Jobs & Unemployment
CA to become first state with no public assistance?
Published May 31, 2009 @ 08:28AM PT
Obviously, as long as government exists, it will provide some level of public benefit to us all. But Gov. Schwarzenegger's proposed budget cuts in California are so deep that they would outright eliminate temporary assistance to needy families (TANF, or "welfare"):
Ending cash assistance for 1.3 million impoverished state residents, for example, would make California the only state with no welfare program.
"Every single first-world nation has a safety net program for children," said Will Lightbourne, Santa Clara County's social services director. "This would return us to the era of Dickens — you'd have to go back to the 19th century to find a comparable proposal."
Dickensian. You know you're living through hard times when your governance is compared to the abject poverty and exploitation of 19th century England. That's rough.
The Governator's not the only bad guy here. Voters rejected ballot proposals last week to balance the budget via tax increases, borrowing and basically moving $$ around to plug holes. California's "direct democracy" has proven so dicey that for the first time in 150+ years, Constitutional reform might actually be in play. But will the state close all its parks, and drop welfare and healthcare and tuition assistance for low-income youth to make this happen? I shudder at the thought.
Photo of a mural from LAMP Community on Skid Row in Los Angeles, taken by lewisha1990. Can Californians come together for economic recovery? How many new households will end up on Skid Row?
Race and the Recession
Published May 29, 2009 @ 11:30AM PT
Photo of murals under I-10 at Claiborne Ave in New Orleans. On Claiborne was a thriving black business district in Treme in New Orleans that was destroyed by the development of highway I-10. Urban renewal and federal highway projects repeatedly destroyed thriving black neighborhoods throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Race & the Recession is the title of a new report out by the Applied Research Center, subtitled "How Inequity Rigged the Economy and How to Change the Rules." I find it especially timely to cover here given the conversation on race, racism, right-wing politics and Reagan unfolding below. I'd also recommend hightailing it over to Ta-Nehisi today, who is just repeatedly nailing this topic with eloquence and erudition, not an easy thing to accomplish.
Race and the Recession mixes stories and data to demonstrate the disproportionate impacts on people of color in this recession. This does not mean that whites/Anglo-Americans are not also suffering - what it means is that given our respective demographic populations in the US, we are likely to see outsized numbers of stories of layoffs, foreclosures, low-wages, lack of health coverage, etc. among non-white Americans. The report details the way disparities in lending, in wealth accumulation, in hiring and employment practices, in wages, etc. create cumulative, downward effects on people of color that makes recessionary periods especially difficult to weather and overcome.
After the jump are highlights from the report, and the policies we need to reduce this inequality - recommendations include universal healthcare, raising the minimum wage, updating decades old community investment policies, assessing the racial impacts of proposed policies, and expanding our emergency relief for the time being.
Hinterlands...New Wastelands?
Published May 29, 2009 @ 04:14AM PT
Last Wednesday I hit a milestone: I entered my 48th state since I began cross-country traveling in my RV 4 ½ years ago for my unconventional homelessness education endeavor, HEAR US. True to my commitment to see parts of America that have become obscure to Interstate-addicted travelers, I traversed empty Michigan backroads, enjoying the breath of spring erupting in winter-ravaged lands.
The current economic devastation has pummeled Michigan, with the understated 12.9% unemployment rate inadequately reflecting suffering of those without paychecks, or workers whose shrunken paychecks don’t begin to cover rising expenses.
Welcome Back!
Published May 26, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
I can tell from my Google Analytics that most of you enjoyed a lovely weekend away from the web. Good for you! It was lovely up here in Boston.
But now you're back at work (sigh), so here's a round-up of our weekend here at Poverty in America, to help you ease back into the work week:
Iraq & Afghanistan vets and their loved ones deserve our care and support - and a coalition of agencies is responding.
From working-class roots to the White House, Michelle Obama steps out as a role model for low-income children of color.
What was NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg thinking, appointing a former Wall St exec to run the city's public housing authority?
Meanwhile, Florida refuses to re-consider its boom-and-bust development economy.
Finally, support the Employee Free Choice Act! In a random sample of over 1,000 union organizing drives, employers threatened to shut plants down almost 60% of the time.
I'll catch up with you this afternoon. Any excellent weekend stories, leave 'em in comments.
Taking Care of our Returning Soldiers
Published May 25, 2009 @ 06:18PM PT
While never forgetting those we've lost.
"Homelessness, family strains and psychological problems among returning veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will persist in the U.S. for generations to come, the top U.S. military officer said Thursday.
"This is not a 10-year problem. It is a 50- or 60- or 70-year problem," Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a lunchtime audience at the Hudson Union Society, a group that promotes nonpartisan debate.
Mullen said he was particularly disturbed by the emergence of homelessness as a problem among war veterans.
Disturbed is right. Suicide rates are up, homelessness is "returning" (for those who remember the domestic aftermath of Vietnam), and we're trying to put back together a broken VA system as our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan continues for the foreseeable future. The stimulus included one-time payments of $250 to disabled vets, though we've yet to fully accept the widespread existence of PTSD among soldiers.
And here you thought I was just going to let you slide out of a lovely Memorial Day weekend with only happy thoughts!
Well, I am, mostly. I just wanted to acknowledge Memorial Day's passing by recognizing all that we owe our veterans as men and women who serve our country and as fellow Americans. I encourage you to get to know the work of organizations that serve veterans, such as the 52 agencies who are members of the Coalition for Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans, which works together to strengthen support systems for veterans and their loved ones.
My fellow Change bloggers have some thoughts and recognition of Memorial Day as well. I hope you'll check 'em out.
Florida Bill Promises More Sprawl & Less Public Investment
Published May 23, 2009 @ 05:00PM PT
...developers would no longer have to pay if local roads could not handle the impact of their projects [in communities with at least 1,000 people per square mile]. The law would also let individual municipalities or counties designate areas for large-scale development — an outlet mall, a sprawling subdivision — without being subject to regional planning boards that currently analyze how such plans would affect communities nearby.
It's an interesting article on urban planning conflict, I know a topic that's as near and dear to my readers as it is to me. :)
But the end of the article just kills me. The GOP Rep. who proposed this bill, Dorothy Hukill, says:
“We are dependent on tourism and construction,” Ms. Hukill said, “whether we like it or not.”
No!!! It is this kind of resignation that just destroys us in the long term, leading to a race to the bottom in terms of environmental devastation, worker exploitation, privatization, and inequality. We can shift how our economy works; it just takes EFFORT and DETERMINATION and IDEAS and a commitment to LONG-TERM CHANGE. We need not be resigned to "low-road" economic development - and I say "low-road" because FLA is a Right-to-Work state. Oy, we have got our work cut out for us, my fellow Change agents!
(Photo of development "just to the west of Guana River State Park" in Florida by Jon Worth.)
Learning from Microfinance in the U.S.
Published May 21, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
NPR ran a story yesterday about a group of Bentley College students who are the first campus group to pursue microfinance lending in the U.S. Microfinance is known generally as a developing world model of building small businesses, credit and self-sufficiency, especially for low-income women. It's been harder to roll out in the U.S., given our comparatively regulated business climate, higher financial costs of doing business, and individualistic, mobile society.
But Accion USA, the domestic arm of a decades-old international microlender, has been making micro loans in the U.S. for almost 20 years. So what's the big deal about these students pursuing domestic microlending, other than the obvious learning opportunity involved?
