News
No Food, No Justice
Published September 17, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Although he is known as the father of the agricultural "Green Revolution" in places like Mexico, India, Africa and Southeast Asia, the message that Dr. Norman Borlaug spread throughout his life--which unfortunately ended on September 12, 2009--is one that Americans must also take heed of.
While accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, Borlaug referred to an adequate supply of food as the "first essential component of social justice." Or in other words, as the one thing every country must ensure its citizens in order to truly be a civilized society.
In the U.S., there is a need to frame food (in)security as more of a social justice issue, rather than making the struggle to feed oneself simply about who has the money to purchase quality food and who does not.
We live in a country where the rate of obesity in our population is rapidly catching up to the number of citizens living in constant fear of going hungry. While these two conditions may appear to be distinct, the common thread weaving these groups together is lack of financial resources.
Norma Rae Inspiration Dies
Published September 15, 2009 @ 10:27AM PT
Crystal Lee Sutton, the workers' rights and union activist who inspired the Academy Award-winning movie Norma Rae, died yesterday of brain cancer. She was 68.
She was a 33 year old mother of 3 earning $2.65 an hour folding towels at the J.P. Stevens textile manufacturing plant in North Carolina in 1973. "Low pay and poor working conditions had impelled her to take a leading role in efforts to unionize the plant. She was met with threats, she said." She was eventually fired for her organizing work.
Her final act of rebellion was enshrined in Norma Rae, played by Sallie Field - before cops ushered her out of the building, "“I took a piece of cardboard and wrote the word ‘union’ on it in big letters, got up on my worktable, and slowly turned it around,” she said... “The workers started cutting their machines off and giving me the victory sign. All of a sudden the plant was very quiet.”
In less than a year 3,000 workers were unionized at 7 plants, including J.P. Stevens, in NC. Ms. Sutton went on to work as a union organizer.
In the final years of her life, she battled with her insurance company to receive the necessary cancer medications. Ms. Sutton asks to be remembered as a fighter for the working poor, and hopes she'll inspire her children and grandchildren to take up the cause in her honor:
"Stand up for what you believe in, not matter how hard it makes life for you," she said. "Do not give up and always say what you believe."
..."It is not necessary I be remembered as anything, but I would like to be remembered as a woman who deeply cared for the working poor and the poor people of the U.S. and the world," she said. "That my family and children and children like mine will have a fair share and equality."
Words for us all to live by.
R.I.P., Crystal Lee Sutton.
Remembering 9/11's Low-Wage Victims
Published September 11, 2009 @ 09:55AM PT
I came to my work in the post-Katrina Gulf Coast in part because I worked with survivors of the terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. I worked for a non-profit, Seedco, that ran the Lower Manhattan Small Business Recovery Program - providing grants, loans and technical assistance to small businesses around Ground Zero. We were intimately and intensely involved with assisting commercial residents rebuild their livelihoods and their futures.
Frequently covered in the press since that horrific day 8 years ago are the families of the financial titans or workhorses who were killed in the building fires and collapse. Less frequently heard from are the survivors of the thousands of low-wage workers who supported the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) industry most associated with the World Trade Center. As we remember and grieve, I ask us to honor the restaurant workers, livery drivers, janitors and other low-wage workers who were disproportionately economically devastated by the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
40M Americans in Poverty
Published September 10, 2009 @ 11:42AM PT
The census results on poverty in the U.S. in 2008 are in, and they're worse than we thought. The lowlights:
- Median household income declined by 3.6%, to $50,303 from around $52K.
- The poverty rate rose to 13.2% from 12.5% in 2007. That's an additional 2M Americans who have fallen below the nation's already absurdly low poverty threshold to officially qualify as poor.
- Over 46M people - or 15.4% of the population - lack health insurance.
Of course, the specter of poverty hits some groups harder than others. Median incomes for Hispanics, Southern households, and foreign-born households declined by about 5%. If you were earning $10/hour, now you're earning $9.50 - this adds up to almost $1,000 in wages lost over a year for someone already struggling full-time at such a low wage.
Almost every group is worse off, including those with comparatively low rates of poverty: households headed by married couples; non-Hispanic whites; and working age adults.
Interestingly, the number of people with health insurance also grew - because more people are receiving coverage from the government. What's that now about a public option?
Finally, income inequality is unchanged (yippee?), but the poverty rate is the highest in 11 years. It's worth combing through all the data to really get a full picture of how many more Americans have become so poor even the government has officially taken notice - your neighbors, your grandmother, your kid's friends at school, perhaps even you.
Please help us get this info out today (#PDD09!) as part of Poverty Day. And you know the drill - Take Action to Fight Poverty in America now!
(Photo of a tent city in St. Petersburg, FL by Lboogiepeace)
Yuppie Foodies and Hungry Children
Published September 10, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
On Labor Day this past Monday, Slow Food USA kicked off its new Time for Lunch campaign by staging "eat-ins" in various cities across the United States.
The purpose of these events, as well as the campaign in general, is to raise awareness about the need to increase healthy food in schools by reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act before the legislation expires at the end of September.
The message of this campaign is right, but the image and the branding are completely wrong.
Slow Food--although being an organization whose mission I support--is the epitome of the yuppie-foodie groups, a pay-to-play network of gazpacho sipping gastro-enthusiasts.
Poverty Data Day Twitter Campaign
Published September 09, 2009 @ 04:36PM PT
Tomorrow morning, Thurs, September 10th, the Census will release its first round of 2008 poverty data. Spotlight on Poverty has organized Poverty Day, a Twitter Campaign to spread the word about the current state of poverty in the U.S. No doubt it will be bleak.
Poverty in America at Change.org is joining Spotlight on Poverty and many other anti-poverty activists in this Campaign. To join us in raising awareness about poverty in the U.S., just add the #PDD09 hashtag to your tweets. Including this #PDD hashtag will ensure your tweets show up in Spotlight's TweetGrid.
No need to wait until tomorrow! The campaign has begun! If you're at a loss for words (poverty is depressing!), consider RT some of these sample tweets:
- 2008 poverty data will be released on September 10th. Learn more http://su.pr/2je5FS #PDD09 (Please RT)
- Did you know that nearly 40 million Americans live in #Poverty? Learn more: http://spotlightonpoverty.org/why_spotlight_poverty.aspx #PDD09
- RT @povertynews Obama Administration makes first estimate of 2008 poverty rate: http://su.pr/1kUBcG - data to be released on 9/10 #PDD09
Take action now!
(Photo by RobertSkirts; I came, I saw, I tweeted!)
1 in 5 Elderly are Poor
Published September 05, 2009 @ 10:38AM PT
When calculating poverty using the modernized measure from the National Academy of Sciences, the number of older adults living in poverty is nearly double the official rate. The whole article is worth reading for the ways current poverty numbers - among children, single mothers, in cities, etc. - would change if we updated the federal poverty measure.
Everyday that I blog I find more features, reports, news items, etc. than I can possibly cover here. But I don't want to let these stories slip by. So consider this your weekend afternoon news dump on poverty in the U.S.
