More Than Half of Children Losing Medicaid Coverage Live in Just 5 States
Michael Rainey – December 19, 2023
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As individual states continue to disenroll millions of people from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) now that pandemic-era suspension of participation guidelines has come to an end, new data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows that more than 50% of the children who have lost health coverage this year come from just five states.
From March 2023, when the disenrollment process began, to the end of September, 2.2 million children were removed from Medicaid and CHIP, two programs that overlap and are typically lumped together. The five states with the largest total declines in enrollment – Texas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Arkansas – accounted for 54% of the reductions, or more than 1.2 million children.
All five states are led by Republicans, and the first three have refused to expand their Medicaid systems as allowed by the Affordable Care Act. In terms of total disenrollment, the 10 states that have refused Medicaid expansion – Texas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kansas, Wisconsin and Wyoming – have removed more children from coverage than all of the expansion states combined, HHS said.
Echoing the worries of many healthcare experts, the Biden administration has expressed concerns that some states have been too aggressive in removing beneficiaries from their Medicaid and CHIP rolls, with many people losing coverage simply because they failed to complete various kinds of paperwork. HHS said Monday that Secretary Xavier Becerra has sent letters to the nine states with the highest disenrollment rates urging them to “adopt additional federal strategies and flexibilities to help prevent children and their families from losing coverage due to red tape.”
Among other things, Becerra called on governors to remove barriers to participation such as CHIP enrollment fees and premiums; to make it easier to automatically renew children for coverage; to expand efforts to contact families facing renewal; and to expand their Medicaid programs so that children do not fall into a coverage gap. “I urge you to ensure that no eligible child in your state loses their health insurance due to ‘red tape’ or other bureaucratic barriers during the Medicaid enrollment process,” he wrote.
Revealed: House speaker did little to fight toxic ‘burn pit’ his father campaigned against
Oliver Laughland in Shreveport, Louisiana and Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington – December 13, 2023
Composite: Rory Doyle, Getty Images, Rachel Woolf
Mike Johnson was a few months away from assuming elected office in late 2014 when he was confronted with an impassioned appeal by the man he would later pay tribute to in his first speech as House speaker: his father Patrick.
The elder Johnson, a former firefighter in the Louisiana city of Shreveport, had survived a near fatal industrial explosion when Mike was 12 years old, a defining event in both men’s lives. He had just joined a local community environmental group, working to fight against US government plans to burn – in the open air – over 15m pounds of toxic munitions. It had thrust Patrick and his future wife Janis Gabriel onto the frontlines of Louisiana environmental advocacy.
As authorities were on the brink of approving the “open burn”, which would have sent vast quantities of known carcinogens into the air, Patrick and Janis turned to the most influential person they knew.
Then an ambitious, rightwing constitutional lawyer, Mike Johnson would in a matter of weeks fill the vacancy for Louisiana’s eighth state legislative district – whose borders are just 20 miles from Camp Minden, a military base where the illegal munitions dump – the largest in US history – was located. A small amount of the munitions had spontaneously exploded two years before, causing a 4-mile blast radius.
The pair drove to Mike Johnson’s legal offices in the late morning, Gabriel recalled, and Patrick Johnson explained to his son the immediate environmental and health dangers the toxic dump posed, not only to residents in the immediate vicinity but to members of the Johnson family living in the region.
“His father and I went to him and said: ‘Mike you need to get involved in this, this is really important. Your family really lives at ground zero,’” Gabriel said in an interview with the Guardian. “We basically begged him to say something, to someone, somewhere.”
A terse back and forth followed, she said.
“He just wasn’t interested,” Gabriel said. “He had other things to do. He was never interested in environmental things.”
The couple left deeply disappointed.
“It just blew my mind that he wouldn’t give five minutes of his time to the effort,” she said. “He basically shut us down.”
A spokesperson for Johnson said he “disputes this characterization as described” but did not respond to an invitation to elaborate further.
Gabriel, 72, has thought about this failed appeal to Johnson repeatedly in recent months, ever since he was thrust from relative obscurity to the US house speakership in October.
A denier of climate science, Mike Johnson has spoken about how his evangelical faith has shaped his political worldview. According to a broad examination of his past statements, Johnson’s anti-climate advocacy often bears the hallmarks of a Christian fundamentalism linked to creationism.
Louisiana’s fourth congressional district, which includes Camp Minden, has long voted staunchly Republican, but many residents still hold deep concerns about pollution and the climate crisis. In a year the district experienced record heat and a number of climate related disasters, some say their representative in Washington, who is now second in line to the presidency, is fundamentally failing them.
Mike Johnson’s views on climate change became publicly apparent in 2017, just five months into his first term in the US Congress. Asked how he felt about the climate crisis by a constituent at a rowdy town hall meeting in Shreveport, Johnson launched into a critique of climate change data, saying he had also seen “the data on the other side”.
“The climate is changing, but the question is: is the climate changing because of the natural cycles of the atmosphere over the span of history, or is it changing because we drive SUVs?
“I don’t believe in the latter. I don’t think that’s the primary driver.”
Some attendees booed.
Two years later, Johnson – who has received almost $350,000 in political donations from the oil and gas industry since his election in 2016 – led the Republican Study Committee as it lobbied against progressive Democratic efforts to implement a Green New Deal. Johnson denounced the sweeping federal blueprint for climate action as a “guise to usher in the principles of socialism” and create a system of “full government control”.
In Louisiana, which is economically dependent on the oil and gas industry, the remarks were consistent with the Republican party’s support for fossil fuels.
But to experts who study the Christian fundamentalist movement of creationism, the comments revealed a worldview that falls far outside traditional Republican pro-industry norms. They see the remarks, and Johnson’s rejection of climate science, as evidence of Johnson’s adherence to young-Earth creationist beliefs, including the presumption that the Earth is just 6,000 years old.
Johnson has been closely associated with the creationist movement since 2014 – before his entry into politics – when he became a vocal supporter and lawyer for Answers in Genesis (AiG), a global fundamentalist Christian organization that built a gigantic Noah’s Ark replica and amusement park in Kentucky. Following a headline-grabbing legal battle, Johnson ultimately helped the group secure taxpayer incentives for the project.
“Creationists can just wave away all of the geologic evidence of climate change because they are convinced that all rock layers were laid down in a global flood about 4,400 years ago,” said David MacMillan, a former Christian fundamentalist who has left the movement.
MacMillan grew up attending creationist conferences, had posts published on AiG’s website, and helped raise money for the establishment of AiG’s first creationist museum near Cincinnati, earning him a spot on a donor wall and a lifetime pass to attend. Now – having left his fundamentalist views behind – he is speaking out about the dangers of science denial.
“They will tell you that hundreds of thousands of annual ice core layers are just a bunch of snow that formed while the Earth was cooling off after Noah’s flood. They believe climate scientists are sifting through meaningless noise to try and find patterns that will get them noticed and promote narratives that please the global elite who want to control us.”
What’s more, MacMillan added, most fundamentalists argue that even if the climate is changing, it should make no difference because they also expect the imminent, apocalyptic, final judgment of the world.
MacMillan, who knows Ham, said the AiG founder pioneered a technique of trying to sow doubts about science by presenting scientific consensus as merely a belief system, much like religion.
In a video interview with the Canadian psychologist and alt-right provocateur Jordan Peterson in November last year, Johnson drew directly from this creationist strategy when asked why Democrats pursue policies to address the climate crisis.
“They regard the climate agenda as part of their religion,” Johnson said. “I don’t know any other way to explain it. They pursue it with religious zeal. And they care not what type of pain these policies inflict upon the people that they are supposed to be serving because they’re not serving the people, they’re serving the planet.”
While many media reports have highlighted Johnson’s controversial relationship with Ham, MacMillan said Johnson’s close association with the group – his bio appears on its website, he has written blog posts for the group, and spoken at an AiG event in Kentucky – means Johnson would likely have had to agree to the group’s statement of faith, which includes the assertion that the Bible is “factually true” and that its authority is not limited to spiritual or redemptive themes, but also history and science.
According to the group’s website: “All persons employed by the AiG ministry in any capacity, or who serve as volunteers, should abide by and agree to our Statement of Faith and conduct themselves accordingly.”
An AiG editorial review board regularly reviews all articles, books and other materials produced or distributed by the group to make sure they are in line with AiG values and that there “is not mission drift”.
In a speech delivered at Ham’s Ark Encounter conference center last year, Johnson raised the apocalypse and Christ’s second coming.
“We are hopeful people because we know how the book ends … God wins,” he said in an address that was met with a standing ovation. “The charge is for us, it’s not yet determined. We’re going to be here until the Lord tarries, when the Lord comes back. And maybe that’s soon, because we’re seeing a lot of signs.”
Mike Johnson and his wife are due to speak at an AiG conference event in April next year, entitled: “Reclaim: overcoming the war on women for the glory of God.”
“There is no doubt that Mike Johnson demonstrated to AiG’s satisfaction that he agrees with every aspect of that statement of faith,” MacMillan said.
A short biography of Johnson is included on AiG’s contributor’s page. A review of the 267 biographies on the AiG site indicates he is one of only two elected officials to post on the fundamentalist group’s website. The other is Tony Perkins, a former Louisiana state representative and the current president of the Family Research Council, a far-right evangelical lobby group. Perkins, one of Johnson’s political mentors, once said he believed floods were sent by God to punish homosexuality and regularly cites the Bible to deny solutions to the climate crisis.
When asked by the Guardian if Johnson had ever endorsed the AiG statement of faith, or if he shared Ham’s views on climate or if he believed the earth was 6,000 years old, a spokesperson said: “The Speaker is not responsible for the views of others” and did not respond to an invitation to elaborate.
AiG did not respond to specific questions about Johnson and the group’s statement of faith and instead commented on his legal work for the organization. “Mr Johnson served the ministry very effectively and professionally in the matter and Answers in Genesis was very pleased and grateful for his services,” said spokesman A Larry Ross.
Janis Gabriel pointed to Mike Johnson’s hardline faith and political pragmatism when explaining her interpretation of why he had brushed aside his father’s appeals to help with the air pollution crisis at Camp Minden.
“It speaks to those religious beliefs,” said Gabriel. “‘Don’t take care of the environment because we have a finite amount of time here and God will take care of you.’ It’s crazy.”
Gabriel, who was discussing her relationship with the House speaker for the first time publicly, said she was disclosing details of private conversations because Johnson now holds a position of immense power. She wanted to further public understanding of “what and who he is and how that will affect the job he’s doing for us.”
“That is the important conversation,” she said.
In his 2022 interview with Peterson, Mike Johnson couched his critique of those seeking climate solutions around conversations he was having with residents in his district.
“When I’m in Louisiana I try to explain to our folks, listen: ‘They have effectively replaced father God with mother Earth. . . . They believe we owe fealty to Mother Earth.”
Even as the speaker rejects concerns about the climate crisis, Louisiana’s fourth congressional district is already experiencing new extremes tied to global heating.
Louisiana, too, endured months of devastating drought, which contributed to a water crisis in the south-east, and hundreds of wildfires in America’s wettest state. The largest wildfire in Louisiana’s history occurred this year in Johnson’s district, scorching a staggering 33,000 acres and decimating the local economy. The heat and drought combined cost Louisiana’s agriculture industry $1.69bn alone this year.
The state also logged a record number of heat-related deaths over the summer, according to a spokesman for the Louisiana health department [LDH], with 69 people dying between June and September this year. This was almost double the death toll of any in the past six years, according to data released to the Guardian by LDH.
A report published this year, which examined all occupational heat related illnesses between 2010-2020 found that the highest rates of illness occurred in Louisiana’s north-west, which has some of the largest rates of poverty in the state and is entirely covered by Johnson’s district.
“Heat exposure is intensifying as the frequency, severity, and duration of extreme heat events increases due to climate change,” the government report acknowledges.
In Shreveport, six people died from extreme heat this year alone – a record year, according to Todd Thoma, who has served as coroner in the Shreveport area for 16 years. “This was an exceptional year to me,” Dr Thoma said, as he combed through each case file in his office, pointing to a combination of prolonged extreme heat, high poverty rates and power outages that contributed to the increased risks for the city’s most vulnerable residents.
A 62-year-old woman who died in June after a tornado knocked out power to her home, leaving her with no air conditioning. A 49-year-old man, found collapsed on the sidewalk just four days later. And, on 13 July, 34-year-old Ted Boykin, a father of one who was found dead inside a trailer home, with no air conditioning, that was used by Shreveport’s unhoused community.
The ambient air temperature inside was 98F, according to the coroner’s report. Boykin’s internal temperature was 107.9F.
In an interview Boykin’s sister, Sandy Boykin-Hays, said she considered her brother a victim of the climate crisis and chastised her congressman and others for a failure to accept science.
“He was let down by the system,” said Boykin-Hays. “And to them [in Washington], I’m sure they wouldn’t believe, even if it [climate change] was staring them in the face, because they’re rich. They have money. They don’t have to worry about air conditioning or where your next meal is coming from.”
Boykin-Hays, who works as a food delivery driver and volunteers with homeless outreach, was forced to take out a $3,000 loan to pay for her brother’s funeral.
“They’re ignoring the true issue because it doesn’t affect them,” she said.
In Washington, where Johnson now holds the power to bring legislation to the House floor, the speaker has not yet expressed a position on a bill introduced by California Democrat Judy Chu, to protect workers from excessive heat, despite it receiving some bipartisan support in committee.
“The denial of the climate crisis by Maga extremists like the Speaker isn’t just a danger to the health of his constituents during summer months,” said Chu. “It’s a danger to the long-term well being of future generations in America and around the world.”
Both Janis Gabriel and Patrick Johnson became board members of the Citizens Advisory Group set up to engage with the EPA over community concerns at Camp Minden, according to meeting minutes reviewed by the Guardian and interviews with two other board members.
Johnson even co-wrote, recorded and performed an original song to help the “stop the burn” efforts, which eventually helped force the EPA into a course change by approving use of a cleaner alternative to dispose of the waste throughout 2016 and 2017.
“Take a stand against the poison, protect our future children’s lives,” Patrick Johnson sings.
The former firefighter had become a national advocate for hazardous material safety after surviving a fiery explosion caused by leaking ammonia at a cold storage facility. Another firefighter died in the 1984 accident. The near-death experience, said Gabriel, changed his spiritual outlook. The couple met in 2013 when Johnson attended Gabriel’s Daoist center as a student in Shreveport to practice tai chi and qigong martial arts. The pair married in October 2016, shortly before Johnson’s death from cancer in December that year.
The elder Johnson, said Gabriel, clearly accepted climate science and was “acutely aware of the environment”. While he “certainly didn’t agree” with Mike Johnson’s “extremist stance” on Christianity, he accepted it. The pair disagreed over support for Donald Trump, Gabriel said.
Mike Johnson has described his father’s survival in the 1984 explosion as an “actual miracle” that “made me a person of very deep faith”. His campaign literature still references the accident and, in his first speech as speaker, Johnson described how his father’s near death “changed all of our life trajectories”.
But from January 2015, when he formally entered politics, Johnson appeared to display little interest in the Camp Minden issue that his father was campaigning on. It was a period described by three organizers as the start of heightened advocacy.
He was given invitations to attend citizens meetings as local campaigning ramped up, according to the board’s chairman Ron Hagar, but did not attend.
“He stayed as far away from it as possible,” said Hagar, a close friend of Patrick Johnson’s. “He had no sense of responsibility to stand up for the people he’s representing.”
A search of public records did not indicate Mike Johnson had spoken on the issue at the time although he was listed as a co-sponsor of a minor 2015 state house resolution to stop the facility from accepting further waste explosives. Photographs show Johnson was also present at a December 2015 press conference at the site, but according to a senior organizer in attendance, Johnson did not speak and the state representative is not quoted in local media.
The issue was championed by a Democratic state representative for the 10th district, which includes Minden, named Gene Reynolds. Reynolds, who is now retired, did not return multiple calls for comment.
A spokesperson for Johnson pointed to public activity cited by the Guardian and “other activities” to dispute claims he had not been involved in the matter.
Johnson’s short tenure in the state legislature was spent focused on far-right policy initiatives tied to his Biblical worldview, including introducing legislation to push back against same sex marriage, and a continued focus on his non-profit law practice, including work with Ham’s Ark Encounter.
Following her husband’s death, Gabriel moved out of state. She began to lose touch with Johnson, although the pair exchanged occasional cordial text messages.
In one May 2019 exchange, seen by the Guardian, Johnson contacted Gabriel to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. Gabriel told him she had left Shreveport permanently and moved to a different state.
“Don’t blame you one bit for staying there! Shreveport is really going downhill now and it’s sad to watch,” Johnson replied.
Gabriel then explained that her decision to leave had come on Patrick’s advice, partly due to his prediction of “worsening environmental problems”. She also told Johnson that his father would be proud of his “love and devotion and support” of his own children.
“Dad was right about the environmental problems in Shreveport. Those and other issues are mounting,” Johnson replied. But in the same message, he moved quickly to update her on his rapid rise in Congress: “I’ve been advanced in leadership in record time (currently the 10th ranked Republican!), and God continues to affirm that we are doing what He has called us to do, so that keeps us encouraged.”
Study reveals major factor that could put many Americans at risk for homelessness — here’s what’s happening
Susan Elizabeth Turek – December 11, 2023
In recent years, rising prices have been a pain point for many consumers.
When it comes to the housing market, one major concern is reportedly contributing to not only expensive home prices but also sky-high insurance rates that could increase the risk of homelessness for many Americans.
What’s happening?
According to open Democracy‘s Chrissy Stroop, the nonprofit First Street Foundation found that dangerous weather events make it difficult for many to buy affordable insurance for their residences and may contribute to climate-related migration.
Notably, California — the state with the largest population in the United States — saw a 335% increase in buildings destroyed by wildfires since 2009, with a nearly 800% uptick in denials to renew insurance in high-risk areas between 2015 and 2021.
The search for safety and affordability — including an exodus from California — also seems to be driving up home prices.
“In high-risk areas, decreased demand for properties might result in declining real estate values, and, conversely, urban centers experiencing an influx of residents may experience increased demand for housing, leading to rising property values,” the report said, per openDemocracy.
Why is this trend concerning?
Extreme weather events are expected to grow in intensity and frequency because of the warming temperature of our planet caused by human activities, which could exacerbate the cycle of rising insurance rates, housing costs, and homelessness.
This year’s State of the Nation’s Housing report found a record 21.6 million renter households were “cost-burdened.”
For residents living in risky areas, the inability to obtain insurance could hinder recovery efforts after natural disasters, with some insurers pulling out of certain states or not adding new customers.
What’s being done about the housing crisis?
State and local governments are taking action by passing incentives that support the construction of more affordable housing, while the federal government has also stepped in.
In September, the U.S. Department of Energy allocated $400 million for states to invest in climate-resilient buildings and energy efficiency.
In the meantime, individuals can do their part by investing in the health of our environment.
Air-drying clothes, for example, could help households save money on electricity while reducing the amount of harmful carbon pollution they each contribute to the atmosphere on average by 2,400 pounds annually.
Trump doesn’t sound like somebody trying to get elected
Rick Newman, Senior Columnist – December 5, 2023
Donald Trump promises more of the same if he wins the 2024 presidential election — more of the protectionism that defined his first presidential term, more dismantling of government, more slashing and burning of the system that many Trump supporters think is rigged against them.
But he may be misreading what voters want. Trump found surprise success in 2016 with his populist, America-first agenda, but voters didn’t love all of it. Plus, the electorate has changed since Trump first won the White House.
Trump, for instance, said recently that he still wants to repeal and replace Obamacare, the 2010 health reform law President Obama signed that extended health insurance to 40 million Americans. “Obamacare sucks!!!” Trump wrote recently on his social media site, Truth Social, vowing to replace it with something better.
In 2016, most Americans agreed with Trump that Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act (ACA), was a bummer. But not anymore. Public approval of the ACA has grown from around 40% in 2016 to nearly 60% in 2023, according to polling by KFF.
Republicans, who uniformly opposed the law when in passed in 2010, warned of socialized medicine, soaring costs, and other dire developments. Big surprise: That was hyperbole.
Repealing the ACA would cause hardship well beyond blue states and districts. The state with the most ACA enrollees is Florida, which leans red and which Trump won in 2016 and 2020.
Voters in the six swing states likely to determine the 2024 outcome — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — would be among those affected if a second-term Trump repealed the ACA. Biden won all of those states in 2020 by a combined 312,000 votes. Around 3.2 million people in those six states get health coverage through the ACA. The data doesn’t reveal how many of those 3.2 million people are swing voters who could tip the election one way or the other, but some of them certainly are.
Georgia is a stark example of the risk Trump faces by threatening, once again, to kill the ACA. Nearly 850,000 Georgians get coverage through the ACA. Biden won the state in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes. So whatever portion of those 850,000 are not die-hard Trumpers would have a new incentive to vote for Biden.
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a Commit to Caucus rally, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, in Ankeny, Iowa. (Matthew Putney/AP Photo) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Trump also wants to impose a new tax of 10% on virtually all imports to the United States. That’s a political head-scratcher. Trump already tried something like that the first time around when he slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and about half of all goods coming to the United States from China. Many economists slammed the tariffs as a foolish idea likely to raise costs for Americans, kill jobs, and undermine growth. The Tax Foundation estimates the tariffs amounted to an $80 billion tax hike during Trump’s term. Voters soundly disapproved of the tariffs and Trump’s overall trade war.
Trump’s across-the-board 10% tariff would be costlier, with the Tax Foundation estimating it would add $300 billion per year to consumer costs — at a time when voters’ biggest economic concern is inflation. Vowing to raise taxes is not a normal campaign promise, so maybe it’s possible Trump actually believes his own gobbledygook about foreign producers paying the tariff, which is patently untrue. At any rate, any politician threatening to raise costs for consumers is giving his political opponents a gift, and Biden is sure to attack that one as the 2024 election heats up.
Trump also has some explaining to do about his fight with labor unions and his trash talk relating to auto workers. In September, when unionized workers at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis went on strike, Trump criticized Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, saying “auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership.” Then he went to Michigan to give a speech at a non-union plant whose workers weren’t on strike, where he said “the workers of our country … are getting screwed.”
Fain and the UAW ended up negotiating a four-year raise of at least 25% for workers at the Detroit Three, which promptly led to wage hikes at many nonunion auto plants. Biden played the strike well, expressing solidarity with striking workers, touting his lifelong support for unions, and even showing up at a picket line. Trump’s campaign website, by contrast, still features a video in which Trump says, “What’s happening to our auto workers is an absolute disgrace. Auto workers are getting totally ripped off by Crooked Joe Biden.” Doesn’t seem that way, but hey, maybe Trump is playing three-dimensional chess.
If The Average American Household Is A Millionaire With A Net Worth Of $1.06 Million, Why Do People Feel So Broke?
Jeannine Mancini – December 4, 2023
The Federal Reserve’s 2022 consumer finance survey unveils a striking picture of American prosperity, revealing that the mean net worth of the average household has ascended to $1.06 million, a 23% from $868,000 in 2019. This statistic, while impressive, masks a more nuanced and unequal economic landscape.
Despite the seemingly thriving financial status of American households, the reality is more complex, particularly for the middle class. The COVID-19 pandemic, which drastically impacted economic activities, didn’t halt the growth in family finances, particularly in net worth. Between 2019 and 2022, real median family income modestly grew by 3%, while the real mean family income saw a more significant 15% increase. These gains were predominantly enjoyed by the higher income brackets, amplifying existing income inequalities.
The period witnessed a 37% surge in real median net worth and a 23% rise in real mean net worth, marking the largest three-year increase in the history of the modern Survey of Consumer Finances. Yet, this aggregate growth masks the unequal distribution of wealth gains. Homeownership, often a key component of net worth, rose slightly to 66.1%, with the median net housing value jumping from $139,100 in 2019 to $201,000 in 2022. The growth in housing values contributed significantly to net worth increases but also exacerbated housing affordability issues, as median home values soared to more than 4.6 times the median family income.
Inequality is further highlighted in retirement plan participation and stock market investments. While over two-thirds of working-age families participated in retirement plans, the increases in account balances were mainly seen in families in the upper half of the income distribution. Similarly, stock market participation grew across all income groups, but the gains were substantially higher for those between the 50th and 90th percentiles.
A report by USAFacts using Federal Reserve data underscores this disparity. The top 1% of households in America hold 26% of U.S. wealth. The wealth inequality becomes starkly evident when comparing asset distribution across income quintiles. The top 20% of earners hold over four times as much wealth as the fourth 20%, with the top 1% alone possessing more than half the wealth of the entire top 20%. The greatest asset disparity lies in stocks and mutual fund shares, where the top 1% has more in these investments than the rest of the top 20% combined. This disparity continues down the income quintiles, with the middle class having significantly less in stock wealth.
Mortgage debt burdens the middle class the most. For the middle 60% of earners, mortgage debt represents a larger percentage of their net worth compared to the top 1%. This burden reflects the challenges faced by the middle class in growing their wealth relative to higher earners.
Inflation and other economic pressures have led 64% of Americans to live paycheck to paycheck, struggling to cover day-to-day expenses. Many households are unable to cover a $400 unexpected expense, highlighting the lack of emergency funds for unforeseen circumstances.
Economic uncertainty has contributed to the continuous growth of consumer debt, adding to the financial strain on many Americans. The burden of student loan debt remains a significant issue, especially as payments resumed after the pandemic. Credit card debt, often with high interest rates, contributes to financial stress for many Americans.
The average length of car loans has also increased, indicating that Americans are taking longer to pay off vehicle purchases, adding to their financial burdens.
These factors, when combined with the skewed distribution of wealth and income highlighted in the Federal Reserve’s data, explain why many Americans may not feel the prosperity suggested by the average household net worth figure. Despite the overall increase in net worth, issues like debt, insufficient savings and the disproportionate growth of wealth among higher earners contribute to the feeling of financial strain among many.
The growing gap between the average American household’s perceived wealth and actual financial difficulties underscores the importance of financial advisers. This is especially true for the newly affluent earning between $150,000 and $250,000 a year, a group that might not usually seek financial advice. Financial advisers offer crucial insights and strategies to manage present financial challenges and prepare for potential asset growth. Their guidance ensures effective navigation through financial complexities, aiding households in aligning their financial realities with their goals and expectations.
With Offices Sitting Empty, Landlords Are ‘Handing Back the Keys’
Peter Eavis – December 2, 2023
The deadline for spending the money in the health accounts is approaching, and people are stretching the definition of eligible expenses. (Melanie Lambrick/The New York Times)
Office landlords, hit hard by the work-from-home revolution, are resorting to a desperate measure in the real estate world: “handing back the keys.”
When this happens, the landlord stops paying the mortgage on the office building or declines to refinance it. The bank or investors who made the loan then repossess the building.
Some of the biggest names in commercial real estate, like Brookfield and Blackstone, have defaulted on mortgages and have started or completed the process of handing back the keys on office towers. The tactic reveals both the depth of the problems in the office market and the ability of big property companies to push much of the financial pain onto others — in this case, banks and other lenders.
Since the pandemic began, office employees showed they could get their jobs done from home, and many have been reluctant to come back. And companies realized they could save a lot of money by renting less office space, making many office towers unprofitable for their owners and turning many business districts into ghost towns. About 23% of office space in the United States was vacant or available for sublet at the end of November, according to Avison Young, a real estate services firm, compared with 16% before the pandemic.
Handing back the keys is a drastic move, but it makes sense because it can limit a landlord’s losses on a building.
Take a property company that bought an office tower for $100 million just before the pandemic, investing $25 million of its own money and borrowing $75 million. If the building is hemorrhaging tenants and now has a value of $45 million, the landlord’s initial investment could be worth zero — and the lower rent income may not be enough to cover the building’s costs.
Rather than continue to pay interest and other expenses, the landlord can decide to default on the loan, which means the lenders get the beleaguered building. And in theory, the lenders could end up with a $30 million loss — the difference between the amount they lent ($75 million) and the resale value of the building ($45 million).
Today’s handing back the keys is reminiscent of the term “jingle mail,” which became notorious after the financial crisis of 2008 when homeowners abandoned their homes — and supposedly sent their keys back to their banks — because their homes were worth far less than what they owed on the mortgage.
But there is a difference: Big property companies can keep doing business after they default and are even considered savvy for jettisoning distressed buildings. But homeowners who stopped paying their mortgages suffered a huge hit to their credit ratings and had to find somewhere else to live.
‘We do not have insurance. We have an insurance bill’: Condos hit with 563% rate increase
Mark Harper, USA TODAY – December 2, 2023
Marbella Condominiums Association board members (from left) Tom Baker, Jim Smith and Rob Lasch stand outside their beachside home, where property insurance has increased more than 500% since two hurricanes caused damage to the structure’s back patio and pool in 2022.
DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Florida – Tom Baker lives in a retirement dream building: A spacious three-bedroom beachside condo with unobstructed morning sunrises, waves marking the time and the soft sand of comfort.
The retired Marine and Army veteran and his wife Joan moved here from the Tampa Bay area. She had a Daytona Beach timeshare they regularly visited. Ten years ago they moved to their retirement home: a fourth-story condo on the Atlantic Ocean.
“I absolutely love Daytona Beach,” he said. “I absolutely love where I live, and I love this building.”
Daytona Beach Shores condo owner Tom Baker sent a six-page memo to all of Florida’s senators and representatives, seeking help to rein in property insurance costs. He said one of the 160 legislators, Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Sunny Isles Beach, responded to him.
So why does he seem so angry? Two words: Property insurance.
For Baker and many other Florida condo owners, the very concept of insurance – to ease worries during times of distress – seems lost, especially after the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside and the two-punch combo of the 2022 hurricane season: Ian and Nicole.
The latter storms just over a year ago pounded a seawall outside the Marbella Condominiums, then destroyed a pool and deck area. And the Surfside disaster, which killed 98 people, shined a light on structural safety, delayed maintenance and the need for the state to enact more strict regulations to prevent future collapses.
As bad as all of that was, for Baker, the real disaster arrived in December 2022: the property insurance bill for Marbella, where he serves on the condo association’s board.
For the 24-unit building, property insurance jumped from $40,534 for 2022 to nearly $269,000 – a 563% increase. And Rob Lasch, another Marbella board member, said he’s expecting another increase when the policy offer arrives, which could be any day now.
And the increase came in spite of a history of Marbella, which was built in 2007, never having filed a claim, Lasch and Baker said. There was no claim filed for the $2 million damage on the condo’s ocean-facing deck.
“Nothing got paid out for the damage outside because it was the seawall, and nobody was insuring the seawalls,” Lasch said.
So Marbella residents are getting hit hard on both sides of the hurricane. They’re having to come up with the full amount to fix the damage, while also bearing the burden of increased rates.
Baker said his wife wants to move, leaving him to contemplate simply not buying property insurance for the building – something his fellow board members don’t support because it violates Florida law and would leave the board members personally exposed to lawsuits.
“In a minute, I wouldn’t pay another dime in property insurance, because it is illegal, it is immoral, and it’s wrong. You can’t justify this payment. This is out-and-out stealing. Theft,” he said. “And excuse me for being passionate. I am pissed.”
Other condo owners also see exponential rate hikes
Marbella isn’t alone. Many condo associations across the state have said they, too, have faced astronomical property insurance rate hikes.
Right next door, the 109-unit Grand Coquina Condo went from paying $207,000 for property insurance in 2022 to $680,000 for 2023, a 228% increase, said Jeff Sussman, the association’s treasurer.
That amounted to a $2,331 additional assessment per unit this year, while Sussman projects another assessment of between $3,000 and $6,000 per unit will be required in 2024.
The Grand Coquina Condominiums, 3333 S. Atlantic Ave., in Daytona Beach Shores, saw a 228% increase in property insurance rates in 2023, despite the fact that its insurer denied a water damage claim. The condo association is fighting that determination.
Grand Coquina filed a claim seeking reimbursement for water damage its board members contend was caused by wind during the storms. The claim was denied, said Marro Porcelli, president of the Grand Coquina Condo Association Inc.
Grand Coquina hired an attorney and a structural engineer to challenge the denial. Board members expect they will receive a settlement offer.
“There’s a lot of fight left in us,” Porcelli said. “We’re not giving in to the criminals.”
Marbella is relatively new, built 15 years ago under strict building codes. As a result, it stands on 42 pylons that are 40 feet long and reach down to the hard core beneath the sand, Smith said.
In other words, residents there are confident if the building itself could withstand Ian and Nicole, it’s unlikely to crumble anytime soon.
And Smith said the deductible for any disaster is $1 million.
That leads Baker to question what the insurance is actually covering.
‘We don’t have insurance. We have an insurance bill’
“If a tornado came across this building and ripped the roof completely off, our deductible is more than the repair. If an atomic bomb goes off downtown, and blows this building down, we don’t collect because of the war clause,” Baker said.
The Marbella Condominium Association, 3343 S. Atlantic Ave., in Daytona Beach Shores, was hit with a huge insurance increase last year and faces another increase, even while property insurance did not cover some $2 million in damage caused by Tropical Storms Ian and Nicole.
“There is no way this building can collect,” he said. “This is a concrete building with sprinklers. You couldn’t burn the damn thing down if you built a bonfire inside. We do not have insurance. We have an insurance bill.”
Baker has written to all 160 state lawmakers as well as 15 news organizations about the plight of condo owners. He went to Tallahassee during this year’s session.
“I learned something a long time ago in the military,” he said. “If you make a complaint, have a suggestion on how to fix it, OK?”
He’s proposed dropping the requirement that condos purchase insurance. And he’s also talked about condos finding a way to self-insure.
Mostly, Baker said his pleas have been ignored.
Baker met with Rep. Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach, who was receptive to at least one of his ideas. The office of Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Sunny Isle Beach, responded to a packet of information Baker mailed to all lawmakers. But otherwise, he’s heard nothing.
Baker said he’s most disappointed in Sen. Tom Wright, R-New Smyrna Beach, who represents Daytona Beach Shores.
“For one year, I’ve been trying to get an appointment with Sen. Wright,” Baker said. “I even went to his office. He walked right past me. He didn’t extend me the courtesy of shaking my hand.”
Wright did not respond to a request for comment.
Leek, whose district includes Daytona Beach Shores, likes at least one of Baker’s ideas.
Is self-insuring a good idea?
“We are actively finding ways to help the Florida consumer, and allowing condominium associations to self-insure is a good idea. In fact, measures that increase competition in the insurance market and drive more carriers into Florida will benefit consumers,” he wrote.
Mark Friedlander, Florida spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, said Florida has long had a complicated relationship with property insurance, and it got more challenging with the Surfside collapse and the hurricanes of 2022.
Many of the insurers that offer condo coverage started to pull back from the Florida market due to increased risk at the older coastal properties, Friedlander said in an email.
“The insurers that remained enhanced their underwriting criteria. This began the trend of significant premium increases for master association coverage,” he said. “Insured losses incurred from substantial property damage generated by hurricanes Ian and Nicole last year further impacted the availability and cost of master condo insurance,” Friedlander wrote.
In addition to “master policy costs” shared among all condo unit owners, individual condo owners living in high-risk properties are seeing their condo unit policy premiums increase substantially – 50% to 100% on average, he added.
Over the past two years, the Florida Legislature has passed a flurry of changes with the goal of resolving the property insurance crisis, so far to no avail.
Some of those measures include tweaking regulations related to Citizens Property Insurance Corp, the state-run insurer of last resort, authorizing actions to be taken by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, and cracking down on bad-faith claims.
In an early November special session, lawmakers allocated $181.5 million to the My Safe Florida Home Program, which provides homeowners a wind-mitigation survey and grant funds to make homes more sturdy.
Leek said he’s confident that what lawmakers have been doing has been done is working.
Rep. Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach, speaks during a Volusia County Legislative Delegation meeting in DeLand in October. Leek, the House budget chair, says lawmakers are working to resolve Florida’s property insurance crisis.
“The Legislature’s insurance reforms are taking hold,” Leek wrote in response to questions. “New carriers are entering the Florida insurance market for the first time in years. Just this month, a new carrier entered the Florida condo association insurance market.
“It’s happening and it does take time, and we will continue to work to provide a climate of competition and choice,” he wrote.
Friedlander also referenced the new carrier as a positive sign: “Last week, Florida’s insurance regulator announced that a new insurer, the Condo Owners Reciprocal Exchange, will be entering the state’s market in 2024 and provide master condo policy coverage to associations. We hope this will be a first step toward stabilizing the market for this coverage.”
Condo owners socked with $64,000 in assessments
As a result of both sides of the property insurance problem – high rates and being awarded no claims for the damage, Marbella condo owners have each paid approximately $64,000 in HOA fees and assessments in 2023, said board President Jim Smith.
Tom Baker, a member of the Marbella Condominium Association Board, has been writing lawmakers, trying to get them to help stop property insurance rates from skyrocketing.
Baker acknowledges beachside condo owners – particularly those who have thus far been able to absorb the high insurance bills and the assessments to pay for damages – probably don’t attract much sympathy in Florida.
“Now us rich son-of-a-bitches, pardon me, we can manage somehow and get away with it,” he said.
But other condo owners have had their retirement dreams dashed, moving because of the high costs, while an exodus awaits if the problem isn’t contained, association board members say.
They appreciate what Baker has done to raise awareness of the problem.
“He’s taken this on, and he’s very passionate about it,” said Jim Smith, the Marbella Condo Association Board president.
Baker said: “People who moved down here on fixed incomes and bought themselves their final place now find themselves with an impossible bill.”
This number will shape Earth’s future as the climate changes. You’ll be hearing about it.
Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY – November 30, 2023
Consider that 3 degrees Fahrenheit is the difference between a raging fever and a healthy toddler. Between a hockey rink and a swimming pool. Between food going bad or staying at a safe temperature.
Now consider that Earth is about 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter on average than it was in the 1800s. It’s little wonder that has already led to measurable shifts in the climate: The last eight years have been the hottest in recorded history and 2023 is expected to be the hottest yet.
But there’s a looming threshold that will dictate the future of planet Earth. It could have cascading effects on how hot the planet gets, how much seas rise and how significantly normal daily life as we now know it will change.
The number is 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
World leaders at an annual gathering beginning Thursday will be spending considerable energy pondering that number, although they will use the Celsius version: 1.5 degrees.
“We can still make a big difference and every single tenth of a degree is enormously important,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Representatives and negotiators from 197 nations are gathering at an event called COP (Conference of the Parties) in the United Arab Emirates, a 13-day meeting that comes at what scientists say is a critical moment in the fight to keep the already dangerous effects of climate change from tipping over into the catastrophic.
Research published last month estimated humanity has only six or so more years before so much carbon dioxide has been pumped into the atmosphere that there’s only a 50% chance of staying below the threshold.
Why 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit is so important
In 2016, the United States and 195 other parties signed the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change aimed at lowering the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to keep global warming at bay.
All the nations that signed the Agreement pledged to try as hard as possible to keep the global average temperature increase below 2.7 degrees, and to definitely keep it below a 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit rise. (Only the Agreement said it in Celsius, which comes out to the smoother-sounding 2.0 degrees Celsius and 1.5 degrees Celsius.)
The numbers sound pretty small – but they aren’t.
A few degrees is a big deal
The difference between 65 degrees and 67.7 degrees (that critical 2.7-degree difference) isn’t even worth carrying a sweater. So why does it worry climate scientists?
It’s because they’re thinking about global temperature averages, and when the global average goes up, the extremes go way up.
People across America are already noticing the effects. Storms are more extreme, drenching areas with more water that’s causing an increasing number of devastating flash floods. Dozens of people in Vermont, Tennessee and Pennsylvania are only the most recent victims.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in a press conference at the UNFCCC SB58 Bonn Climate Change Conference on June 13 in Bonn, Germany. The conference lays the groundwork for the adoption of decisions at the upcoming COP28 climate conference in Dubai in December.
Why is it important to not let the Earth warm an extra degree?
The difference between an aspiration of no more than 2.7 degrees warming and a serious commitment to no more than 3.6 degrees might not seem large.
But multiply the extremes and their effects, and each results in a vastly different world. One is difficult, resulting in a less reliable and more chaotic climate than the one we live with today. The other verges on a movie cataclysm.
At their heart, the 13 days of COP28 negotiations are the place global governments sit down to hammer out just how much each will lower its carbon emissions, though many other climate change topics are on the table as well.
Using published research and reports from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Carbon Brief laid out the likely measurable difference between a world that is 2.7 degrees warmer and one that is 3.6 degrees warmer:
◾ Sea level rise by 2100 of 18 inches vs. 22 inches
◾ Ice-free Arctic summer chance of 10% vs. 80%
◾ Central U.S. warm spells last 10 days vs. 21 days
◾ Percentage of people facing at least one severe heat wave in five years is 14% vs. 37%
NASA graph showing the rise of carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere from 800,000 years ago to today.
The change has been underway for decades, but the extent of the shift is only now becoming clearly evident. In the 1980s, the country experienced on average a $1 billion, adjusted for inflation, disaster every four months. It now experiences one every three weeks. This year, the country has set a new record with 25 billion-dollar disasters.
The Earth crossed a key warming threshold in 2023, with one-third of the days so far having an average temperature at least 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than preindustrial levels. On Nov. 17, it reached 2.07 degrees above. This year is expected to be the warmest in recorded history, warmer than any other in 125,000 years.
What is COP28?
COP28 is the annual United Nations meeting of the 197 parties that have agreed to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, originally adopted in 1992. The meeting is the decision-making body of the countries that signed onto the U.N. framework. It is held to assess how well nations are dealing with climate change and set agendas and goals.
How important is this COP?
In a major report, the UN’s climate change body said earlier this month that global greenhouse gas emissions need to fall by 45% by the end of this decade compared to 2010 levels to meet the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Things are not going in the right direction. Instead, emissions are set to rise by 9%.
COP28 is where changes can be made.
Scientists say humanity has about a decade to dramatically reduce heat-trapping gas emissions before thresholds are passed that may make recovery from climate collapse impossible.
To do so will require cutting nearly two-thirds of carbon pollution by 2035, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. That means ending new fossil fuel exploration and weaning wealthy nations away from coal, oil and gas by 2040.
“Humanity is on thin ice – and that ice is melting fast,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the spring. “Our world needs climate action on all fronts – everything, everywhere, all at once.”
The third heatwave of the summer hits SpainHeatwave in Beijing, China
DUBAI (Reuters) – With a month to run, 2023 will reach global warming of about 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, adding to “a deafening cacophony” of broken climate records, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The WMO’s provisional State of the Global Climate report confirms that 2023 will be the warmest year on record by a large margin, replacing the previous record-holder 2016, when the world was around 1.2C warmer than the preindustrial average.
It adds to the urgency world leaders face as they wrestle with phasing out fossil fuels at the United Nations annual climate summit COP28, which begins on Thursday in Dubai.
“Greenhouse gas levels are record high. Global temperatures are record high. Sea level rise is record high. Antarctic sea ice record low,” WMO Secretary General Peterri Taalas said.
The report’s finding, however, does not mean the world is about to cross the long-term warming threshold of 1.5C that scientists say is the ceiling for avoiding catastrophic climate change under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
For that, the level of warming would need to be sustained for longer.
Already, a year of 1.4C has provided a frightening preview of what permanently crossing 1.5C might mean.
This year, Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest winter maximum extent on record, some 1 million square kilometres (386,000 sq miles) less than the previous record. Swiss glaciers lost about 10% of their remaining volume over the last two years, the report said. And wildfires burned a record area in Canada, amounting to about 5% of the country’s woodlands.
Climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, combined with the emergence of the natural El Nino climate pattern in the Eastern Pacific pushed the world into record territory this year.
Next year could be worse, the scientists said, as El Nino’s impacts are likely to peak this winter and drive higher temperatures in 2024.
(Reporting by Gloria Dickie; editing by Barbara Lewis)
The sun sets behind a burned forest near Mariposa, California (DAVID MCNEW)
This year is set to be the hottest ever recorded, the UN said Thursday, demanding urgent action to rein in global warming and stem the havoc following in its wake.
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization warned that 2023 had shattered a whole host of climate records, with extreme weather leaving “a trail of devastation and despair”.
“It’s a deafening cacophony of broken records,” said WMO chief Petteri Taalas.
“Greenhouse gas levels are record high. Global temperatures are record high. Sea level rise is record high. Antarctic sea ice is record low.”
The WMO published its provisional 2023 State of the Global Climate report as world leaders gathered in Dubai for the UN COP28 climate conference, amid mounting pressure to curb planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said the record heat findings “should send shivers down the spines of world leaders”.
The stakes have never been higher, with scientists warning that the ability to limit warming to a manageable level is slipping through humanity’s fingers.
The 2015 Paris climate accords aimed to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — and 1.5C if possible.
But in its report, the WMO said 2023 data to the end of October showed that this year was already around 1.4C above the pre-industrial baseline.
– ‘Not just statistics’ –
The agency is due to publish its final State of the Global Climate 2023 report in the first half of 2024.
But it said the difference between the first 10 months of this year and 2016 and 2020 — which previously topped the charts as the warmest years on record — “is such that the final two months are very unlikely to affect the ranking”.
The report also showed that the past nine years were the hottest years since modern records began.
“These are more than just statistics,” Taalas said, warning that “we risk losing the race to save our glaciers and to rein in sea level rise”.
“We cannot return to the climate of the 20th century, but we must act now to limit the risks of an increasingly inhospitable climate in this and the coming centuries.”
The WMO warned that the warming El Nino weather phenomenon, which emerged mid-year, was “likely to further fuel the heat in 2024”.
That is because the naturally-occurring climate pattern, typically associated with increased heat worldwide, usually increases global temperatures in the year after it develops.
The preliminary report also found that concentrations of the three main heat-trapping greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — reached record high levels in 2022, with preliminary data indicating that the levels continued to grow this year.
Carbon dioxide levels were 50 percent higher than the pre-industrial era, the agency said, meaning that “temperatures will continue to rise for many years to come”, even if emissions are drastically cut.
– ‘Climate chaos’ –
The rate of sea level rise over the past decade was more than twice the rate of the first decade of satellite records (1993-2002), it said.
And the maximum level of Antarctic sea ice this year was the lowest on record.
In fact, it was a million square kilometres less than the previous record low at the end of the southern hemisphere winter, the WMO said — an area larger than France and Germany combined.
Meanwhile, glaciers in North America and Europe again suffered an extreme melt season, with Swiss glaciers losing 10 percent of their ice volume in the past two years alone, the report showed.
Dramatic socio-economic impacts accompany such climate records, experts say, including dwindling food security and mass displacement.
“This year we have seen communities around the world pounded by fires, floods and searing temperatures,” UN chief Guterres said in a video message.
He called on the leaders gathered in Dubai to commit to dramatic measures to rein in climate change, including phasing out fossil fuels and tripling renewable energy capacity.
“We have the roadmap to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5C and avoid the worst of climate chaos,” he said.
“But we need leaders to fire the starting gun at COP28 on a race to keep the 1.5 degree limit alive.”
