Jobs & Unemployment
Cities Ravaged by Recession
Published October 23, 2009 @ 12:01PM PT
The perfect storm of high unemployment rates, shrinking salaries and a painfully slow economic recovery has thrown many U.S. cities teetering on the brink of survival into utter desperation.
Last year, median income for American households dropped a staggering 3.6 percent -- the greatest one-year decline since records have been kept -- and the recession dropped an additional 2.6 million Americans into poverty. Worse, The Economic Policy Institute predicts that incomes could drop another $3,000 and the poverty rate could rise another 1.9 percent by 2011.
Coupled with the assertion that the number of homeless could rise by 1.5 million in the next two years, this news is especially bad for the ten poorest cities in America -- a group of metropolitan areas chosen based on per capita income, the percentage of the population earning less than half the poverty line, the percentage of food stamp recipients, the percentage of people under age 65 receiving public health care and the unemployment rate. (All these statistics come from 2008 Census Bureau data.)
The Promise of Employee-Owned Businesses
Published October 21, 2009 @ 05:41AM PT
In a former life, I worked for years on the issue of increasing minority entrepreneurship and strengthening small businesses in low-income communities. Small business is routinely embraced as a fundamental economic development tool, as it shifts cash, risk and autonomy directly onto an individual business owner; suggests a rejuvenated street life if its an attractive storefront business; and theoretically creates a community stakeholder who cares about the health of the local economy and customers in which the business operates.
To that end, Cleveland has launched an employee-owned cooperative laundry in an effort to revitalize the low-income neighborhoods around University Circle; it's a grand gesture, featuring state-of-the-art, energy-efficient equipment and the goal of employing up to 50 workers, incl. ex-offenders. The laundry will serve local institutions in the area, incl. the universities and hospitals that abound there.
Poverty News Round-up
Published October 20, 2009 @ 01:25PM PT
Too many interesting tabs open in my browser to select just one story today. Here's the latest on poverty news and activism happening around the US:
- Thank you feds! For stepping in and telling Indiana that allowing private employers to use welfare data to screen potential employees is "inappropriate" and "not allowed." Ya think?
- If port cities Oakland and Long Beach, CA, have such similar demographic profiles, including lots of poverty, why is crime so much worse in Oakland? It's unclear, but fortunately there's a new police chief in town to try and reverse the city's terrifying trends.
- We've come a long way from the days of "No Irish Need Apply" - AG Andrew Cuomo in NY has charged EMC Construction with exploiting its workers, including using a three-tiered wage system for Irish ($25/hour), Black ($18/hour) and Latin@ ($15/hour) workers. Nothing encourages worker solidarity like abusive wage gaps!
- Mayor Bloomberg is creating jobs in NYC, but are they good jobs? The short answer: No.
- What the state gives, the market taketh away. Bloomberg builds or preserves 72k low-income housing units, 200k disappear due to vague and mysterious "market forces." Don't look under your beds at night, kiddies!
- And finally, let this be a lesson to other states: Indiana is pulling the plug on privatizing its welfare system, after thousands of eligible recipients lost benefits. One old measure they're bringing back in? Face-to-face interactions between recipients and case workers. Good to see we haven't quite eliminated jobs as we insist TANF recipients go find some.
(Photo of A.M. Walzer Co. US Inlay Puzzle Map by Marxchivist)
How Environmental Justice Works
Published October 15, 2009 @ 09:03AM PT
Through MIT, I've had the opportunity to provide research and writing for a range of social justice clients, including grassroots groups fighting for environmental justice and green economic development. I've written occasionally about EJ here, but I've never really taken the time to define it. Embracing this frame is imperative as stimulus funds flow and talk of "green jobs" and "green development" abound.
Today, in honor of Blog Action Day 2009, in which Change.org hosts over 8k blogs from 135 countries worldwide to blog about Climate Change to raise awareness of this pressing global problem, I want to provide some important information on environmental justice, racism and equity to inform your climate change activism. To be effective climate change activists, we cannot forget the unequal and unfair impacts borne by low-income communities, often communities of color, often in the US South, on reservations and borderlands, from environmental degradation. Read on to learn more about these critical frames and see how one group in San Diego, the Environmental Health Coalition, is succeeding in pursuing environmental equity for low-income Latin@ communities there.
Dirty Bathrooms
Published October 13, 2009 @ 02:44PM PT
I think that when people forget why it's so important to support workers' rights, they should think about what the bathrooms in their offices/schools/etc. look like on a Tuesday after a Monday holiday, and what kind of conditions we'd face if workers were on strike or constantly turning over or not showing up to do the good work we never think about on a day-in, day-out basis.
This message brought to you from MIT, at the end of the day, Tuesday, October 13, the day after the federal Columbus Day holiday.
Desperation Reigns In Detroit
Published October 10, 2009 @ 09:27AM PT
You may have heard by now of the crush of Detroiters who descended on Cobo Hall this week to apply for homelessness prevention assistance. 50,000 - 60,000 residents have received applications for 3,400 packages of up to $3,000 to cover utility bills and fees associated with keeping one's home or moving into a new one.
The Detroit Free Press Editorial team beat me to the Katrina metaphors, and even threw in "tsunami" for good measure to describe Detroit's economic disaster.
But seriously: I know no flood waters have ravaged Detroit, nor have unseasonal weather conditions killed anticipated crop loads, but how can we not classify Detroit's 30% unemployment, 30% poverty rate, and upwards of 80,000 vacant homes as a national disaster? Are we so despairing ourselves, or so immune to economic conditions, that we've become inured to the increasingly regular photos of hoards of desperate Americans crowding our convention centers for whatever meager, emergency assistance we throw at them? If I could turn this into a photo essay I would: Those prior two links are of African-Americans lining up for free healthcare in South Los Angeles, and Detroiters at Cobo Hall waiting for aid applications. Those Depression-Era bread lines are NOT a thing of the past.
(Photo of Katrina survivors outside the Convention Center in NOLA by Wyn Henderson for FEMA)
Signs of Trouble: United Way Collections and Surveys
Published October 09, 2009 @ 05:06AM PT
Mansfield, a gutsy little city of 50,000 in the middle of Ohio, might be a good place to take the pulse of our nation's war on economic doldrums. My recent visit there provided food for thought to share with Poverty in America readers.
Two ominous signs:
- The local United Way collection last year was $250,000 below target, and this year the GM plant is closing, an additional shortfall of about $200k from employees' UW contributions. Ouch!
- A surprising (not really) result of an informal poll of the 19 high school students I was speaking to at Mansfield's St. Peter's High School: When I asked how many either experienced homelessness or knew someone who had, 6 responded positively.
