with certain skills they have not been stupid about that and most importantly they had a mining boom where they were mining coal and iron ore that they were shipping to all the factories in the nation so there's

a great growth rate some of the emerging nations where there's a men's growth are you've got the some of the. in the pacific basically all the countries right and you have argentina you have indonesia india india is projected to have a seven percent growth rate seven point nine next year yes and then actually you know they overtook china by just like two percentage or two points that dense of a percent exactly yes they did yes and it is in india and that's a lot of that and everybody of course in the u.k. we think well it's because they can speak english but they've actually been a have a lot of those outsourcing call centers but a lot of global business they've always had a very global outlook and the fiscal stimulus has been as a also very smart but also an. actually jim o'neill the former chairman of morgan stanley in two thousand and one he used to call them the bric nations and that was brazil russia india china and sub-saharan africa i think some of the emerging nations in sub-saharan africa is somewhat to look because of course there's a great percentage opportunity for growth and a lot of the the real commodities which are more in demand now it's very

interesting we did some the other day on australia which hasn't been in recession you know twenty five years or so but the youngest of any developed nation ever so our history went out in the netherlands yeah crazy crazy us i guess is pretty difficult to predict what's going on given the current circumstance. but you know what sort of trends do you see there in or does it leave it were you know i think of trade was on healthy but i think there's going to be an even ing out i think the one thing that's concerning globally in terms of inequality is the tremendous gap actually in skills skilled labor the good news is inequality actually is the lowest it's been since one thousand nine hundred one it peaked forty four percent of the world was below the abject positive positive level in eighty one do you know it's less than ten percent today so that's actually good news in terms of inequality but the inequality is within nations there's this technology gap between skilled labor and unskilled labor and that actually accounts for

a lot of the nationalistic vote populist vote like bricks it in the u.k. populism vote here in the u.s. do to try to trump and that's what's accounted for inequality inside of nations is actually more concerning than global inequality super interesting let me ask you for a go the you know when you're when you're don't have a good economy it leads to all sorts of. including terrorism on rest and everything yes if you look around the world hilary what are the real slow g.d.p. countries that we you know heaven forbid predict any problems in those countries and what are the ones that sort of stick out to you well i mean obviously i mean we had a disaster in syria and. that's been a lot of course because of the drought i'm so i think you've got actually global warming trends have affected some of that and it's really obviously in the middle east where you have colliding factors i think robust employment begets robust economies and therefore of course robust stability instability if you think about many years ago in the sixty's those instability in northern ireland why the economy

was disastrous now the normal irish economy is strong and keep stability so i would think anywhere where there's abject poverty and that will be places in the middle east see you a strong work there were for which thank you for coming in here later welcome bought absolutely anytime. one might ask where is the definitively wealthiest place in the united states well are to course want to treat each other's looked and went there for the special report that really hills nine zero two one zero zero used to be america's most recognizable zip code but that's all changing now america's richest code is based on an island word so exclusive you need an invitation to get there in a recent analysis of iris data bloomberg found the wealthiest of kids in america and the number one spot may shock you. it's called fisher island

zip code three three one zero nine once privately owned by william vanderbilt the second the island is located just off the coast of miami and is now a haven for the world's richest only accessible by boat or helicopter the two hundred sixteen acre manmade island has a mix of condos and private homes not to mention a vast array of amenities you come to fish island and you literally can stay here for three months without having to leave the island so we have about eighteen amenities from the renos to seven restaurants to eighteen tennis courts for different surfaces on tennis courts a great golf club we have an. as you have seen and the beautiful beach environment so we have private beaches we have a private school so this is an ideal environment for families who want to come here who want to raise their children there are about five hundred residents ranging from royalty to professional athletes to business executives and while only about

twenty percent of them reside on the island full time. if the island's exclusivities that attracts people from all over the world. different nationalities . we have about fifty percent. twenty five. thousand america we have russian. truly. truly home and it has pretty much all the ingredients. if you want. the average income for fisher island members was a whopping two and a half a million dollars in two thousand and fifteen that's one million dollars more than the second placed spot held by zip code nine four zero two seven in silicon valley meanwhile new york represents a quarter of the top one percent of households nationwide and california accounts

for eighty five percent of the riches of codes in the west but while neighborhoods in the new york tri state area and california make up the majority of the top riches the codes in america the favorable tax structures in florida and in wyoming are drawing the wealthy to according to the report since two thousand and ten the average income in most wilson road wyoming has increased more than seventy five percent making it the fourteenth which is the code in the country and then of course the south is home to the richest code in all of america fisher island and now in order to live on you do have to pay a membership of a quarter million dollars. annually. but you don't have to be a millionaire. enjoy this luxurious place they do have a hotel on the property and they welcome everyone from around the world reporting from the sure i'll internet each other.

while wealth inequality may be seen by some as a regional thing it's actually a nationwide issue even in some places you may not expect our to correspondent dan cohen gives us a closer look at wealth inequality in the district of columbia. the united states has long portrayed itself as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for all peoples but with scenes of homelessness and despair like this popping up all over the country it's an increasingly difficult claim to make income inequality in the united states is at its highest since one thousand nine hundred twenty eight just before the great depression the top one percent now owns a staggering forty percent of the country's wealth the poorest sip codes in the united states are in rural areas of pennsylvania oregon ohio and arizona they all have an average income under fifteen thousand dollars per year while income inequality is visible across the united states its most extreme in the nation's

capital washington d.c. the median annual income of black residents of the district is thirty seven thousand eight hundred ninety one dollars just thirty percent of the median white income at one hundred twenty seven thousand three hundred sixty nine dollars in the streets of the district it's obvious that there are huge amounts of wealth just across the anacostia river in the southeastern part of the district the disparity is glaring and twenty fifteen mayor muriel bows are unveiled her plan to address income inequality and poverty with her pathway to the middle class program community activist skyla pondexter more lives in public housing in ward eight the poorest in the district she says bowzer is program has been a fig leaf for giveaways to private developers and corporations i believe that this income gap in this is all that the way out she is doing it back just phasing us out i believe she thinks happy to put up

a woman just get rid of all the income tax and think about all of this to get the most of us back to the law going to japan south of the city or have innocently gentrification has devastated d.c.'s african-american population in one. seventy one african-americans accounted for seventy one percent of washington's population struggling to cope with increasing costs of living and lack of employment opportunities twenty sixteen the percentage of african-americans in the district fell below fifty percent but moore says local investment can benefit the community if you give people the resources and help them wrap around then we can really start to close this gap and that wipes out we'll need to bring in people who get money we can be to people get money you got to bring in a trader joe's going out bring in a whole foods with expensive housing and corporate chains like starbucks under construction and mayor bows are likely to win reelection later this year the same policies that led to such inequality are likely to persist reporting for boom bust

dan cohen r t. that's it for this time we appreciate you joining us on what's an incredibly important issue you catch boom bust on direct t.v. channel three twenty one dish network channel two eighty or streaming twenty four seven on pluto t.v. the free t.v. after channel one thirty two or as always check us out at youtube dot com slash boom bust r.t. see a later. dollars . dollars. dollar dollar what do.

we care the music with us. with a drag to hear. why you have got to get rid of those who are not go away who will not die quietly. real the heart of what we do is the truth. the british government and the british establishment and mrs moon and mrs mrs may have looks themselves up into his studio about so cool no deal just so he is incredibly misleading as i just said in so doing they've allowed to your opinion to impose completely draco union terms on the u.k.

which would last anyway. cracking gave americans a lot of job opportunities i needed to come up here to make some money i could make twenty five thousand dollars as a teacher or i could make fifty thousand dollars a year truck so i chose to drive truck people rush to a small town in north dakota was among the employment rate of zero percent like gold rush is very very similar to a gold rush but this beautiful story ended with pollution and the bus station a lot of people have left here i don't know too many people here and just slow down too much they lost their jobs got laid off the american dream is changing that's not what it used to be. and it's a tough reality and you'll. go to a place called camp sundown to get for people that can decide and they're like so vampires

. this is like a safe house i guess they don't have to talk about what they go through with us because we understand her daughter she was diagnosed with a very rare son sensitive condition. if i get sunburned i feel she doesn't feel patients when they have problems with the walking talking your son the brains that are actually shrinking inside their head the skull gets thicker in the brain still smaller. the pain is indescribable it's feels like a really really bad chemical burn but it goes through your skin in your muscle all the way down to the bone and there's no relief close to where it says not to sure this is just the hours. i've been saying the numbers mean something they matter us is over one trillion

dollars in debt more than ten white collar crimes happen each day. eighty five percent of global wealth if you want to the ultra rich eight point six percent market saw thirty percent rise last year some with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and bitcoin rose to twenty thousand dollars. china is building a two point one billion dollar a i industrial park but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only numbers you need to remember is one to one business show you can't afford to miss the one and only boom bust.

your son. took a. look at least it but i'm. not. well. you know. like for the moment if you can. david has. used the words had the cards for him differently than as a child say may have been present. we we agree with i. think is appointed to the m i five a new case came off a softer a government report details security failures that could have prevented this.