Danielle Levy

It’s official, poverty is harmful. According to two separate studies published in the journal Science, poverty can lower one’s IQ. Some call this a game changer because it demonstrates how the extra and constant strain of financial worries affects cognitive reasoning. Individuals then spend so much mental capacity on trying to solve these problems, they have less to use on other tasks. The studies ruled out factors like nutrition, physical exhaustion or family commitments and also tried to limit the influence of stress, all adding weight to the idea that people are poor because they are lazy or stupid as being false. Behaviors associated with poverty—using less preventive healthcare, higher obesity rates, being less attentive parents or making poor financial decisions—can now be placed in perspective, as being related to the poverty itself and not the individuals. Not only do the results hold many implications for policy makers, they provide data to help change the attitudes of many who blame the poor for being poor.

According to the Reputation Institute’s recent survey, banks have a lower standing than Big Pharma, the media, oil companies and telecommunications firms. They are however, slightly above Congress. Union Bank of San Francisco, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi financial services, topped the list with a ranking of 78.2 out of a possible 100. Bank of America ranks at the bottom. Its score along with that of HSBC and Wells Fargo was below 60. BofA’s customers rated it 52.6, non customers 35.1. The survey defined a ranking of 70 or above as an indication of customer satisfaction. Although both BofA and Wells Fargo claim that according to in house surveys their customer satisfaction is rising, those of us who have been observers of bank behavior since the 2008 financial crisis aren’t surprised by the Institute’s finding. What’s obvious to us doesn’t appear to be so for the banks’ decision makers. The BofA chairman said deposits are rising, and customers leaving the bank is at an all time low. Wells Fargo said that customer service scores were at an all time high in the second quarter of 2013. It looks like banks will work to fix their image and leave intact the underlying problems that at the very least are reflected in the low scores.

There are at least 26,100 men and women 65 and over currently in state and federal prisons, a 65% increase in the last five years and making up the fastest growing segment of prison population. The cost for older inmates is three to nine times higher than for those under 65. Most prison staff admits to not being trained to handle geriatric prisoners. We know from studies on recidivism that age is a factor that lowers crime rates. And then there’s the issue of their debt to society. “Anger, grief and the desire for retribution are understandable,” writes Jamie Fellner, a senior advisor at Human Rights Watch who focuses on criminal justice in the U.S., “and we all agree that people who commit serious crimes should be held accountable. But retribution can shade into vengeance. While being old should not be an automatic get-out-of-jail-free-card, infirmity and illness can change the calculus of what justice requires.” As the Attorney General recently admitted, when he announced a compassionate release policy, there seems to be a point where the society no longer benefits from keeping older and ill inmates in prison. Regardless of what reasons or who articulates them, older inmates who are sick ought to be released simply because that’s what a moral society demands.