The Economy
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.
No Work for Welfare in CA
Published October 07, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Cue the hyperventilating about dependency and free riders: California, in an effort to save money, has suspended work requirements for some of its public assistance recipients for the next 17 months. Never mind that its welfare-to-work program will become even more stringent in 2011, and that it cannot even afford to subsidize the critical child care needed for recipients to work in the first place. Layabouts will be getting rich off your tax dollars, without earning a dime! Shiftless miscreants.
Oh, what's that now? What are we seeing in Fresno, one of the first places to implement the new, less expensive policy? "Belying stereotypes, only about 10 percent of those who could be exempted from the work requirements — and supporting aid like child care — chose to do so in the first month." Turns out, people like receiving job prep and trying to play an active role in society! Let's try to remember that when we crank up the wailing about welfare queens despite the fact that "opting out" will become "mandatory" in the future due to CA's insane budget realities.
Help Hard to Get in 'Burbs
Published October 06, 2009 @ 07:31AM PT
The NYT ran two contrasting articles on the NY suburbs this weekend, highlighting the preservation and development plans for Long Island and the difficulty in accessing social services suburbanites have during the recession. They're worth reading together; L.I. public officials are promising to preserve the cherished single family homes and open spaces of the region, while hard-hit households struggle to find and get to the few shelters, soup kitchens and emergency service providers in the suburbs. Is this just a discrepancy that improved public transportation could resolve?
Rural Child Poverty Widespread
Published October 03, 2009 @ 11:15AM PT
Thanks to Diane, we get a glimpse here of rural poverty in the U.S., a topic typically overshadowed by a national focus on urban poverty. Not surprising, given 80% of the country is classified as metropolitan, meaning there's a significant density of people and homes in the majority of the nation. But rural poverty is just as troubling and worrisome as poverty in the cities and suburbs, particularly given how many children are poor in rural America.
The Economic Research Service provides some #s from the recession's impact on rural America: Unemployment rose more sharply in metro regions, though it's about 9% nationwide. In rural communities, minorities and teens have the highest unemployment rates. Almost 1 in 4 kids in rural areas are poor, especially in communities with high minority populations. And well more than half of all rural counties have high child poverty rates where at least 1 in 5 children are poor. Child poverty is highest in well-known chronically poor areas: the Mississippi Delta, on Native American reservations, and along the border with Mexico.
Childhood poverty in rural America is a chronic problem; one that activists, advocates and policymakers are still trying to understand. It appears to be a perennial lack of educational and job opportunities, particularly for rural African-Americans, who have lived for generations with resources bypassing their communities and no particular means to get out. This is a topic I know very little about, but I do know this: the recession is by no means over, and if there was ever a time to refocus our priorities on these chronically poor, chronically forgotten communities, it's now.
Boston Hyatt-Worker Dispute Continues
Published October 02, 2009 @ 11:07AM PT
Last week we joined and covered the boycott initiated by MA Governor Deval Patrick against Hyatt Hotels, for what he saw as the "unceremonious" termination of housekeeping staff and their replacement with "outsourced" low-wage workers from a temporary staffing agency based in Georgia. In part through Change.org member activism, Hyatt offered the laid off workers new jobs at their higher wages with benefits into 2010. In a bold, and I think very cool, move, the majority of the workers rejected the offer, demanding their old jobs back. With the help of UNITE HERE, which has also joined the boycott, the workers are generating publicity and protesting Hyatt's actions - the case offers a great window into why it's so important to support service worker unionization.
G20 Countries Take On Economic Inequality
Published September 28, 2009 @ 04:43AM PT
G20 leaders are heralding their progress last weekend in Pittsburgh as a sign of a new world order, in which they will collaborate as "permanent stewards of the world economy for the first time," monitored and evaluated by the International Monetary Fund to ensure that "economic policies of G20 countries are consistent with 'sustainable and balanced trajectories for the global economy'." This plan lacks any enforceable power - it is a strategy of global goodwill, embarrassment and peer pressure to avoid on-going boom and bust economic cycles - but there is talk of imposing a tax on financial speculation (e.g., derivatives) to curb "excessive risk-taking."
This is a positive if amorphous development for the world and the US. It signals that we are eager to return to a more cooperative stance in the world, and it is a more overt, collective acknowledgment by nations of the uneven outcomes of globalization that I've seen before. But what next? Unsurprisingly, the U.S. is loathe to take on Wall Street, and the rift between the developing world's need for better access to markets and less onerous trading conditions and the developed world's desire to protect their unfair advantage in our "free" market economy persists.
Victory: Hyatt Workers Given New Jobs
Published September 25, 2009 @ 02:23PM PT
Hyatt announced today that the 98 workers it "unceremoniously" laid off last month will be given new jobs in Boston at their previous rate of pay - the positions will be through the staffing agency that employs their replacements. This is a good but qualified victory: their current pay is guaranteed through the end of 2010, and Hyatt has extended their health benefits through March 2010. For workers who opt instead to go through a career retraining and placement program, they will receive their previous wages through March 2010 or until they secure new employment, whichever comes first.
Many thanks to those that joined the boycott against Hyatt; it was a small but important movement here at Change.org, and part of a much larger response in Massachusetts and beyond.
