Inclusion put out a new report on communicating a compelling anti-poverty message, and, as anyone who follows this debate might expect, the American public isn't that keen on addressing poverty when it's defined as such. But to me, the report had a few surprising findings.

First, the public isn't that receptive to messages that redefine the poor as "deserving" workers.

Given these findings, the authors suggest that in appeals to the public, instead of emphasizing personal stories about the poor, advocates should focus on systemic and institutional reasons for poverty that are beyond the control of individuals. As I review later, other researchers have arrived at very similar conclusions. In addition, this research suggests that the label "working poor" may itself be problematic. Given a cultural belief that if people are industrious they will succeed, this term sounds somewhat contradictory, and is likely to trigger confusion and negative connotations, especially among those Americans who have a strong "belief in a just world."

Writing in The American Prospect, Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein disabuse readers of the notion that rising inequality can be reversed by improving the educational system. In fact, as the title of their piece - "Schools as Scapegoats" - indicates, the school system is being scapegoated by politicians and economists who refuse to believe that interventions in the private market may be required to reverse the inequality trend.

The honesty of our capital markets, the accountability of our corporations, our fiscal-policy and currency management, our national investment in R&D and infrastructure, and the fair-play of the trading system (or its absence), also influence whether the U.S. economy reaps the gains of Americans' diligence and ingenuity. The singular obsession with schools deflects political attention from policy failures in those other realms.

If you're interested in inequality issues, this is a must-read article.

Below the fold is the nickel version of the piece.

Greg Ip in The Wall Street Journal reports($) on new IRS income tax return data:

The wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19% in 2004, and surpasses the previous high of 20.8% set in 2000, at the peak of the previous bull market in stocks.

The bottom 50% earned 12.8% of all income, down from 13.4% in 2004 and a bit less than their 13% share in 2000.