Helping the Poor Quit Smoking
Published November 22, 2009 @ 12:50PM PT
In Massachusetts, smoking among low-income residents has fallen 26%, thanks to a state-funded program that pays for smoking cessation treatment. It's a funny coincidence that I came across this article this morning; just last night at the convenience store I noticed that a pack of cigarettes is about $7.50. That is almost as much as the hourly minimum wage ($8). That's a very hefty expense on such modest wages. Poor Americans
“...are truly the individuals who are harmed the most by tobacco in America today,’’ said Dr. Michael Fiore, director of the University of Wisconsin-Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. “The proportion of family income that Medicaid recipients have to devote to purchasing this drug they’re addicted to, tobacco, is higher than for virtually any other group in our society.’’
Low-income Americans have higher smoking rates in general; one of the reasons is the expense of quitting. So funding smoking cessation for poorer Americans who want to quit is a very equitable policy. When the state decided to run the program, which provides both treatment and counseling and uses intensive promotion to recruit participants, they expected 5-10% participation of eligible residents (those who receive state-subsidized health insurance). Instead, 40% have enrolled.
With such successful enrollment and cessation rates, the program has earned national attention, and advocates are encouraging Congress to require cessation coverage in healthcare reform. There are clear, long-term, societal benefits for everyone, not just the poor: their lower admissions to the E/R for asthma and other related health problems is just one widespread cost saving that results. According to Valerie Bassett of the Massachusetts Public Health Association, "...when we’re looking at cost savings, it’s one of the easiest ones to realize.’’
(Photo by matze_ott)
Time for a Little Thanks
Published November 20, 2009 @ 05:08AM PT
With our national holiday of Thanksgiving rapidly approaching, I'd like to offer some therapeutic thoughts to counteract the ongoing bleak economic reality, including this recent and timely report about people suffering from hunger.
With health care dominating national news, I was delighted to read a positive story about a hospital administrator's approach to coping with their fiscal crisis. The Boston Globe reported that Paul Levy, the hospital CEO, walked around the hospital and made simple, but critical, observations.
He stood at the nurses' stations, watching the transporters, the people who push the patients around in wheelchairs. He saw them talk to the patients, put them at ease, make them laugh. He saw that the people who push the wheelchairs were practicing medicine.
He noticed the same when he poked his head into the rooms and watched as the people who deliver the food chatted up the patients and their families.
He watched the people who polish the corridors, who strip the sheets, who empty the trash cans, and he realized that a lot of them are immigrants, many of them had second jobs, most of them were just scraping by.
Judge Rules Katrina Flooding Government's Fault
Published November 19, 2009 @ 09:36AM PT
A US District Court in New Orleans has issued an historic ruling that the Army Corps of Engineer's negligence led to Hurricane Katrina's fatal flooding of the Lower 9th Ward, a neighborhood in New Orleans, and St. Bernard Parish*, a neighboring county of NOLA. It's easy to forget that Katrina's landfall was not what devastated New Orleans to the extent we witnessed, but rather the failure of the levees to hold back the storm's tidal effects. The intricate system of levees, channels and canals that have protected the city for generations was overcome by the storm, because, as the ruling makes clear, of decades of poor levee maintenance by the federal government.
This decision enables "tens of thousands" of homeowners in the affected area to bring lawsuits against the government. Normally, I'm extremely wary of homeowner activism, but in these two areas, a substantial and often majority of these homeowners were low- to moderate-income. Their homes were their primary or only asset; the hurricane completely destroyed their properties, or left such damage that insurance payments were insufficient to rebuild - in part because many of these homes must meet new building standards, and because many of these homeowners were likely underinsured. It's wonderful to think they might finally receive the resources needed to rebuild their lives and homes.
The government plans to appeal, naturally, and could face billions in claims of liability. Given the appeals process, and judicial sentiment once this case leaves New Orleans, it's highly unlikely these homeowners could ever see a dime. But this is an important and unforgettable moment of truth for disadvantaged homeowners, who, four years on, are working diligently to get on with their post-Katrina lives.
*Yes, we've written about St. Bernard Parish before, and NOT to celebrate their recovery progress.
(Photos of the flood's damage and the levee breech in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, taken by the author, January 2006)
Women and Children Most Hit By Hunger
Published November 19, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
By now, many of you have probably heard the news that 49 million people in the United States did not have access to a sufficient amount of food last year, more than any year since the USDA started keeping records in 1995. Even more disturbing, this represents a 36% increase in hunger between 2007 and 2008.
Although there has been both statistical and anecdotal evidence concerning the spread of hunger across the United States recently, a new report released by the USDA paints a more accurate, and unfortunately grim, picture of the true extent of food insecurity in the most powerful nation on earth.
The numbers themselves are startling -- 16% of all people went hungry in 2008 -- but they do not go far enough in showing who is suffering the most.
Long-term Unemployment Worst Since the Great Depression
Published November 17, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Record-setting joblessness: it's not just for the elderly. 5.6M Americans have been out of work for at least 6 months; this is the highest proportion of workers out of work for that long since the Great Depression. Joblessness is highest among younger workers.
I've written about unemployment and joblessness a lot lately. Here's some other poverty news items I'd love to spend more time on as well:
- A new documentary, "The End of Poverty" (in limited release), makes a case for capitalism's systematic inequality and hints at a need to resurrect Marxist critiques of our cherished economic system.
- Speaking of leftist advocacy, ACORN has sued the federal government over the House's decisions to defund the anti-poverty group, saying it is unconstitutional and effectively deeming ACORN guilty without trial.
- In DC, job training programs for public assistant recipients fail to tell 97% of enrollees about skills training programs that might actually help them find and keep jobs. That's one way to encourage self-sufficiency: designing failure right into aid programs!
- Hawaii considers getting out of the public housing business entirely.
- Is the Catholic Church's assault on women's healthcare in the reform debate an attempt to level the playing field for Catholic hospitals that currently provide a more limited range of health services than secular hospitals?
- More school districts are basing busing decisions on income rather than race in an attempt to get mostly children of color out of low-performing schools.
- NIMBYism comes to rural Maine to block housing for Latin@ farmworkers. 6 whole units worth. Now that's a ghastly, infectious island of concentrated poverty if I've ever heard of one.
- Happy Birthday Sesame Street! (5 days late, my bad!) Over 40 years, the program has moved from racial and economic integration and diversity training goals to foodie fads and wellness. Discuss.
- And this is a feel good story: West Philly inner-city high school kids beat MIT teams in a $10M green car contest not once, but twice. Sweet! Well done!
(Sesame Street sure looks scrubbed clean in that photo, don't you think? Taken at Sesame Place by steve.ie)
44% of Congress are millionaires
Published November 16, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
And we wonder why Congress can't pass bills to support low-income households and working people...ok, we don't really wonder, do we?
1% of Americans are millionaires, compared to 44% of Congress (237 elected officials, to be exact). The median income in the Senate is just under $2M, in the House it's just over $600k. Median household income in the US is $50,303.
Just because an individual is rich does not preclude them from pursuing pro-poor or equitable policies, nor does it suggest that they cannot relate to poverty or economic inequality. But when the group norm is staggering wealth compared to the typical American, including in countless districts these officials represent, then it is understandably difficult to consider or develop policies that truly address economic hardship. Add to this wealth disparity the reality that 9 in 10 House incumbents and 8 in 10 Senate incumbents are re-elected each election year, and my despair over Congressional legislation benefiting the average American certainly deepens.
I hear from political insiders that nothing is more important in running for election than a person's ability to raise money. Forget your political views, your commitment to social equity, your desire to make a difference. If you're not rich or you don't know rich people who can bankroll your campaign, it's over before you've begun. Yes, we need to keep putting progressive candidates up for election, and we need to diversify the ranks of political leadership along racial, gender and certainly class lines. But how can we do that, when we're up against the nation's economic elite? Maybe our Average Joe VP, who's net worth is $27,000, has some advice.
(Original graph of House incumbency trends here at the Center for Responsive Politics)
Swine Flu Driving Paid Sick Leave Laws
Published November 15, 2009 @ 11:39AM PT
President Obama is urging anyone showing symptoms of swine flu to stay home for at least four days - a nearly impossible task for the 50% of working Americans who lack any paid sick leave. With legislation stalled in Congress to mandate paid sick leave, 15 states and several cities around the US are proposing their own sick leave laws. Sen. Dodd (D-CT) has proposed mandatory sick leave just for those diagnosed with swine flu, a rather pathetic compromise, in my book. (And I already know people who likely had swine flu earlier this year only to have it missed by their docs.)
I wrote about this issue less than 2 months ago (first link above), and not too much has changed. Unsurprisingly, many lawmakers resist the reality that public health and labor issues can be intertwined as is the case here: ill workers showing up to their jobs cost businesses roughly $180B per year, more than the cost of absenteeism. (Also of note: how many women's policy institutes are providing the data on worker/labor policies - gee, I wonder why...)
We have a window of opportunity here to pass some long overdue laws. I commend Democrats for using swine flu to raise awareness of this issue, and states and cities for responding to the very serious reality of a pandemic sweeping through their populations. Now if only people could actually get access to the vaccine...
(Photo of mask, liquid soap and paper tissue bfishadow)
