Jobs & Unemployment
Poverty @ Netroots Nation
Published August 14, 2009 @ 11:00AM PT
Many of my fellow bloggers have gone to Netroots Nation for the weekend; ironically, I suppose, I lack the funds for the trip.
It's too bad; Netroots Nation is one of the best known coalitions of progressively-minded activists in the country and certainly the best known for those of us who use the web and media for our work. The annual conference is taking place in Pittsburgh this year, a city I'd love to visit some day.
So let's pretend I'm at NN, and take a look at a few of the key convenings I'd be joining on behalf of Poverty in America:
Grameen America Lends $2.3M
Published August 13, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
On Tuesday President Obama awarded Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. That same day, Grameen America announced it has lent $2.3M to 1,000 low-income women entrepreneurs in NY and Omaha, and plans to expand in other unbanked communities in the U.S.
Grameen America is one of many microloan programs in the U.S. that include Kiva, Accion USA, and an admirable start-up initiative at Bentley. Accion is the biggest, having lent more than $100M to almost 20k borrowers since 1991. Microlending is an interesting anti-poverty program in its reverse directionality, i.e., its success in developing countries being imported to the U.S.
Yunus believes access to credit is a "human right" and explained his program's success, namely its high rates of repayment, as due to its attachment to the "real" economy, versus our "fantasy" finance world based on (now meaningless) bits of paper. The Nobel Laureate has a point, wouldn't you say?
(Video of Grameen America opening in NYC; NY coverage starts around 2:20)
Action Alert: Modernize Poverty Measurement
Published August 11, 2009 @ 01:01PM PT
Two bills have been introduced in Congress to update our federal poverty measure that is based on an extremely antiquated estimated proportion of a family's budget spent on food. Both the House and Senate bills rely on National Academy of Science recommendations in which "the cost of food, clothing, housing, utilities and medical expenses be considered. Income from non-cash benefits, such as food stamps and government tax credits, should also be counted" in an updated poverty measure (right now, these social supports can tip people over the poverty line and deny them much needed assistance).
The linked news piece above shows that by following the NAS recommendations, the new poverty line for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids) in 2007 $$ would jump from about $21k to almost $28k, an increase of almost 25%. To my eye, it still looks extremely low. We really need to make geographic considerations when tying assistance programs to estimated costs of living.
This reform is at the heart of the work we do as anti-poverty activists. So far, the House bill, introduced in June, has 10 sponsors, all Dems, and has probably gone on to a quiet convalescence in the House Ways and Means and House Oversight and Govt. Reform Committees. The Senate Bill is less than a week old, introduced by Dodd and co-sponsored by Sen. Bingaman of New Mexico (D). It's gone on to the Senate Health (etc.) Committee, which might have its hands full right about now.
Healthcare reform or not, this is one issue that can't wait. Contact Your Representatives (and Committee Members above) and tell them to support an updated poverty measure today!
(Difference in NAS and official poverty measures, from The Stanford Ctr for the Study of Poverty & Inequality)
Our Economic Human Rights
Published August 10, 2009 @ 07:09AM PT
Perhaps it's the dog days of summer, or, more likely, the harsh realities of our current economic environment, but the poverty news is more and more of the same lately: states running out of funds just as more and more people join the various assistance programs. Legal aid faltering just as more people need help navigating the court system. And so on.
If there was ever a time to revisit a more fundamental view of poverty and inequality, it's now. Courtesy of regular contributor Jan Lightfootlane, I want to talk about economic human rights. Jan recently joined anti-poverty activists from around the world to strategize around ending poverty at the conference, "Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to End Poverty." The conference embraces the human rights framework to confront the intertwined, structural hardships that drive people into poverty and keep them there; workshops were organized around the human right to housing, the human right to healthcare, the human right to a living wage, and so on. These rights are enshrined in the UN Convenant on Economic & Social Rights, a 1960s era document that the US has recognized but never fully ratified, leaving us as a nation ambivalent over whether our citizens have these rights as much as we enjoy the rights to free speech and political participation.
States of Disarray... Out in The Woods
Published August 05, 2009 @ 11:15AM PT
I've been on a little vacation the past week or so, the kind of vacation my family excels at: a little 
relaxation, a lot of political discussion.
As the trip got underway, Mom and I shared a moment of dismay and horror over this story in the New York Times, illustrating the problems many states are having financially (in this case, Alabama):
It is hardly unusual these days for a government building to forgo a fresh paint job or regular lawn care to cut costs. But last week, the director of the Jefferson County public nursing home was told that the county could no longer afford to bury indigent patients.
Across town at the juvenile detention center, the man in charge was trying to figure out how to feed the 28 children in his custody when the entire cafeteria staff is let go. The tax collector warned local school districts to expect a six-month delay to get their share of property taxes. In family court, administrators plan to delay child support, custody and child abuse cases, leaving some children in the hands of the state indefinitely....
“Outside of the city of Detroit,” said Robert A. Kurrter, a managing director with Moody’s Investors Service, “it’s fair to say we haven’t seen any place in America with the severity of problems that they’re experiencing in Jefferson County.” Moody’s rates Jefferson County’s credit lower than any other municipality in the country.
Is it Time to Protest Yet?
Published August 03, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
More on those unemployment #s: Corrente takes a look at the National Employment Law Project report on unemployment - 1.5M Americans will have exhausted their unemployment benefits by 12/31/09 - and wonders if this is what will finally "break" us. And by break I mean rise up and fight back against atrocious wealth inequality.
I'm skeptical. Almost one-third of unemployed workers haven't worked in six months. That's a long time to be home all day, surfing the internet, sending out resumes, playing with your kids, letting yourself go, feeling your self-confidence and sense of self-worth along with your "soft skills" just totally atrophy. And from this sense of desperation we're going to fight for our economic rights? Revolution doesn't come from desperation; it comes from a sense of entitlement that we deserve more. We have to recognize our own oppression before we can revolt against it. This idea that work = self-worth means that out-of-work Americans just aren't our go-to revolutionaries. We're nothing without our jobs, and we get nothing from our society without them. And we buy into this set-up.
We're coming on 6 months since we last had this conversation about worker protest. As 500,000 Americans gear up to lose their unemployment benefits next month, seems like now's the time to have this discussion again.
What's it going to take, people??
(Photo of strike threat by janitorial workers in Santa Monica by Steve Lyons)
A Nation of Hustlers?
Published August 03, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
(Photo of "Hunger Amidst Plenty" by Kamal H.)
I have to ask: why do so many of our public policies assume the worst of human nature? Check this out from a depressing NYT piece on how unemployment benefits are going to run out by year's end for a frightening # of unemployed Americans:
Traditionally, many economists have been leery of prolonged unemployment benefits because they can reduce the incentive to seek work. But that should not be a concern now because jobs remain so scarce, said Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard.
For every job that becomes available, about six people are looking, Dr. Katz said. “Unemployment insurance gives income to families who are really suffering and can’t find work even if they are hustling to look,” he said.
Look, $300 a week in unemployment benefits is nothing to sneer at, but honestly, is it really a negative incentive? It's slightly more generous than working full-time for a week at minimum wage, and it's about half of what the median hourly wage pays weekly in the US.
Why do we assume that by offering any shred of a safety net we're creating a nation of loafers, hustlers, thieves, layabouts, and their rapaciously needy offspring?
Seriously - what are the roots of these very disturbing assumptions? I don't get it.
