You Aren't Safe From This Storm
This Week’s Inequality Roundup: March 21, 2025
On Nov. 17, 2013, an EF4 tornado did more than a billion bucks worth of damage to my central Illinois community. Washington took the brunt of it, but East Peoria and Pekin also had plenty of damage.
In those days, I was the editor of my city’s then-daily newspaper. My main photographer was in Chicago for the weekend and I couldn’t reach our part-timer because phone service was wonky.
So I sent my husband, who is a pretty good photographer but not a trained journalist, to take pictures.
We knew the subdivision that was hit hardest very well. A friend of mine and her young daughter lived there. They had to be pulled from the debris, and if they had not dived under the basement stairs at the last minute, it’s doubtful they’d have survived.
Houses not far from mine sustained serious damage, but my property was unscathed. Still, I am far less blasé about storm warnings now than I had been — and thankful that at least for now, we still have a robust system to protect us, NOAA’s early warning system. (I picked up the dogs and hit the basement twice in the last week thanks to these tornado warnings, because I learned my lesson!)
Some people just have to learn the hard way.
There’s a far more destructive force moving across the land right now
Half the people I know are scared to death and are screaming as loud as they can that we are all in grave danger.
The other half are unconcerned and are just going about their days. They either don’t believe there's any danger or they don’t believe it will affect them personally. Some, in fact, are quite happy about the destruction being wrought. They fully understood what they were voting for.
They are going to have to learn the hard way. For some, realization will come too late, as with the Trump-supporting farmers who are losing their livelihoods.
This storm is most dangerous to the poor, people of color and immigrants.
My husband is Dutch. He came to the U.S. in 2006 so we could marry. He’s a permanent legal resident with a green card, which gives him almost every benefit of citizenship except the vote. He has no criminal record whatsoever. He’s the hard-working immigrant who came here legally almost everyone claims to welcome.
But the news is full of ICE detaining people like my husband who have not done anything wrong or who have made some kind of mistake on an official piece of paperwork.
Let me tell you, there is a lot of paperwork involved in coming here, and it’s complicated. We have done our very best, but it’s entirely possible we’ve misinterpreted some question somewhere, or failed to check some box. And now I worry that this is going to mean trouble.
It would be one thing if we were told, “Hey, you attached Form QRX123 and you needed Form QRX456. Common mistake. Here, fill this out instead.” But what is actually happening in some cases is people not accused of any crime are being placed in filthy, freezing cells, fed unspeakable food, not being given access to an attorney and not being told when they’ll be released. Sometimes their families don’t know where they’re taken for days. You can read stories like this one or this one or this one.
My husband will not be leaving the country for any reason until Trump is out of office (always assuming Trump actually leaves when his term ends) even if there’s a family funeral. I pray there is not. We’re making contingency plans in case we have to get out fast.
But this is just one of many storms
This is the one that frightens me most because it threatens my family specifically, but I also care about all the other things that are going on – laying off NOAA workers that warn of literal storms, the threats to our democracy, our rejection of our allies, our cozying up to dictators … I could go on but you already know.
And there’s just not much any of us can do. Crouching down in the corner of your basement will not keep you safe from this storm.
If you have some hot income inequality-related news you don’t see shared here, please add it in the comments or shoot me a message! I intend this round-up to be a one-stop shop for everyone who cares about this topic and a great place to discover new sources to follow. If you see a newsletter you like, don’t forget to subscribe to it today!
And now, here’s this week’s inequality roundup:
Who DOGE Hurts: Gutting NOAA
Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse
ABC is reporting that NOAA is down about 2,000 employees since January “as a result of the first round of the Trump administration's cuts.” California Congressman Jared Huffman, who chairs one of the relevant House subcommittees, said, “There is no way to absorb cuts of this magnitude without cutting into these core missions. This is not about efficiency and it's certainly not about waste, fraud and abuse. This is taking programs that people depend on to save lives and emasculating them.”
The $122 Billion Disappearing Act: How U.S. Schools Face a Looming Crisis
Jeremy Ney, American Inequality
The US is one of only three OECD nations that does not provide more resources to disadvantaged schools (the other two are Turkey and Israel). This is because the other largest share of funding for public schools comes from property taxes - wealthy communities, with higher property values, tend to have better schools because they get more funding. This can amount to a gap of an additional $17,000 per student per year. Equalization is the process by which states can move funds around across districts to ensure that lower-income neighborhoods with lower property values get the support they need.
The Working Homeless …
Joyce DeMartin, The Poverty Trap
Adding to these statistics and analysis on homelessness, and perhaps more importantly, reframing them a bit, is an opinion piece recently published in The New York Times titled: “America Is Pushing Its Workers Into Homelessness”, by Brian Goldstone, who is also the author of the forthcoming book: “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless In America”.
Although his book is not out yet, Goldstone’s guest essay in The Times gives us a good idea of its theme: it is our system (and I’ll say “our system ‘rigged’ in favor of the wealthy and against the poor) that is literally pushing people into poverty and homelessness.
The Cost of Care: How Unpaid Labor Robs Women Blind
Elise Unleashed
Caregiving is the ultimate wealth killer for women. Not just in the obvious ways—lost wages, reduced hours, career stagnation—but in the long, slow erosion of power. We’re told it’s “just part of life,” that stepping back from our careers to raise kids is noble, natural, even expected. But you know what’s not expected? That men will do the same.
And the kicker? It’s not just the hours we lose—it’s the ripple effect. The promotions we don’t take. The raises we don’t negotiate. The skills we don’t get to sharpen. Meanwhile, our partners—our so-called teammates—climb the ladder unhindered, with their retirement accounts swelling and their financial security locked in.
Gluten and Carbs Are Fine
Michelle Teheux, Untrickled
The most toxic part of your diet is capitalism.
If somebody is advertising a food to you, think twice before you eat it. I am trying to remember if I’ve ever seen a TV commercial for spinach or apples. Can’t remember any off the top of my head.
I want to make what people cooked when a big food conglomerate wasn’t marketing anything to them. What I like to cook is grandma food. I want to eat the foods that have been handed down for generations.
We used to eat the foods our mothers told us to eat. Now we eat the foods advertisers tell us to eat.
Here’s Why Dems Have 21% Approval – The Lowest In History
Qasim Rashid, Esq., Let’s Address This With Qasim Rashid
Democrats believe in getting things done—Bill Foster’s voting record doesn’t.
Adding insult to all of the above injury, Bill Foster has never passed a single actual meaningful piece of legislation. His greatest legislative achievement after 8 terms in Congress? Renaming a post office after Ronald Reagan. Yes, Reagan—the racist, homophobic architect of trickle-down economics who gutted public education, slashed social programs, and made the rich richer while the rest of us suffered.
How gratitude buttresses the myth of meritocracy
Noah Berlatsky, Everything Is Horrible
The truth is that meritocracy is a myth; the factors that lead to success tend to have a lot more to do with who has been blessed with generational capital, white support networks, or simple good luck, than with anything else. For instance, my own (moderate) success with freelance writing is very much tied to the fact that I’m heterosexual and was able to get on my wife’s health insurance in the days before marriage equality to start my career.
About Michelle Teheux
I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here and on Medium. I also have a new Substack aimed at authors who want to self-publish books, called The Indie Author. My new book is Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class. And yes, those are my husband’s actual boots on the cover! My most recent novel is The Trailer Park Rules. If you prefer to give a one-time tip, I accept Ko-fi.
Everything is terrifying. One of my personal terrors is losing our ACA health insurance (we're both self-employed). I'm so sorry for your personal terrors. This (everything) is horrifying.
My immigrant wife and I have had this same conversation. She's not leaving the U.S. for any reason until things are safe again, or we get forcibly removed. She's had her green card for more than twelve years now but, that's no longer any guarantee anymore, as we're seeing. She doesn't have any tattoos nor has she ever had any run ins with law enforcement. She plans to keep it that way. She figures that as long as she stays under the radar, she should be safe. Meanwhile, I am preparing for war with ICE.
If they come for her, I will fight. As I mentioned to Mitch in Florida yesterday ( we talk about this stuff all of the time now), I'm ready to join a resistance group to fight against the tyranny. I'm also preparing for power outages, water shutoffs, and other county infrastructure outages that may create difficulties in remaining in place, if the riots break out and Trump declares marshall law.
Read Jessica Wildfire's latest post about a possible Trump coup coming in April. My OP tempo just went into high gear. I would rather be ready, than get caught by surprise.
Stay safe in central Illinois. With all of the storms of all kinds brewing on the horizon, you'll need a little luck to get through it all. If I thought the post office would deliver them intact, I'd send you some shamrocks. Sláinte