Hibbard Goes Blogging

Yesterday, I voted.  Today, I listened to " The Cost to Cast a Ballot " episode of Code Switch. To begin, they talked about the gubernatorial elections in both Georgia and Florida, each of which hold the potential to elect the first Black Governor in the United States:  Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum, respectively. How exciting that our Georgia election is being discussed on a national level, and that either state could make history depending on the outcome! Midterm elections generally produce low turnout. Domenico Montanaro, who hosts the NPR Politics podcast, references an expert from the University of Florida who suspects that 45-50% of voters will participate in this election, which would be the highest since the mid-1960s. Presidential elections (like the one in 2016) typically boast about 60% voter participation, and midterms are typically much lower. The 2014 midterm election produced only 36%, which was the lowest since the WWII. Later in the episode, Ge...

I recently came across an episode of the Netflix show, " Explained ," which tackled explaining the issue of "The Racial Wealth Gap." One of the most compelling stories from the short episode is when Congressman Cory Booker tells the story of his parents' attempt at buying their first home in the late 1960s, which involved a bit of 'bait and switch' in order to accomplish the purchase. This chart from The Institute for Policy Studies' report, The Road to Zero Wealth , illustrates the massive income gap between white households and minority households: Brian Thompson's article in Forbes goes into more detail about the wealth gap. I also found two additional articles from the Pew Research Center on the topic:  How Wealth Has Changed Since the Recession  and Findings on the Rise in Income Inequality . While discussing the "Explained" episode with some of my colleagues, I was directed to the Fresh Air podcast, among other sourc...