Greg Kaufmann | The Nation

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A few months ago, anticipating that the presidential campaigns would fail to focus in any substantive way on the record levels of poverty now plaguing the country, The Nation kicked off a campaign to push the candidates to think and talk about this issue.

“#TalkPoverty: Questions for Obama and Romney” profiles experts who have devoted their lives to fighting poverty, and gives them the opportunity to ask the presidential candidates the questions that they want answers to. Next, The Nation will hound the campaigns for responses.

To date, Peter Edelman, Mariana Chilton, Jessica Bartholow, Tim Casey and Lisalyn Jacobs have offered twenty-one questions, which—if the candidates were to respond directly to them—would give voters a much deeper understanding of poverty in this country and the next president’s vision for taking it on.

We will still have at least one more round of questions from families who know poverty firsthand. But, today, I’ve selected thirteen questions from our five experts that deserve immediate attention—starting with tomorrow’s debate.

We encourage you to tweet this article to all of the presidential debate moderators: @NewsHour, @CrowleyCNN, and @BobSchiffer. During and after the debate, use #TalkPoverty to push your own questions about poverty and to weigh in on whether the candidates are taking this issue seriously enough.

We are thrilled that so many individuals and organizations have taken up the #TalkPoverty campaign—organizations like the Half In Ten coalition and the Coalition on Human Needs, among many others. Now it’s time to step up our game—keep pushing for a substantive conversation and action—through tomorrow’s debate and beyond the Election Day.

* * *

1. More than 20 million people in America have with incomes below half the poverty line—less than about $9,000 for a family of three. That’s up from 12.6 million in 2000. What will you do to address this growing problem?

2. One-fifth of US children are poor. Do you agree that national policy should assure an above-poverty income to all children whose parents are willing to work?

3. One in five children in the United States struggle with hunger. As president, what would you do about our growing hunger crisis in America—especially for young children?

4. Poverty rates are 30 percent higher for women than men. What would you do to reduce the gender poverty gap?

6. Rural poverty persists as a blight for people across the country, from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta and the Alabama Black Belt to the colonias of south Texas, and Indian reservations in many places. What will you do to help reduce the poverty in these places?

7. Investments in early childhood are key to children’s prospects for productive lives. Yet federal assistance for childcare currently reaches only about one in seven of those who are eligible. What will you do to increase the availability of quality childcare to more low-income children?

8. Government statistics show that 106 million people with incomes below twice the poverty line—below about $46,000 for a family of four. This reflects the large number of low-wage jobs in the nation. What will you do to increase the income of these people who are struggling to make ends meet every month?

9. Food stamps (SNAP) enrolls 90 percent of eligible children but cash welfare (TANF) only 40 percent. What would you do to increase eligible children’s enrollment rate in TANF?

10. Despite their above-average employment rates compared to single mothers in other high-income countries, single mothers in the United States have higher poverty rates. What would you do to reduce poverty for single mothers and their children?

11. Urban concentrated poverty has climbed again close to the high point it reached in 1990. What will you do to help improve the quality of life of people who are currently isolated in America’s inner cities?

12. What will you do to ensure that those receiving TANF benefits—who are able to work—receive adequate training so that they are able to transition effectively and permanently into the workforce?

13. As you consider changes to the tax code, what types of tax credits do you envision creating, retaining or eliminating that focus on low-income families (e.g., earned income tax credit, child tax credit, low-income housing tax credit, others)?

Poverty isn’t the only subject candidates are likely to gloss over in the debates. Check out Mark Hertsgaard’s ten pressing questions on energy and the environment.

This is the fourth post in TheNation.com's #TalkPoverty series—an effort to push a deeper conversation about poverty into the mainstream political debate. The series profiles people working on poverty-related issues and lays out the questions they want President Obama and Governor Romney to answer. You can read the first posts here, here and here.

When Tim Casey was 6 years old, his father was committed to a psychiatric hospital. His mother suddenly found herself alone with four kids. 

“For the next several years we survived on welfare,” Casey tells me. “And I learned from personal experience how inadequate the welfare system was, and how inhumanely it was administered. I had a real interest as I grew older in trying to do something about that.”

That interest resulted in Casey doing antipoverty work for the past thirty-five years—first in legal aid where he focused on welfare issues, and then coordinating the New York City Welfare Reform Network, where he advocated for adequate and just welfare policies at the city, state and federal levels.

Today, he serves as a senior staff attorney for Legal Momentum, the oldest organization advocating on behalf of the legal rights of women and girls in the United States. He came to the organization in 2001 because it had always defined poverty as “a women’s issue” and was somewhat ahead of the game in that regard.

“There is often a failure to recognize that the poverty rate for women has always been much higher than it is for men,” says Casey. “And instead of proposing policies to address the gender poverty gap, women are blamed, told that they should marry or that they shouldn’t have kids. What we should be doing is looking at structural policies in the US that result in higher poverty rates for both women and men as compared to other high-income countries.”

Casey says those structural problems include the lack of a nationally mandated minimum benefit level for cash assistance (TANF)—instead it’s left to the discretion of states, so that we literally have fifty different systems; the percentage of workers employed in low-wage jobs is much higher than in other high-income countries; and there is an absence of subsidized childcare compared to peer countries as well—a particularly difficult barrier for single mothers in the United States who want to work. (Federal assistance for childcare currently reaches about one in seven of those who are eligible.)

“There’s no reason we have to have the high poverty rates we do,” says Casey. “We know looking elsewhere that there are government policies that are effective in reducing poverty.”

Casey works on both litigation and legal advocacy, as well as developing policy reports. One colleague he works closely with is Legal Momentum’s vice president for government relations, Lisalyn Jacobs. 

For the past twenty-two years, Jacobs has worked on antipoverty and civil rights issues, particularly as they intersect with race and gender. Jacobs says she is drawn to the kind of work that speaks to her identity as a woman of color—including five years at the US Department of Justice, where she helped implement the Violence Against Women Act, immigration-related provisions of the 1996 welfare reform law, and affirmative action; as well as her current efforts to move a stalled Violence Against Women Act through Congress.

She also says her work is “very informed” by her “upbringing as a person of faith.” She describes herself as a “preacher’s kid”—her father was a parish priest and later a chaplain at St. Elizabeth’s Psychiatric Hospital in Washington, DC, where Jacobs spent summers volunteering as a youth. Her father was also was very active in civil rights causes in the 1960s, including voter registration in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and joined the March on Washington as well.

“So I have a certain historical attachment to rights work and advocacy, and working from some collective standpoint to try to improve circumstances of various communities,” says Jacobs.

As an example of faith influencing her work, she cites her Congressional testimony regarding the marriage promotion efforts of the Bush administration that were part of the 2003 reauthorization of the TANF program.

“I testified that as a person of faith I understood the importance of seeing to people’s basic needs,” says Jacobs. "That Jesus said, 'If you love me, feed my sheep.' But here we were considering $1.5 billion for unproven marriage promotion, when we knew there wasn’t enough funding going into the basic underpinnings of the TANF program—people weren’t able to get enough basic sustenance for themselves and their families; or the training and education needed in order to support themselves and their families."

The benefit levels and how people are treated have been so neglected that Casey thinks the welfare system is now not much better than it was when he was a kid in the 1950s. 

“In the late 1960s and early ’70s welfare became much more adequate, and the administration of it became much less inhumane,” says Casey. “But since then things have really gone backwards. Especially since welfare reform was enacted in 1996, things basically get worse every year.”

Casey says that now people are “always scrambling to meet some basic need—putting food on the table for your kids, or getting them a winter coat, or paying a utility bill to avoid a shut off.”

Even worse, he says, they are demonized for seeking assistance. 

“Instead of recognizing that most adults who turn to welfare are either working for low-wages, or are temporarily unemployed because there are no jobs, or they need childcare to work and there’s no safe and affordable childcare available,” Casey says, “they are demonized as people who don’t want to work and aren’t good parents, and that also often results in their being treated horribly within the welfare system.”

Jacobs understands why the focus of the presidential campaign has been almost exclusively on the middle class—whom she calls “the most recent people seated at the table of pain in the last four years.” She notes, however, that there were “tens of millions of people experiencing that very kind of difficulty getting a job or keeping a job, or being able to support themselves and their families, before the country went into a recession.”

Casey also says there is “a point that bears constant repeating”—during this presidential campaign and beyond—for anyone who cares about poverty.

“The single mother poverty rate in this country is exceptionally high compared to the single mother poverty rate in other high-income countries,” he says. “And that’s primarily because our social welfare system is much less adequate.”

Here are Casey and Jacobs’s questions for President Obama and Governor Romney:

1) Former President Clinton spoke powerfully at the DNC Convention about the need to stem poverty in this country: “Poverty… restrict[s] growth. When you stifle human potential it hurts us all.” But the cash welfare program (TANF) hasn’t functioned as an adequate safety net—in essence it is stifling human potential, and by extension a robust economic recovery: the program rolls have stagnated or dropped, even as the need for such support rose; and available benefits are significantly below the poverty line. What are your plans for improving the responsiveness of TANF, and making sure that people eligible for TANF are not discouraged from applying? And what will you do to ensure that those receiving benefits—who are able to work—can receive adequate training so that they are able to transition effectively and permanently into the workforce?

2) Food stamps (SNAP) enrolls 90 percent of eligible children but cash welfare (TANF) only 40 percent. What would you do to increase eligible children’s enrollment rate in TANF?

3) Poverty rates are 30 percent higher for women than men. What would you do to reduce the gender poverty gap?

4) Despite their above average employment rates compared to single mothers in other high income countries, single mothers in the US have higher poverty rates. What would you do to reduce poverty for single mothers and their children?

5) One-fifth of US children are poor. Do you agree that national policy should assure an above-poverty income to all children whose parents are willing to work?

6) As you consider changes to the tax code, what types of tax credits do you envision creating, retaining or eliminating that focus on low-income families (e.g., earned income tax credit, child tax credit, low income housing tax credit, others)?

If you like this post, please tweet using #TalkPoverty and let @MittRomney and @BarackObama know you want answers. Also, take a moment to check out the new #TalkPoverty at the Debates campaign. 

Yesterday, the US Census Bureau released its annual data on income, poverty and health insurance coverage. This kicks off the one week every year when we can absolutely count on a veritable frenzy of stories and headlines about poverty. The other fifty-one weeks? Not so much.

As Hannah Mathews, director of childcare and early education at CLASP, puts it, “As is tradition on ‘poverty day,’ journalists, advocates and politicians alike will express outrage for the dismal poverty statistics…. But by week’s end, it’s far too likely that the poor among us will have fallen out of consciousness.”

Nevertheless, there were definitely some great materials released by antipoverty advocates and experts yesterday that deserve attention. Below is just a small sample.

While the headlines will read that the poverty rate held steady, the most important takeaways for me from the new data are these: we need to stop looking at poverty as a separate phenomenon from the rest of the economy—an economy with a proliferation of low-wage jobs and a weak and inequitable recovery; and we especially need to stop viewing those who live in poverty as suffering from some sort of character flaw, as opposed to paying the heaviest price for our skewed priorities and choices.

Finally, a quick glance at the numbers emphasizes just how easily poverty could grow significantly worse with some of the cuts to the safety net that are currently being proposed.

Friday, I’ll post a video of interviews with people for whom the new Census numbers are not newsworthy at all—because they are living in poverty, and don’t need the data in order to explain just how difficult it is to rise out of it. Until then, here are some key numbers that describe poverty in American in 2011:

Poverty remained flat: 46.2 million people—15 percent of the population—lived on less than $23,021 annually for a family of four.

Child poverty remained flat: 16.1 million children—22 percent of all children—lived in poverty, including over 37 percent of African-American children.

Children under age 5 in poverty: Over 5 million—25 percent of all children under age 5—including over 42 percent of African-American children, and 36 percent of Latino children in that age group.

People who would have been in poverty if not for Social Security: 67.6 million (program kept 21.4 million people out of poverty).

Income inequality: Incomes fell for the bottom four-fifths of US households, rising only for the top one-fifth.

Gender gap, 2011: Women 34 percent more likely to be poor than men.

Gender gap, 2010: Women 29 percent more likely to be poor than women.

Change in average household income, middle 20 percent: -$876, or -1.7 percent

Change in average household income, top 5 percent: +$15,184, or +5.1 percent

Change in median income for full-time, year-round workers: -2.5 percent

Income quintile with largest growth in number of full-time, year-round workers: bottom 20 percent, with a 17.3 percent increase in FTYR workers.

Unemployment insurance (UI) income: fell by $36 billion (25 percent), due in part to benefits declining as Recovery Act provisions expired.

Unemployment insurance, 2010: lifted 3.2 million people out of poverty.

Unemployment insurance, 2011: lifted 2.3 million people out of poverty.

Federal UI benefits scheduled to end entirely, for everybody: December 31, 2012

Number and percentage of uninsured Americans: fell by 1.3 million, from 16.3 percent to 15.7 percent, largest annual improvement since 1999; 40 percent of that decline is attributable to persons ages 19–25, as a result of Affordable Care Act allowing individuals to remain on their parents’ policies until age 26.

Earned Income Tax Credit: would have lifted 5.7 million people—including 3.1 million children—out of poverty if counted in the poverty measure, bringing poverty rate under 13.2 percent.

SNAP (food stamps): would have lifted 3.9 million people—including 1.7 million children—out of poverty if counted in the poverty measure, bringing poverty rate down to 13.7 percent.

You can e-mail me at WeekInPoverty@me.com and follow me on Twitter.

In a recent column, Bill Moyers and Michael Winship wrote, “When it comes to our ‘out of sight, out of mind’ population of the poor, you have to think we can help reduce their number, ease the suffering, and speak out, with whatever means at hand, on their behalf and against those who would prefer they remain invisible. Speak out: that means you and me, and yes, Mr. President, you, too.”

In the past year, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could have done more on the national stage to seek out and speak out on behalf of people living in poverty than broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West, professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary. Next week, September 12–15, they will go on the road for their second poverty tour in a year, which they have dubbed “Poverty Tour 2.0.”

In August 2011, Smiley and West embarked on an eleven-state, eighteen-city “Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience”; that was followed in October by a week-long series about the tour broadcasted on both the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and Public Radio International (PRI). In January 2012, they collaborated with Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs on a study examining the impact of the recession on people living in or near-poverty; the next day, Smiley moderated a panel live on C-SPAN—“Remaking America: from Poverty to Prosperity”—which included Dr. West, author and Nation contributor Barbara Ehrenreich, filmmaker Michael Moore and others. In March, Smiley moderated a nationally broadcasted panel of women who talked about the impact of poverty on women and children in America. Finally, Smiley and West co-authored The Rich and The Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto. It was released in April and peaked at #7 on the New York Times Best Sellers List.

All of this work is in addition to their coverage of poverty-related issues on their nationally syndicated weekly public radio show, Smiley & West.

In my mind, Smiley and West’s work is representative of the kind of constancy and singular focus that’s needed if we are to preserve the advances this nation has made in the fight against poverty, and take new and greater steps forward in the months and years ahead.

“It’s all about making sure we keep on beating the drum about poverty,” Smiley told me when I spoke with him and Dr. West about the upcoming tour. “We want to do our part to make it a priority in this campaign and beyond this campaign.”

The poverty tour that begins next week will visit four battleground states—Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida.

“We know where Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney are essentially going to take up residency between now and Election Day,” said Smiley. “We know where the energy is going to be and the concentration of media is going to be, and that’s where we’re going.”

At each venue, Smiley and West will interview elected officials, policy experts, faith leaders and authors—“people who have solutions to offer,” said Smiley.

“But most importantly we’re going to be talking to poor people—to folks in the audience who will share their stories of enduring, of trying to survive, of overcoming poverty,” he said.

They will also focus on pushing the presidential debate moderators to make poverty a central issue in the upcoming debates.

“The words ‘poor’ and ‘poverty’ did not come up one time in the 2008 presidential and vice presidential debates,” said Smiley. “We’re going to be hitting the moderators really hard in advance of the first debate on October 3.”

The tour is scheduled intentionally to coincide with the release of new Census Bureau statistics on poverty.

“These new numbers will underscore what we’ve been saying for a while now—poverty is the new American norm,” said Smiley. “There are now one out of two of us—150 million of us—either in or near poverty. Politicians can’t simply continue to be quiet on this issue.”

“This is all about trying to lift the veil off poor people and the stereotypes of poor people—attempts to demonize and dehumanize poor people—to allow people to see them for the human beings and fellow citizens that they are,” said West. “The prevailing public discourse describes poverty as a matter of bad habits and bad judgment, instead of seeing the lack of opportunity, lack of jobs with a living wage, lack of access to quality education and quality housing. We come back to these issues over and over and over again. How do we instead stay in contact with the humanity and creativity of poor people?”

West and Smiley aren’t without their detractors, and both expressed concern that personal attacks will get in the way of the work they hope to accomplish through this tour.

“Get the focus off of us, and put the limelight on our precious fellow citizens who don’t have access to a decent job, decent housing, and decent healthcare,” said West. “I think that’s a challenge for every journalist today, because the problem right now is we live in a country where conservative discourse has made it fashionable to be indifferent or have contempt toward poor people. If you focus on the messenger then you never have to confront the suffering and the misery of the poor people that we are highlighting with our work.”

Smiley also noted the negative reactions they have received for their critique of President Obama.

“I get sick and tired of people who believe that just because you’re pushing the president, that somehow you’re hating on him, or you’re aiding and abetting the other side,” said Smiley. “How do you push a president? You can’t push him by being silent. You can’t push him by not pressuring him on the things that really matter. We are not going to stop pushing, but it doesn’t mean that we hate Barack Obama.”

“What we hate is the contempt and indifference toward poor people that is found in both Republican and Democratic parties—less so in the Democrats, but both parties suffer from it,” West added. “So this issue of class, of poverty, of economic injustice is one that we will continue to highlight in a very serious way.”

Smiley and West hope that their effort will play a role in electing a president who can no longer afford to ignore poverty—that so many people will demand action, he will use the bully pulpit to make the eradication of poverty a priority.

“We need to force poverty onto the agenda,” said Smiley. “And timing is everything.”

“Very Low Food Security” on the Rise

On Wednesday, the United States Department of Agriculture released its annual report on food security. The data show that more than 50 million Americans—one out of every six households—were “food insecure,” meaning they “had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources.” That means there was no statistically significant change in the overall number of food insecure households between 2010 and 2011.

However, the number of households with “very low food security”—those with members that reduced their food intake or skipped meals at times due to limited resources—rose from 5.4 percent to 5.7 percent of all households in 2011. That number represents 6.8 million households, or more than 16.8 million people, and is the same level of very low food security that was evident at the height of the recession in 2008 and 2009.

Children in particular are struggling with hunger. More than 16 million children live in food insecure households, including nearly one-fourth (24.5 percent) of all children under age 6.

Dr. Mariana Chilton, associate professor at Drexel University School of Public Health and co-principal investigator for Children’s HealthWatch, notes the impact on young children who go without food as they lay the foundation for their health; cognitive, social and emotional development; and future potential.

“There are lifelong implications,” said Chilton. “Children in food insecure households have more health problems, are more likely to be hospitalized and have developmental delays. Young kids who are food insecure may arrive at kindergarten unprepared and never catch up with their peers.”

Tianna Gaines-Turner, a member of Witnesses to Hunger—a project in which people living in poverty use photographs and testimonials to advocate for change at the local, state and national levels—said she isn’t at all surprised by the numbers. She operates a peer mentoring program in Philadelphia two days a week, helping people get the food, energy assistance, healthcare, school supplies, community legal services and housing services they need.

“I see more and more people in need of assistance with purchasing food,” Gaines-Turner said. “Many come in with their children who wake up in the morning hungry and go to bed with their stomachs growling.”

“What these numbers show is that we have malnutrition right here in America,” said Chilton. “The people suffering from hunger are our neighbors—in the suburbs, cities and rural areas. We can do better as a nation.”

She noted, however, that the summer drought is expected to drive food prices higher, there is no national plan to end hunger, and the strongest defense against hunger—food stamps (or, SNAP)—is under attack in Congress.

Indeed, the Senate version of the Farm Bill would cut more than $4 billion over ten years from SNAP, reducing benefits for an estimated 500,000 households. The House version would make these same cuts and also end benefits totally for a minimum of 1.8 million people, cutting the program by $16 billion.

The good news is that the American people seem to be ahead of the politicians when it comes to SNAP and supporting the nearly 47 million people who benefit from it. A new poll released by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) indicates overwhelming majorities are opposed to SNAP cuts, with 79 percent of respondents supporting more (55 percent) or about the same federal spending to address hunger. Fully 75 percent feel that cutting food assistance is the wrong way to reduce federal spending. According to FRAC, opposition to SNAP cuts was high among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.

“[The] food insecurity data and polling data show that proposals for SNAP cuts are a ‘two-fer’ of wrong thinking,” said FRAC President Jim Weill. “A bad policy idea and a very unpopular idea. Americans…believe government should—and must—do more to address hunger.”

Here are a few things you can do to fight hunger and protect food stamps and other nutrition programs: you can advocate to protect SNAP in the final Farm Bill; join the NoKidHungry campaign which focuses particularly on protecting nutrition programs that serve at-risk children and families; support and follow Witnesses to Hunger—the experts who know poverty and hunger firsthand; and e-mail me at WeekInPoverty@me.com about other campaigns people should know about.

That’s by no means an exhaustive list. And I look forward to your help as we stay on top of this epidemic to help ensure that no one—families, single adults, working, not working, homeless, housed, seniors, middle-aged, young—goes hungry.

A Note on President Obama’s Nomination Speech

There is no question that from an antipoverty perspective, President Obama’s speech tonight was thin. If you expected otherwise, I don’t think you’ve been paying attention. This is a pragmatic president trying to get re-elected. He set out to do what he had to do, and—though I’m no expert—he probably accomplished it.

That he did better than the other guy in addressing some issues of concern to lower-income people surely isn’t enough. But I suggest we stop trying to “read” Obama—does he care about poverty, or doesn’t he care about poverty? Will he be bold, or won’t he be bold? Is he this, that, or the other thing?

It’s a waste of time and it’s a waste of energy.

In my opinion there is one line from the president’s speech tonight that those of us who care about eradicating poverty can and should take to heart: “Only you have the power to move us forward.”

My two cents is that we take a moment to recommit ourselves to this fight: that we will educate and agitate; we will yearn, push, and strive; we will not be complacent, nor will we be silent in order to make potential allies feel comfortable.

We will do everything we can—as Tavis Smiley said in the above interview—to force poverty onto the national agenda. We will be relentless.

I hope that our effort culminates in Barack Obama embracing this cause. But if it doesn’t, so be it. It’s not about him—never was—and that can’t stop us.

Get Involved

A National Standard for Paid Sick Days
For Organizations: SAVE Vital Services and Prevent Rising Poverty
For Individuals: SAVE Vital Services and Prevent Rising Poverty
Economic Hardship Reporting Project
ThanksGivingAmerica

Clips and Other Resources

“Domestic Workers Rights Expand in California But Challenges Loom,” Sheila Bapat

“The Good Jobs Challenge,” Elizabeth Lower-Basch

“Deadly Poverty,” Steve Bogira

“Obama’s Acceptance Speech,” Steve Bogira

“Fair Food Program helps end the use of slavery in the tomato fields,” Holly Burkhalter

“Hanging in the Balance: A Head Start for Low-Income Kids,” (VIDEO) Center for American Progress

“To Fight Hunger… Partner with Those who Experience it First-Hand,” Mariana Chilton

“NewtAid at 16: The Failure of TANF and Conservative Social Policy,” Shawn Fremstad

“The NYT and the ‘Disorganized Single Mother’ Meme,” Shawn Fremstad

“Should Kids Go to Jail for Skipping School?” Annette Fuentes

“‘Patients Over Politics’ Bus Tour,” Marissa Gallo

“Can the Black Middle Class Survive?” Steven Gray

“How We Can Bring Millions of Americans to the Middle Class,” Bob Herbert

“Locked Up Without a Key in New Orleans,” Karen Houppert

“Uncensored: American Family Experiences with Poverty and Homelessness,” Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness

“Low-Interest Locusts,” David Cay Johnston

“Maine Sues to Roll Back Medicaid Coverage,” Ezra Klein

“Economic Mobility in Chicago’s Projects,” Sylvester Monroe

“Invisible Americans Get the Silent Treatment,” Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

“Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages, Study Finds,” Catherine Rampell

“The GOP’s Welfare Lie,” Betsy Reed

“Senior Poverty: Food Insecurity Rising Among Older Americans,” Laura Rowley

“Making Child Care More Affordable and Accessible,” Heather Sandstrom

“Santorum’s Right: Better Access to Education is a Key Part of Welfare Reform,” Liz Schott

“New Hunger Data Shows a Generation at Risk,” Bill Shore

“Bringing the Poor to the Table,” Katherine Wright

Studies and Briefs

“Bad Jobs on the Rise,” John Schmitt and Janelle Jones, Center for Economic and Policy Research. Compared to the end of the 1970s, the typical worker today is almost twice as likely to have a four-year college degree, is about seven years older, works with approximately 50 percent more physical capital and uses much more advanced technology. Despite these trends, the share of “bad jobs”—defined as one earning less than $37,000 per year, without employer-provided health insurance and lacking any retirement plan—has grown since 1979. In 2010, 24 percent of the workforce had a “bad job,” up from 18 percent in 1979. The report co-authors point to the fall in the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage, the decline in union representation, trade deals and high unemployment as some of the key factors reducing the bargaining power of workers.

“Strategies to Help Low-Wage Workers Advance,” MDRC. This study looked at a pilot project designed to help low-wage workers access “work supports”—including food stamps, child care subsidies and healthcare—as well as career coaching and access to skills training. All of these services were offered at a single center at three different sites across the country. With assessments at Year 3 and Year 4, MDRC found that the program increased workers’ receipt of work supports, and—in the two sites that that made funding available for training—increased the receipt of certificates and licenses as well as workers’ earnings in the third year. (Though those gains had faded somewhat at one of the sites by Year 4.) The study concludes that access to training is a critical part of any advancement strategy for low-income workers, but the earnings gains might be short-lived if it’s not the right kind of training and there aren’t opportunities for additional professional development.

When Unemployment Insurance Runs Out: An Action Plan to Help Long-Term Unemployed, National Employment Law Project. More than 6 million long-term unemployed people have already reached the end of their jobless benefits; 2 million more will be cut off at the end of December. This report looks at how some states have connected workers to social services and reemployment services. It calls for a coordinated federal response to work with state governments, as well as the nonprofit and private sectors, to pursue job creation strategies and maximize benefits for this hard-hit population.

Cutting Programs for Low-Income People Especially Hurts Women and Their Families, National Women’s Law Center. Women who head families and elderly women are especially reliant on programs for low-income people. Here is a look at some of the most vital programs that must be protected to ensure that any deal on spending reduction doesn’t increase poverty.

“…Welfare Is Not What You Think It Is,” Heather Hahn, Olivia Golden, and Alexandra Stanczyk, Urban Institute. Most people think TANF is a cash assistance program—it isn’t. Only 30 percent of the TANF block grant goes towards cash assistance for families. All fifty states make greatly divergent policy decisions on how to use their TANF block grant, with vastly different implications for low-income families. This paper examines the unique TANF programs in California, Florida, Michigan, Texas and Washington, including how each one responded to the recession.

Vital Statistics

50 percent of the jobs in the US pay less than $34,000 a year (Economic Policy Institute).

25 percent of the jobs in the US pay below the poverty line for a family of four, less than $23,000 annually (Economic Policy Institute).

US poverty (less than $22,314 for a family of four): 46 million people, 15.1 percent of population.

Children in poverty: 16.4 million, 22 percent of all children, including 39 percent of African-American children and 35 percent of Latino children.

Number of children in poverty receiving cash aid: one in five.

Deep poverty (less than $11,157 for a family of four): 20.5 million people, 6.7 percent of population. Up from 12.6 million in 2000.

Increase in deep poverty, 1976-2010: doubled—3.3 percent of population to 6.7 percent.

Families receiving cash assistance, 1996: 68 for every 100 families living in poverty.

Families receiving cash assistance, 2010: 27 for every 100 families living in poverty.

Impact of public policy, 2010: without government assistance, poverty would have been twice as high—nearly 30 percent of population.

Twice the poverty level (less than $44,700 for a family of four): 103 million people, roughly 1 in 3 Americans.

Quote of the Week

“Republicans are even bringing up poverty, because of a longstanding concern for the poor that began two weeks ago.”
     —Steve Bogira, senior writer, Chicago Reader

This Week in Poverty posts here every Friday morning, and again on Sundays at Moyers & Company. Please comment below. You can also e-mail me at WeekInPoverty@me.com and follow me on Twitter.