Corporations
'Bamboozle' A Golden Rule for Some
Published July 31, 2009 @ 05:19AM PT
I'm a naysayer, a contrarian. I've always been that way. It comes in handy, especially when sorting out the abundant tomfoolery hoisted upon us by "them that have the gold," the Tarnished Golden Rule of Politics. An abundance of news, opinions and blogs about poverty-related issues illustrate how this rule works.
Recent news accounts of Wall Street's audacious behavior and self-interested medical providers illustrate the power of money in guiding (mis) behavior. Follow the money and you'll figure out this nation's and world's woes. Many in Congress and most corporations tend to follow the bucks which gets them in trouble.
Subsistence is the Only Choice
Published July 29, 2009 @ 11:00AM PT
Monday's post about the lack of housing affordability for anyone working minimum wage struck a chord with many readers; to date, it's driven the most readers to this blog. I noticed that after folks read it, they tended to root around in our Actions to see what they could do. There's a lot of options, but here's a couple suggestions:
- Join a campaign for a Living Wage;
- Join a coalition of affordable housing advocates to push for more quality housing for low-income Americans, especially for families, the elderly and the disabled;
- Fight for welfare "reforms" that count higher education towards work and expand access to subsidized childcare and for longer periods of time. (There's actually a lot more that could be done, but I'm trying to keep you all focused.)
Talking about poverty day in and day out can get pretty debilitating - I can't imagine how it is for my readers and loved ones who live it everyday. I'm feeling particularly beat down this morning by the combination of this absolutely horrendous report of the tragic confluence of child poverty, tenant exploitation and substandard housing from New Orleans, as well as the insistence from many readers around the web that minimum wage is generous enough - that if immigrants can get by, why can't we; that it will make teen workers more irresponsible, that it will hurt the businesses too meager or cheap or profit-oriented to even pay benefits. Bull. Bull. And more bull.
Housing Everywhere Unaffordable at Minimum Wage
Published July 26, 2009 @ 10:57AM PT
UPDATE 7/29/09: This conversation on minimum wage continues here.
On Friday, the new federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour took effect. Yet:
...in no state can an individual working full-time at the minimum wage afford a two-bedroom apartment for his or her family. In fact, there is no county in the U.S. where even a one-bedroom unit at the FMR is affordable to someone working fulltime at the minimum wage.
According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition's annual Out of Reach report on housing affordability in the U.S.,
A household must earn the equivalent of $37,105 in annual income to afford the national average two-bedroom [fair market rate] of $928 per month.14 Assuming full-time, year-round employment, this translates into a national Housing Wage of $17.84 in 2009.
So $17.84 per hour just for housing versus $7.25 an hour for all a household's economic needs. I wonder what "fiscal" conservatives have to say about this?
On Health Care: The Wal-Mart Effect in Washington
Published July 16, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
As Change.org's own Tim Foley reported a week or so ago, Wal-Mart has recently come out (in a letter to President Obama co-signed by the Center for American Progress and Service Employees International Union) in support of an employer mandate that would require most businesses to provide health care coverage to all of their employees.
This change of heart by the mega-corporation--whose dismal labor practices have been well-documented over the past decade--has been called a major political turning point in the nation's current health care reform debate, and could push the country towards more "universal" coverage for all its residents.
However, since reading about this corporate "coming to God" moment, I can't stop asking myself two important questions: why and at what cost has Wal-Mart chosen to support health care reform?
Corporate Commitment Helps Omaha Jobs Program Thrive
Published July 13, 2009 @ 06:21AM PT
In Omaha, Nebraska, a traditional workforce development-jobs training (WFD) program is attracting national attention for its unconventional partnerships - the leadership and investment by the city's business community:
...the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce is leading the effort to introduce chronically unemployed or under-employed people into careers that can support families...“The (Omaha) business community believed its competitiveness as a region was being affected by the low income and chronic unemployment of a particular neighborhood, and that it was an untapped labor force that they wanted to invest in.”
Typically, WFD programs are run by government and non-profit collaboratives, with businesses as relatively passive recipients of graduates, placing people in entry-level positions, albeit with some on-going support from the non-profit trainers. Graduates are low-income adults facing significant barriers to employment: limited education, criminal records, mental or physical health problems, etc. With businesses entering the supply chain at the end to take on new employees without playing much of a role in their training and development elevates the risk that these trainees will falter in their new, unfamiliar environments.
What's interesting about the Omaha initiative is that the Chamber is playing a pro-active, leading role in anti-poverty efforts in the city, pulling together partnerships and funding to fight illiteracy and other obstacles to employment in low-income communities. The leadership piece is key here: if the business community has decided that residents who are outside the workforce are an untapped labor asset, then immediately corporations come to the table with a focus on increasing local employment. That they come to the table to pursue local sourcing and business expansion in partnership with non-profits, anti-poverty advocates and local government signals that this can be a more just approach than just another low-road, low-wage strategy that too often results in no skills gain, high turnover, and general dissatisfaction for everyone.
Jobs for the Future, a policy and advocacy non-profit for workforce development initiatives in the US, is keeping its eye on Omaha for possible best practices and as a model for other cities. Sounds like we should be paying attention too!
(Photo of Mutual of Omaha, one of the Collaborative's partners, by ShannonPatrick17)
(Boy did my fingers want to type Obama instead of Omaha every time!)
Dirty Laundry and Disaster Relief
Published July 08, 2009 @ 06:50AM PT
I was visiting my mom over the long weekend, which meant I had access to cable television. As committed as I am to abolishing the prison industrial complex, I'll be the first to admit that I jump at the chance to veg out during Law and Order marathons whenever I visit mom. This time around though, there was a series of highly irritating commercials in heavy rotation that kept distracting me from the innovative and unpredictable plot lines of crime drama shows. The commercials were for the Tide Loads of Hope program.
If you've never heard of Loads of Hope, it's basically a portable laundromat that Tide transports to disaster affected areas so that people can have clean clothes even when they might be in precarious living situations. I believe that the program started after Hurricane Katrina.
Simple, kind, and well-intentioned, right? I'm sure people devastated by natural disasters (or floods related to weather events as is the case with Katrina and New Orleans) really do appreciate the service. But as a Gulf Coast resident, this feels like a marketing ploy driven and sustained by our suffering. When it comes down to it, how much more money is Tide spending on airing television spots about Loads of Hope than on funding the portable laundromat and supplies? How has this campaign improved Tide's corporate image, and how many people buy bottles of Tide with yellow caps because they like the idea that their money is funding a program like Loads of Hope? And how much money that could have gone directly to local non-profits engaged long-term in disaster recovery has been redirected to Tide as it passes through the Gulf Coast?
Happy 4th: On Class, Ethnicity & Immigration
Published July 04, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
My fiance and I are dog-sitting for my mom this weekend. Hopefully we're walking them along the beach in her CT town, enjoying the sun, whose warmth I've forgotten in the cloudiest June in Massachusetts in over 100 years.
Here's some interesting links for that downtime between the BBQs and naps I hope you're enjoying today:
MySpace is the ghetto, trailer park, or barrio of the internet. Discuss.
The Obama Administration is halting Bush's Nothin' But Raids approach to immigration and going after employers who hire undocumented workers. It's most high-profile case is against American Apparel, which raises questions about the effectiveness of this approach. It's definitely more humane. But will a fine of $150,000 make a remote bit of difference?
Police Chiefs from Miami, Austin, and Sacramento come together to call for immigrant legalization and a separation of duties between local police forces and immigration enforcement. Money quote: “When you remove the emotion from the debate,” [Austin] Chief Acevedo said, "no one can argue that it is in the best interest of public safety to keep these people living in the shadows.”
Finally, Richard Trumka is on track to move from Secretary-Treasurer to President of the AFL-CIO. Perhaps most famous for his moving speech on racism in the labor movement during Obama's candidacy last year (video above), Trumka "a former coal miner and fierce critic of corporate America...would bring a more combative style to running the federation at a time when organized labor seems to be growing weaker in the nation’s workplaces but stronger in Washington."
This fighting style is right up my alley, of course. Others worry he'll be too polarizing. There's a hilarious-in-its-irony quote from an exec at the US Chamber of Commerce, fretting about Trumka's aggressiveness and potential bad publicity for the "employer community." As we document here at Poverty in America, I think Corporate America's already doing a bang-up job there! Good luck to Trumka and the labor movement. Don't forget: Support EFCA!
