What happened when I taught Harvard undergrads about inequality and poverty

qz.com

8 pointsmcguire2 comments

"I ran the numbers through the Census data. The lowest median household income of all the cities represented by my students was $120,000 per year. The poverty rate in the city with the lowest rate in our class was 0%. Nobody in that student’s hometown lived in poverty."

It is probably unusual to have a course section with a minimum median income of $120,000 even at Harvard.

The median household income in Cambridge, MA (the city where most of Harvard's campus is) is $83,122 [0] and 8.4% of families and 14% of people live in poverty.

The source [1] the author links to regarding student family income at Harvard shows that 15.1% of students come from the top 1% (which I guess means top 1% in terms of national income). It's a good read by the way.

[0] https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/cf/1.0/en/place/Cambridge...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-c...

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