Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Gambling and Neoliberal Rot - How Our Most Regressive Tax Flies Under the Radar: Citations Needed Episode 63
Adam Johnson, Nima Shirazi
06 Mar 2019
🖨️ Print Article

Local and state governments spend $1 billion annually to market the lottery, and in return Americans spend $70 billion each year on lottery tickets alone, 6 times what they spend going to movies. Almost all of it comes from people with low incomes, and the lower their incomes are, the more people play the lottery. When unemployment goes up, so do lottery sales. Lotteries marketed to the poor have taken the place of tax revenue extracted in more egalitarian ways.

Hosts Nina Shirazi and Adam Johnson talk to John Balzarini, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Delaware State University and Les Bernal National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling.

gambling
tax policy

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: White Supremacy in U.S. History, Theodore W. Allen April 28, 1973
    09 Apr 2025
    “The principal aspect of United States capitalist society is not merely bourgeois domination but bourgeois white supremacist domination.”
  • Hands Off protest
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    HANDS OFF NATO? Not Palestine? Who got the memo?
    09 Apr 2025
    The Democrats’ HANDS OFF rallies included “HANDS OFF NATO” and excluded “HANDS OFF PALESTINE,” but not all rally goers got the memo.
  • According to one real-time price data aggregator, inflation has slowed to its lowest level since 2020. Getty/Newsweek
    Jon Jeter
    Will Trump’s Tariffs Trigger a Second Great Depression?
    09 Apr 2025
    The Trump administration’s escalating trade war has sent shockwaves through the global economy, with Wall Street giants sounding the alarm over an imminent recession. As markets reel and experts warn…
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    From Uncle Tom to Cousin Cory: (Or, The Curious Case of Mr. Booker’s Senate Floor Minstrel Show)
    09 Apr 2025
    Senator Cory Booker’s recent 25-hour Senate speech is hailed by some as an act of resistance. Really, it exposes the moral bankruptcy of neoliberal politics, as his performative progressivism clashes…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    One Spring Day …
    09 Apr 2025
    "One Spring Day …" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us