[Peace-discuss] Income disparity discussion

[John Fettig]

Two points that need clarifying:

1) "a graduate student at the university" is kind of vague.  Not all
grad students are below the poverty level.  I'd guess that the
majority of grad students north of green street are above the poverty
level.

2) I'm not sure what being foreign has to do with the lack of health
coverage for families.  As far as I know, resident grad students are
in the same boat: they can get coverage for a spouse for
~$1200/semester, or a child for ~$600/semester.  I don't see anywhere
that states you must be a U.S. citizen or even a resident to qualify
for this.

John

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Bob Illyes <illyes at uiuc.edu> wrote:
> Karen Medina writes "I'll mention that a graduate student at the university
> makes below the poverty level. But these students' families are always
> excluded from
> the counts. Perhaps rightly so, but some of them are really struggling to
> get by."
>
> It's even worse than low pay for grad students, Karen. Foreign grad students
> who bring their families do not get health coverage for their families. One
> of the free health clinics operates partly in Orchard Downs! This entire
> situation borders on shameful, and is a little too close to slavery.
>
> The bad AP analysis, which Brian says was repeated by DN! (which doesn't
> speak well for their critical capacity) makes the situation look much less
> serious than it is. Most Americans still don't realize that we are in the
> new Gilded Age, with no end in sight. The last one had us fairly close to
> revolution when the truth sank in. Tolerating this is really stupid.
>
> Bob
>
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