Unknown Speaker  00:02
women are disproportionately affected by poverty. They're affected by as senior citizens. They're affected as unmarried single women, as divorced women and as women in the workforce. Women are distinctive and being distinctively disadvantaged in the economic sphere. We may not have a full panel here because your comrade is unable due to a family emergency. She could not appear on the panel today. But we do have two extraordinarily distinguished our other panelists are many panelists are two extraordinarily distinguished people who wouldn't have it two separate but related worlds one go to different

Unknown Speaker  00:42
men's room so ladies,

Unknown Speaker  00:45
there's there's certainly the world agenda. There's also the world political practice and the world of political ideas. And they are both experts on concrete. And each in their own way, for me anyway, they're each a hero or heroine in the struggle to achieve justice and some measure of equality for women. Barber sable is the Commissioner of the New York City Human Resources Administration. She has demonstrated in her capacity in this job extraordinary persistence, courage, originality, and she has persistently brought the facts of poverty for the public and sometimes for her own administration, and demonstrating enormous courage in doing this. She's tough. She's a smart woman, and she has a keen sense of the political and we're lucky to have her with us today. Our other hero is a modest man of great accomplishments. Professor Andrew packer is professor of political science at Queens College. He is an expert on numerous things and is widely admired for his work on poverty, on racism on inequality and related themes. If he had never done anything else he was he was a big figure in my life for leading the counter attack, or leading a counter attack against the misinformation that became so prevalent about the poor in the Reagan years, and Professor hacker was right in front. And that counter assault. He is also recently speaking, he's the author of numerous wars, but he's recently the author of any book that causes quite a lot of controversy in my classes. My students love it. But they fight about it to nations. Step two nations black and white, separate hostile in. The way we will proceed today is that Commissioner sable will speak first, and then we'll take questions. Unfortunately, she will have to then leave because she has a she must leave by future team, then Professor hacker will speak with us and commissioners.

Unknown Speaker  03:05
Let me start by describing a little bit about what HRA does, who it is we're serving counties we're serving and clarify that I don't really think I'm an expert on poverty. As much as I'm an expert, if that's the right term on how it is we respond to poverty to the welfare system, which is, I think your secret, my current is a little bit different than poverty. Right now, in New York City, there are over a million people in the system and a half million systems, there are about 1.6 million people on Medicaid and another 1.2 million people on food stamps. So that if you look at that in the context of what we know about the population of New York, that there is a significant amount of poverty in New York City. And I hasten to say that not all people who are in poverty are on welfare. Now let me just give a couple of other facts, the the, of the number of people who are in poverty, the group that's growing fastest in terms of how many children and I think that needs to be of concern to all of us. Children under the age of six are more likely to be poor, to any other society. We'll talk a little bit about why I think that is so important for us to remember and be concerned about a little later. The other thing to remember about that group of children, the children under six living below the poverty level But three out of five of those children come from families who in which the parent should be working full time. So I think that is the other thing to remember is that people who are in poverty or people who are on public assistance are often referred. And I think that's important to remember because there are so many myths about people who are on public assistance. And that we seen, or I've seen as an administrator of the program that responds, to be able to do little to dispel the myths about people in public assistance, no matter how hard I tried, or how many groups I talked to, no matter what I do, I cannot seem to dispel the myths about people on public assistance. So I think jointly, we all have to make sure that the facts and the data get out and that we have to be willing to stand up. And when we hear people state the myths about people on public assistance, to say no, it's just not true. About 25% of New York City population is poor, and about 63% of households headed by women with children are poor. And if you compare that to over 14% of married couples, and 20% of male headed families that are poor, I think it's fair to say that when we are talking about poverty, to a large extent, we're talking about women and children. Women who have their hands full with the struggle for survival struggle for the basics. Survival for poor women with children encompasses several things that those of us who are more fortunate take for granted. So I'm going to give you some data that says perhaps be things like having permanent space, home, or an apartment, or access to childcare having health insurance access, excuse me, access to medical care and job to pay wages above poverty. The author Daniel Shor recently described how several words have changed their meaning in recent years, including the word welfare. He writes, and I quote, originally admits prosperity. Well being wellbeing has been looking after a child welfare. And Sweden's welfare state was a place where they tried to look after everybody's welfare. And now welfare is part of a pejorative phrase, like the welfare bomb, or the welfare. She.

Unknown Speaker  07:45
I spoke earlier about the myth, the myths, you've heard the myths, you would never repeat those of us in this room and the myths we must dispel my experience of HR a commissioner, and the facts are, our typical client is a woman with children. And in New York City 50% of our, of the women stay on public assistance for less than two years. And that is certainly different than the myth that people get on welfare. And they never get. And not only do they not get well, but their children get on and they never get off. In fact, only 19% are white to the state public assistance for longer than five years. Now, I just discovered that I'm an ethnographer. I didn't know that before I came to they do help me I did some ethnographic work by going under covered trying to get a sense of how the welfare system for which I'm responsible works, how it feels, to the client, who are, are using it. And I can tell you that what I found in talking to the women who are on public assistance, because they surely did not want to be there. Again, another myth down the drain. The thing that I heard the most was, if I can get a job if I could get a job. And as I was sitting in the welfare office. And again, keep in mind I was in the role of a client. Other clients were telling me if you if you go over here you can get to work with as a health care aide, giving the addresses about places that I could go that perhaps I could get a job, but all of them said even if you get it It won't get you off welfare because of the temporariness of the job, and the wages related to the job. And one of the one of the challenges that I think I faced as a commissioner from Human Resources Administration. So one of the questions that I struggle with all the time,

Unknown Speaker  10:22
is, we are

Unknown Speaker  10:24
working specifically to help women move to self sufficiency. That's our explicit goal, I can talk a little bit about the programs and initiatives, we have to help women do that. On the other side of the equation, we're providing support services, so that indeed, women can do that childcare and a whole series of other things. But if I look at my child care system, and the rate of pay of the women who work in childcare, it's a real dilemma. It's a real dilemma, if any of you who have ever worked in a daycare center or know somebody who works in a daycare center, know that the wages are marginal at best. But here we are, as women creating a system a childcare system, which will be comprised largely of women who are making salaries and wages, that I believe in this day and time are just not appropriate. Now, let me make another point. And that is, and again, it comes from my ethnographic work, I'm upset. That being on welfare does not mean you fare well. And let me give you some examples. In New York City, on any given night, there are from 9500 to 9700 children who are homeless, that is a transitional home, either in hotel to shelter. And we keep saying, what, what is the cause of this? What is it? Why is this? Why do we have these homeless families now? And I'm not prepared to answer that question. I don't have the answer. But when I say that for a family of three, but it's on public assistance in New York City, the shelter allowance is $286 per month. And I would ask anyone in this room, in fact, anyone on this campus today, can you get an apartment if you weren't a mother with two children? $286 a month? And the answer would probably be No. And if it was, yes, I'd like to know where it is because I have to which I can refer. So that I'm not saying that there's a causal effect between what the shelter allowances and homelessness, but there certainly is a relationship. When you look in our caseload, and we see that over 70% of the people of the head of household were on public assistance, who are in the private housing market, are paying rents above the shelter allowance. And let's talk a little bit about what that means. Again, find this mother of three, receiving public assistance, my total cash intake, the shelter allowance, plus the basic grant would be $577 a month, and then I will get Medicaid and food stamps. In addition. If you look at New York City data, the fair market rent for family of three is about $560 per line. So if I were to get an apartment at fair market, rent a family of three, that's $560 a month, it means I would have $17 cash with which to live for a month. And there aren't many of us who could do that either, notwithstanding the fact that I have food stamps, because if you translate food stamps out to cash, it averages about 73 cents per meal. All right. So again, I think that underscores my point, that being on welfare does not mean the fair well, not only do you suffer the the stigma of being on public assistance It is not enough for you to do what many of us take for granted, in terms of how it is that we support our families. Let me just mention one other area in terms of what it was that I saw and felt when I was out in those

Unknown Speaker  15:22
public assistance offices. And that is the the feeling of choice lessness, I have no choice but to be on public assistance. And it's largely related to education, and training, and job opportunities. So it seems to me one of our responses must be how it is that we we create jobs and how it is we prepare people to to get jobs, one of the most debated issues around welfare reform, in terms of the face of limitation of welfare reform, but whether or not you allow women who are on public assistance to get a four year college degree? And the answer was, No. Because if you're the purpose of welfare reform is to move people from welfare to work. a four year college degree is not a necessary condition for work. And our objective is to move people just as quickly as we can from welfare to work. And the the, the political and ideological in some way, turmoil about what does it say to the working poor, that you're going to say to a welfare family? Yes, you can remain on public assistance, while the adult caretaker is is getting a college education, and without pay for childcare, and Medicaid and food stamps, but the working poor family does not have those same kinds of supports. And so there's always this dilemma between this this between people on public assistance, and, quote, the working poor. But what people forget is that people on public assistance are oftentimes also working and on public assistance. So this choice lessness, that I felt, was really quite disturbing. Because the minute you accept the fact that you have no choice, it affects whether or not you have hope, or you don't have hope. And so one of the things that we are trying to work very hard at doing an HRA now is to move our programs from a program of sanctions to a program of choices, giving women choices, so that they can select job search, so that they can select some kind of vocational training program so that they can select English as a second language, so that it moves them to the next stages of their career. And you know, when you haven't had choices, it's hard to make them so that we're now building a whole support system to help women know what kind of choices to make, and how those choices are going to ultimately lead to whether or not they get off public assistance, and how soon they get off. Public Assistance. Let me just talk a little bit about the hope, I feel and the caution. I feel even with this new administration, I have to tell you what this new administration, there's a real sense of excitement. I mean, we were so excited about the economic stimulus plan, we had all the Headstart money spent. Now, of course, we want to spend it. But I mean, the fact that, you know, right now, we're serving less than a third of kids who are eligible for Headstart, significantly less than a third of the kids who are eligible pay Headstart and just the fact that we would beginning be beginning this summer to move toward Headstart for every eligible child. You can't imagine the excitement that brings to the people who actually work in the program and the communities out there who are going to benefit from it. And as I said, we you know, we've we've had this we've still got our plan in our hip pocket, in case somebody help Senator Dole to the white but we also have a sense of question as well. And that question is related to a number of

Unknown Speaker  20:07
efforts that were started under the Bush regime that seem to have at least fought on, for example, the Wisconsin learning Fair, where you reduce the amount of the public assistance grant because your child is not in school, there are other states who have now picked that up, are our sister state who is now saying, if you have additional children, while you're on public assistance, you don't get any change in your in your grant. And in fact, in New York state, our own response of determining benefit levels based on whichever is lower the benefit, you would have not an AFDC, but an HR, the benefit you would have gotten from the state from which you came as compared to New York. So there are a lot of things going on. And I won't put the word punitive around them. But there are a lot of initiatives like that, that seem to be building momentum, even in this time of great hope and possibility under the new administration. And I think, and I, I hope I get to listen to the tape, because I think maybe I'll push my driver, I think I will stop quickly and push my driver to drive faster, because I want to hear your responses to some of this. Because I think it means that we all have a job to do, because I believe that many of these initiatives are based on false premises about who the people are for on public assistance. If we look at our casework, for example, even for those on our caseload, who haven't graduated from high school, and keep in mind, that's a very small percent, their reading levels are at eighth grade. All right, then if I if I peel off that part of the of the caseload, we either completed 11 years of high school or more, and move to the to the other group. On average, we have reading levels of sixth grade, alright, so that it means that we have to go and we have to deal with the very basic kinds of things. And we have to start making investments in education for children. Otherwise, we're doomed to continue to have conferences that are going to have a session on poverty, welfare and women because it's going to continue to be women. And welfare or some welfare type response will continue to be our response. Unless we get to some of those very basic things. I'm going to skip over some of the things that I wanted to tell you about and want to get to. I think I will skip over the part where I was going to tell you about what some of our our program we are. Except to go back to my point about choice and educating people about choice. We have now in New York state a requirement for managed health care for people who are on public assistance that in five years, we've got to have half of our Medicaid caseload in role in managed care programs. Okay, that's a state mandate, and we lose money if we don't meet it. And I was portrayed as being against managed care. Well, my training is nursing. I've never been against managed health care, because I believe people ought to have a primary care physician and all that good stuff that goes with managed care. There are lots of other ways to achieve it. But managed care is a good one. So I've never been against managed care. The issue that I did want debated was whether or not you had the mandated for the poor. That is those poor who are on Medicaid. So that we now have about 94,000 Medicaid recipients in managed care. It became mandatory in October of last year, the bulk of those 94,000 became managed care recipients prior to the time that we made it mandatory because we had an education program to talk to the women who were on Medicaid about the benefits of managed care. Your child will have a physician you You'll know who that position is, they're available to you 24 hours a day, seven days a

Unknown Speaker  25:05
week, you don't have to go to the emergency room and wait.

Unknown Speaker  25:07
And when given that information, people chose managed care. And then they got to select from at least we plan alternatives that we gave them. So my position is with the right information, the poor. And people who are on public assistance, will make the best choices for their families, just like the rest of us, given the information, so that as we debate programs for the poor, I think the theme that you see coming out is we have a set of values and principles. And we want to mandate them for the poor. We don't want to give them a choice about whether to do it or not to do it, we know that, and therefore we're going to mandate it. And in doing that mandating, we placed fiscal sanctions on the client and fiscal sanctions on the jurisdictions that are running those programs. There are some empowering programs that have been developed. And in the classic case is Headstart. If you look at what Headstart has done for children, it's extraordinary. And you know, the results of that research, I don't have to go into what has not been documented nearly as well, is the outcome, the parents of the Headstart children. We have in New York City, for example, the parent of a headstart child, for the child was formerly Headstart, who got involved and excited and enthused and got educated and is now city council woman that started off as a headstart parent, I, as an administrator, kick and scream and cry over something in the federal regulations is called 70.2 70.2. In the Headstart regulations say that I have to have a parent advisory council, I think that's a parent Policy Council, and that the parent Policy Council has to vote and approve what I do. I resist that as an administrator and a manager, I'm gonna be the one held accountable, not this Head Start policy council. But the whole premise is empowering the parents of the children actually allowing them to make decisions. Oftentimes, we define empowering as you could be on my advisory committee, and you can give me advice. And then I can choose whether they accept it or not accept it, I prefer that to be perfectly No.

Unknown Speaker  27:53
As an administrator,

Unknown Speaker  27:54
it's easier to work in that arena. But when I really look at what Headstart has done for parents, and I fully recognize all the heartaches 70.2 gives me you can tell it's burned in my brain, right? So it by heart, it's worth the energy that it takes to negotiate policy and procedures and the award of grants, and how we're going to use money. And so it seems to me that it would be well worth a researchers time to document the impact on parents in the same way, we have documented the impact on children of Headstart. And it would seem to me even without that documentation of what we just know, we could begin to shape other programs around the Headstart model of parent involvement, and what that means in the true sense of the word. Finally, I'm going to make two of the points that I'm going to stop. And that is leadership makes a difference. I'm gonna give you an example. And I call it the who's holding the bag example. When I came to New York City, on my first day on the job, I went to a public assistance office, not undercover, but as the new designated Commissioner. And I have behind me two of my staff and we go to the income support center and I tour around. We have a pretty good and one of the staff state of Maine Commission, the same building, there's a team center. Wow, that's it, what's teen center? And they said, Well, this is a place where children come who have come into foster care, but we haven't been able to place them anyplace. Sounds weird. But anyway, I went up to this teen center. And as I was standing there, this adolescent girl gets off the elevator with a caseworker. She had got one of those huge black garbage bags, with all of her stuff in it. And she's holding this teddy bear I will never, ever forget As it turns out, in New York City, there were hundreds of children every night, who didn't know where they were going to sleep. And they were the children who carried these, they carry all their belongings in these bags. And every night, they would go a different place to sleep. And I say, Where were the women? Where were the mothers? Where were the policymakers? Where were the advocates? How in the heck could that happen in New York City? To get back to my point, that leadership makes a difference. David thing has committed his administration to chill. And the one mandate he gave me make it better for children in less than a year, and government time, that's short term, and I would have liked to turn it over overnight. And from they're no longer children who don't know where they're going to sleep at night. So it's fixed. But the question still remains, what is it that would allow that to happen in the first instance, so who's holding the bag, I have fixed that problem. But yet, I am still confronting the big garbage bags. And you know, who I'm seeing carrying the mothers who are homeless, they got their stuff, they kid stuff in these garbage bag, sitting in an office, waiting for someone to get them into transition. And it comes back to my point leadership makes a difference has made a difference in New York City. Because the problem of the children, David thinks can resolve the problem of lack of affordable housing is a problem is going to have to be solved with the help of the federal government, the state and the local government, no individual, a local government certainly can't solve a problem affordable housing alone. So you know, every night, there are probably 100 250 Women who are coming to the emergency assistance units, who are coming with their belongings, and their children's belongings, waiting to be placed somewhere. And I say, as women, we have an extraordinary challenge in selecting leadership, not just the president to level not just at the mayor level, but every place we can do it for people who have a common commitment to equality and justice, and who are willing to put their money where their mouths are in solving some of these various problems, education, affordable housing, access to medical care, etc, etc, etc. So on that note, I'm going to stop and say we have an extraordinary challenge.

Unknown Speaker  32:57
But all the problems that I talked about, let's talk about all fixable. If we put our minds to it, none of this stuff is so intractable, intractable with our, our best energy and effort. So on that note

Unknown Speaker  33:21
I'm not sure how to proceed now.

Unknown Speaker  33:24
So leadership.

Unknown Speaker  33:28
I think we'll just go right to Professor hackers. And so you can be a little complex, we'll work on that. And then we'll open it up. But that's

Unknown Speaker  33:37
actually wrestle my remarks will be somewhat briefer, because I'm really going to get some thinking out loud, but present some ambiguities in my own mind. Yes, I'm an expert. Yes, scholar. Yes, it looks but still, there are questions, issues, realities. I'm not totally sure about myself, and perhaps want to offer to complement what I was able to offer some cultural perspectives here. And when culture I mean, United States today, there's first this condition in this reality. Now use the phrase, I didn't make it up. But when someone wants both men's liberation, and men's liberation has actually succeeded at a greater and more effective pace than women's liberation. Men's liberation is very simply the freedom of fathers to sleep. In the past, in all classes in all races, the vast majority of fathers stayed at home for the duration of the matter. It really did wandered a bit, you know, some evenings but they always came back and forth, you know, was hardly known, and desertion. wasn't that great, out of duty community pressure whatever Father's Day home, which meant that there was a man's in, in the typical home? Well, today, fathers can now flee without social center. We just don't pass judgment. Sometimes we pass judgment on, cooler and blacker. Because we say, Oh, yes, the fact that you're not taking responsibility for your children means that the family goes on welfare, and we, the taxpayer, have to pay for your kids. It so happens though, that middle class fathers are fleeing at exactly the same rate. And they too, are not paying their way. You've seen all the work on why fathers base child support gets minimal. And even when they paid the full a lot. The judge is generally a man, and he figures to himself, gee, could I live on this? So he ends up telling the father payer, less than a quarter of your income? So what happens and most fathers even middle class ones don't set that yet. Now, the question is, can we change this? The freedom of others, I can see how can you make dad stay at home when he doesn't want to? Or for that matter? Can you make a father who was never even part of a household? Join the household? No, I'm not taking the position that every woman needs a man this is ridiculous. And I wouldn't say to the foreigner, even if I believed. What I would say here, though, is that we have something else, cultural companies, men's liberation, and that is the freedom to procreate. Again, with minimal social censure, sometimes none at all. Now, again, I'm trying to make up my mind about this, we now call 15 year olds, when we did this, we do this for a reason. But once you call her a woman, she is then free to have empty debate. You know, and again, and again, we stayed up a 50 year old woman. Now let's understand what we're doing. Because in a sense, we are culturally empowering her to embark on mother. Now, I would only indicate here, each one of us has to make up our own minds, whether they're going to do it through an ideological lens or not. Whether it's Tarot who's 15 wants to have innkeeper, baby, whether we should cheer her up and say that it's great and terrible. Unless you're right, go ahead and do it. The big problem is we don't have enough prenatal care for you and all the services, or whether we're going to look at Tarot with a kind of stern facade and say, you know, Terrell, we're not applauding you on this one. Now, each of us has to make up their own mind. And I'm not talking about Dan Quayle. Right wing. So we still have to make up our minds of this because there are considerable numbers of Carol's deciding to have their children. Now, interestingly, one of the flip sides of this is that presume everyone here I certainly am great, a great favor of not simply freedom of choice on whether to continue or terminate your pregnancy. But I'm also in favor of, I'm trying to think of an adjective for this spirited counseling.

Unknown Speaker  38:31
where Carol age 15 is taken, or is meets a counselor who speaks her own language, in all sorts, every sense of that term, and tries to encourage Carol to terminate the pregnancy. Now, you know, this is a bit of, you know, behind the opposition to parental notification, because we have the notion that, let's call it the counselor, I don't want to kill the local or Sydney problem recently, that Cindy understands Carol better than Carol's mother does. Well, I think part of our thinking on this is, is that Cindy, the counselor can be much firmer with Carol about showing her the abortion option. But then we get to question, if, you know, last year, I think we had 1.6 million abortions in the country. Those of us who have freedom of choice people really feel are not pro abortion, that you shouldn't just pass 1.6 million, we should have had closer to maybe two or 2.1 which then really brings up the thing. G there are millions or hundreds of 1000s of mothers out there, or women are not fit to be mothers. You know, it's like the old Victorian thing, but now we're putting a sociological gloss on it. We're saying, Well, you know, they're poor. They live in dangerous neighborhoods. Maybe they ought to skip motherhood for a while and while it goes on now a number of black people So CMS won't call it genocide, but a way of cutting down the next generation of the black population. And it's not that you get, you know, people who used to be like you we knew, and others saying, you know, abortion is genocide. But there is the notion here that so much of the letters encourage more clinics in the schools. Now when we talk about abortion clinics, right next door to a school with a much more Wingate high school in Brooklyn than we are in Scarsdale. By the way, something else in passing on this, we all know the reasons why 16 year old Carol girl wants to have a baby, we don't have to go into that, oh, I had one thing else before the teenage boy who participated in making this pregnancy also wants to have children, not in a sense of responsibility before, but rather, with many of these 16 year old young man. They're not sure they're going to live to the end of the year. And they want to renew the stock. Hey, this is straight out of Darwin. And the whole point of evolution is to tee that up the strain going. And if you get young men who figure, hey, I gotta start making my new generation early, because I may not be around so long. This is a beautiful clarification of what Darwin was talking about. And there's a rationality to this, because they don't make it and they end up in prison or dead or whatever, then they are to be a group with a social stratum will disappear. Now we Oh, also know the issue of from welfare to work there. And let's keep our eye on this because here the current president is really siding with not only Moynihan but all the others. There is the notion now, workforce don't I mean, that's really and who are they talking about putting to work mothers with young children? Now, you know, I find this absolutely amazing, because one convention when used to all about family values, and how Marilyn Quayle and Barbara Bush stayed at home with their children. And then we take a whole other group, and we say, You cannot say, you gotta go to work. Now, it's almost as if it's not almost as if we had two biases. We have a class of women who were able to find and keep a husband. And they can stay at home. And the women who either couldn't find your footing keep us, and they asked to go out to work. And I think each one of us contract, I would think that a mother with children has a right to stay at home. If she wants to, I always thought that the Women's Movement said back, you know, let's, if you want to stay home with your kids, fine. That's your right. Well, isn't that true for women also. And that's what welfare always ensured. Now, the notion of putting them to work. You said you didn't want us to work punitive, I will. This is punishment for having been a sinner. You know, this goes back 300 years, and you sin. And by the way, don't even ask whether there was pleasure involved. And you know, it's amazing.

Unknown Speaker  43:31
Among this group of girls, there isn't even that much fun. So anyone who did what you did, you have to pay for it now and then try to think of the kinds of jobs that they're expected to, well, New York, you don't see this, but I was down, not affecting the graphically as busy. Some days I work some days like south or south, or North Carolina now happens at a very small proportion of the solo mothers, mothers in North Carolina are on welfare, welfare, it's very strict. Not to really show that you're medically impaired. Otherwise, the county simply says, you know, you can't find a job. Well, I was shown one of the jobs, there was a getting the cost back was a shed was right on the ocean. And there were women in the shed standing at tables about this high all day long, peeling tree. And that's what they did. And at this point, it's cheaper to have women imagine what the Pay Now this has worked. And I would indicate here that the majority of jobs many people don't say if so many words, but you remember the time you and I Double, maybe when 2 million black women, most of the mothers were domestic services. And there's still people who have a notion, could we go back to having the cook, the washer woman, the lady who came into the ironing? Maybe that's what they could do. And we don't want to say this. But there is this vision of they would do work by that. And maybe not so much to the New Jersey model, but the North Carolina model. Now, as far as poverty is concerned, we all know the phrase, feminization of poverty and it's still even if a woman goes out to work, gets a college degree, gets herself a middle class job, she is still a one income household. And even if she's got a middle class, somewhat professional job, she is still we all know the figures getting 6575 cents on the dollar for what the comparable man is. Very frequently because she hasn't been that long in the career track. It's, you know, we do know that we're expensive, I can't do that. But in certain fields, high school teacher, where you get a woman who never got married, never have children. She's getting really $1 on the dollar. But she's been up there working non stop. Less can she get principalship. But the fact remains, I have the figures on this. But when you control for quotes, never married among professional people, professional women do fairly decently but most women are not in that category. And, you know, struck by your shelter allowance for too many reasons. No way. Could I ask you this? Is this fantasy? You all remember Kate O'Malley?

Unknown Speaker  46:58
Did both single women both have kids, they shared the book. Okay, it was a great set, put each of them get to 86 and then put it together and share environment. See only up

Unknown Speaker  47:10
to the mat so that they can benefit.

Unknown Speaker  47:15
They can benefit. Let's see if you could change six oh point four. Because, hey, this is not a solution for everybody. But if we could take an ally eyes more people, at least you'd have two incomes, you know, and I know he's congeniality and getting on together and so on. But one refrigerator. Alright. By the way, I just want to mention passing something I discovered that's really discovery. You know, there is a really very comfortable welfare a lot. That mainly goes to middle class women, you do know about the survivor benefits, Social Security Administration, if you have found and kept a working husband, and if he has worked at the top of the Social Security income bracket, always like and then he dies. You then get an honorable Social Security survivor's benefit, which can go up now to 26,000 a year. And nobody points a finger. Why? Because you found and kept working. And there. But needless to say that survival? Well over 90% are white. And do you have to have children? Yeah, that's a couple of children together with 26 hours. And until recently, it even stayed while the children were over 80 and going to college. They cut back on that. So it's, you know, a little arts making routine, you're set. The final point I'll simply raise because we're talking about is and this is so many ways, bottom line will always be with us. Well, we're not just talking about living in poverty, we're talking about pop. And, you know, United States was founded on the premise that ours was going to be the harshest type of capitalism around a the many different types of capitalism. Ours is the one that has more people on the street, more people for all lay down, more people in prison enforcement in any other country. You know, he dropped out of Calcutta that you walked out of the homeless in Calcutta are in no way. Like, in fact, when we say to live in the streets, that was encounter, actually people have their forms of domicile in the streets. It's not yet. In fact, when people do set up houses for themselves, we tear them down. Now, this is a question of kind of capitalism we have and how far it's changeable, I would say that this country has always had immigrants coming in and we have, who are very low income, but not because they know they're at the beginning of something, they're not going to be down at the bottom forever. So they put up, you know, you take the people who wash your dishes, everybody that eat, ever eat out in restaurants, everything to washes your dishes. There are people from Central America. And they live in Jackson Heights, six to what's not going to eat breakfast. And so they don't consider themselves poor. And

Unknown Speaker  50:36
why isn't the more educated?

Unknown Speaker  50:40
Well, it's not some are educated, the Asians are more particularly educated. But the people from Central America aren't that educated. It's simply they are building up a kind of capital in terms of the knowledge of the job market, and its options. So for example, from washing dishes, you go to working in the stock thing, you go to work in the truck, very, lots of word of mouth, in the what we might call this secondary job market, but it is a job market. There. Sadly, I say that more of an educated,

Unknown Speaker  51:09
I think what they have going for them is a network and a community organization. So they have this support system when they come in, depending on your training group, as compared to perhaps the American group. They have network, like the Dominican have a certain area where they weren't, sort of, they bring all their efforts together. And when you're talking about the cake analogy, sort of stringing that's what they have.

Unknown Speaker  51:41
Working.

Unknown Speaker  51:42
Absolutely. By the way, on this, when we talk about black Americans who have families, for generations, they simply pay, no more than us are going to start six in a room, washing dishes now. And this is, by the way, on the network, they are just really at the end. So I'll just do one thing that really interests me, because I haven't totally immigration, despite whatever I hadn't noticed was a Korean greengross. That up to a few years ago, there used to be young Korean nephews and cousins who would be doing the grunt work, cleaning off the lettuces and so on. They have run out of nephews and cousins willing to do that. And they have now higher in Central America. And you have the Korean boss talking in English to the Central American who look is much Indian, the very rural, very interesting, too. And so when you talk about networks, you've now got networks within networks either because, say if the greengrocer needs another Central American, he'll say to Jose, have you got a concept? What? I'm starting to get a table and it gets more and more interesting. So one of the

Unknown Speaker  53:01
great. Just pick up on one thing that you said, you talked about the spirit of counsel and counsel. And in certain states now they're considering a regulatory spirit to counsel. That is a requirement for no client. I mean, so that your your, you know, what you said, just struck home in so many ways, and it's fine, we have to keep our finger on the pulse of these policy interventions, and how they're being applied to the poor.

Unknown Speaker  53:45
But you know, some of those can be quite a word I love and hate conflict. You know, part of it is genocidal, you know, mild way, but part of this book

Unknown Speaker  53:58
is a way that a lot of people state this issue. When do we in fact, neglect 15? Oh, Carol, by not offering her options and making it and helping her make a lot. Give me her assistance in a coma. Right. As if we're benefiting calm. I think this is a really worthy issue. I'd really like to hear your opinion. If you have it and you go,

Unknown Speaker  54:25
I think my issue is it isn't. It isn't a regulatory you shouldn't have a regulatory response to

Unknown Speaker  54:33
that should not be mended.

Unknown Speaker  54:35
Exactly. Exactly. Unless working on which I would never support mandated for everybody. Why would you pick the poor and mandate Norplant for the poor because they're

Unknown Speaker  54:48
they're a captive of the agency. And you can do it. I hope not. But that's exactly I think what what the dynamic is

Unknown Speaker  54:57
what's going on All right, Kansas was one thing in Kansas was one state that was debating. And there's one other and I've got it in my notes. I don't remember. Yeah, but I just couldn't get through to

Unknown Speaker  55:19
I got a comment on the immigrant,

Unknown Speaker  55:22
for questions.

Unknown Speaker  55:25
In terms of the immigrant poor versus the sort of American poor, and especially immigrants versus black Americans, I think that we're far more tolerant of immigrants as a nation, and give them a lot more opportunity, and stigmatizing a lot less, even though they come in for because this was supposedly a nation of immigrants and blah, blah, blah. And so we give them a lot more room and opportunity for them to sort of scrap that sort of thing that we do to black America. I think if you look at Miami situation, they're

Unknown Speaker  56:05
exactly.

Unknown Speaker  56:09
The black Americans feel that, you know, here, they've been here for, you know, 400 years, and they've had such a hard time getting getting up and it should have been immigrants have come in, and you know, they, they've worked hard, yes, but they won, they come with a lot more hope in the future students will be given a lot more opportunity to feel good about themselves, particularly they can make.

Unknown Speaker  56:36
Absolutely, so now the thing, most of them are uncomplaining, unobtrusive, some homes. In addition to this, we don't feel guilty about. We don't project those sorts of things. We also know they wash our issues, so we could fight. And they nanny a lot of all the rest. So of course, and it's not even we say, Hey, we've got a great tradition. welcoming immigrants first, we never welcome. We just simply say, Come on in, you can do what you want.

Unknown Speaker  57:09
And then I think the other point is we're selective about which immigrants as well, we can't forget that. So

Unknown Speaker  57:16
Right. And don't forget that the immigration experience of African Americans is quite different than the immigration experience of today, yeah, no. And, you know, they're acutely conscious, in particular, Today, young, you know, adolescent males, you know, we're not just males, young adolescent. Males and females, you know, have our very self consciously aware of how distinctive their history is, again. And I think it really answers that similar issue to it's very much a lot of the research is coming to Chicago, because research on, you know, how employers view potential employees, you know, they expect young inner city, black males to be uncooperative, unreliable, aggressive, and, you know, they want a more a more pliable workforce. These, these are decisions that go into what we used to call discrimination. But we can still call discrimination because it's still going

Unknown Speaker  58:27
on when we see this, where I start to say that half black students are from West Indies. No, it's for the past, I just know that a large number of let you know that they are from Jamaica, Trinidad, and so on, which might be called playing the immigrant card. We can't give all the terrible we came from a country where we run it ourselves. And even that, and I say, there's no good story. Let me know that over a holiday, she was down the islands visiting with them, just to let me know. And you know, what they're doing is Hey, and the other thing, of course, is that you know, there's a bit of a British overlay to the Western days which is somewhat European I'm not saying this politically, but I can understand why this is done. Question. suggestion that

Unknown Speaker  59:31
you it was a beautiful piece of legislation introduced the state of Florida and Wisconsin.

Unknown Speaker  59:40
I don't think that would be you know, as far as it is a form of genocide. Let's look at when they were practicing birth control right alive have suffered tremendously, revise while they were experimenting.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:12
I don't think they should be mandated wasn't for because these limits Puerto Rico they were. And the reason why they volunteered

Unknown Speaker  1:00:28
to

Unknown Speaker  1:00:33
cooperate. Because they couldn't afford to take huge, you know, an additional child. And it was making their family to base your life worse. You know, but they also suffered tremendous. Not someone mandated but

Unknown Speaker  1:01:01
a joy. spiritual counseling. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:01:06
But you do understand, I would say a majority of the population are not going to be in this room has as a fantasy, Norplant in the drinking fountain at Wingate High School, if they could legislate that they would, you know, kind of something once.

Unknown Speaker  1:01:28
And I think it goes back to my point, leadership makes a difference. And, of course, I'm responsible for the 50,000 children in foster care. So I'm also taking the position of making medical decisions on their behalf. And so one of the issues has to be somewhat plan part that family options? And if the answer yes or no, if you bring in the experts, and you debate it and discuss it, well, under another kind of leadership, there would be no debate discussion. I mean, heck, put it in that put it in the drinking water, the same way on clinical trials. When, when the request first started coming to me, for foster children and clinical trials for ACP, you know, AZT was not a drug that had been

Unknown Speaker  1:02:24
say that, again, somebody came to you and suggested kids in foster care be put us as guinea pigs for AZT is a clinical clinical pairing.

Unknown Speaker  1:02:39
Between children of color, who, what we developed a whole procedure, and we brought together pediatricians and we made sure there was African Americans, and Latinos, everybody at the table to debate and discuss that issue about and not necessarily ATT, but whether or not children should be our foster children should be in clinical trials at all. And if they should be, what would be the protocol for making a decision about which trial into that adopt. And so it's very important, who's, who's steering the ship, and what kind of decisions they're making? What kind of impact

Unknown Speaker  1:03:25
and just to speak in a sensible, but for another minority, possibly I work in the mental health field. And there's a great deal of concern now that with managed care, particularly for the Medicaid patients, that the whole issue of options around mental health services is basically going to be eliminated. And I wondered if this is something you might speak to in terms of how you see mental health services fitting in, particularly with the Medicaid population.

Unknown Speaker  1:03:57
Its Medicaid services, drug treatment services and other specialized services that are real issue, which is, and my first position was that mental health services are key, because the minute you start exempting things, though, you start eroding. What was the primary goal? Or I should say, one of the primary goals, I'll put it that way, which was cost saving cost containment? But you're absolutely right, it will affect the quiet choices, because the mental health services will come from that provider with him the managed care provider contract, not necessarily who the person requiring his job. And so that's the kind of system we're creating. And so as we create that system, we've got to go back and start thinking about special use of all these populations, people with AIDS are going to happen if we didn't have an exemption for people with AIDS.

Unknown Speaker  1:04:52
There's also concern that some of the freestanding mental health clinics that are not affiliated with a big institution Humans will actually be eliminated in this process and availability, well, but they will lose their identity and lose their special services that they can give their patients and really become part of a much bigger bureaucracy. That's likely to happen. Unfortunately, most teams seems it seems like there's no question. My question was

Unknown Speaker  1:05:29
to use your table. And also because there

Unknown Speaker  1:05:32
are so many other you mentioned that there's one

Unknown Speaker  1:05:35
part of the counseling you do is giving options to the woman and one of the options to jobs. So what kinds of jobs are we looking at, in your agency? And then also, you know, other agencies? What kind of jobs are women going to wear is that you said, the biggest challenge in looking at your work nature is creating jobs.

Unknown Speaker  1:05:54
So what did that activity what's going on with the correction? Part of the problem is many of the, we're the safety net. And so I'm really, I'm not really doing the job development. I'm not, I'm not building affordable housing. I'm the safety net. But if you look at the jobs, our women are going into there, they're in that low skill category. home health aides, home attendants, daycare providers, and many of them are not jobs that will move them off poverty. We recently the mayor recently announced a program called program reach in which we're going to be doing it jointly with CUNY to help people go into the health professions, including registered nurses to your Registered Nurse program. And that myth that public, women on public assistance don't want to work. And the mayor announced the program, and our lines made up we have over 2000 holes in less than a month about this program. They were calling the newspapers who carry the story, they would call the radio stations about how do I get in that program? That's the problem is that the jobs that they're going into are low skill, low wage jobs, that don't move them off poverty, and oftentimes don't have health benefits. And so are they better off? That's the question of

Unknown Speaker  1:07:24
vocational retraining that affected that option. What kind of training are they receiving?

Unknown Speaker  1:07:28
They can go up through a two year community college and for women who are already in a four year college track. If they if they're already in, we continue to provide the childcare and this kind of thing. But the objective really is to get people to work, not get them educated. And, you know, I often had the string in this economic recession. There weren't there aren't there weren't jobs in the first place. Why couldn't we just use this time to invest and, and use the Education track? Not Not everybody subscribes to that, for

Unknown Speaker  1:08:11
just a perspective on what we call our kind of economic system, it was never intended to create jobs. That's not its purpose. It's not an employment system. In addition to this, it certainly isn't intended to provide what we might call a decently paid job. For everybody who wants you may not lament the passing of the Soviet Union. But for 70 years, the Soviet Union gave a job to everyone who wanted and was job position. Now, their productivity wasn't very good. You have to wait on lines for other things. But everybody had to work. There was no one one. That's what Lennon said. And that's what they did. Now they're discovering what we know all the time. I'll just give you a take here, which I create derived in myself. Last year, this country had $3 trillion available for wages, salaries, fees, in other words, earnings money. That's the pie $3 trillion. The question is how you voted. Other countries including capitalist countries like Germany divide up there many more people on board as they get more people into the workforce. In our country, you can be a Michael Milken and take half a billion of that pie and do too much makeup. But I am sitting on salaries for professors. I can hire three assistant professors. And I don't I don't even need what I didn't think was three Because children are gone. So it's just, and I think, you know, sooner or later, we're gonna have to start thinking about this because we're going to have more readers on various levels and the jobs we're creating, and once the immigrants to 60 Will room for transparency. So this is not just cultural economic.

Unknown Speaker  1:10:27
The same thing applies to housing, we talk about for families that came our way. And in New York City, we have people in one person in a six room apartment, or in third stage, as you described, that same principle applies to who gets what part of

Unknown Speaker  1:10:48
the housing. And by the way, you know, I just, I read the census reports at night, while other people detective stories, do you know that in New York, this is one of the that

Unknown Speaker  1:10:59
wasn't always my fantasy that more information about them?

Unknown Speaker  1:11:04
I mean, statistics do tell what humans do. And do one of the products of rent control is because it benefits the middle class, is that New Yorkers, higher proportion of New Yorkers have second homes than the residents of any other city. And that is because they're sitting in those state laws.

Unknown Speaker  1:11:27
Let me just say, something you said, What do you you were saying that these forces are not entirely cultural. But in fact, they are cultural at the same time, the forces that are the economic stimulus program that we're losing, you know, or there's been this, so So got it, it will be meaningless. And that's probably what will happen to it was shut down by forces, or that economic systems probably would have generated no more lower tier jobs, job training, re education, re skilling, that kind of thing. And there have been other initiatives like this at other points in our history that, you know, have had great potential, you know, but have always been so attenuated that there were real effects. But it was shot down, you know, by Senator Dole and Republican forces. And in fact, you're protecting a shelter in a very, very oblique sector, economic sector of the society. I mean, so those are cultural, I mean, is recommended for study, those are cultural forces as well and deeply when we do business, and

Unknown Speaker  1:12:29
one thing I did to tell you is that I work for community based agency in the South Bronx, and we have a program where women who are AFDC recipients are trained to become substance abuse counselors, and they will get to a level that they're eligible to take this test and actually take the test, you can earn a certain amount of money. I mean, it's not perfect, but it's something and it's puts you on a level of being a paraprofessional, and you can move on. The other thing I want to mention is that, you know, the husbands or fathers of these children or, you know, boyfriends of these women who are poor. I mean, they, they need some help, too. And, you know, despite the fact that it's the Republican right wing people that are saying, you know, these people are lazy, they want to work, we don't want to make more job programs. Even this whole the, the the War on Drugs thing, where, you know, the Reagan Bush years, there was 50% of those monies were spent, or and I'm sorry, 70% was spent on enforcement of interdiction and all that other Bs, and 30% on prevention, and perhaps maybe some training programs so people could get jobs instead of like, having nothing to do and getting press. Well, now it's changed, but it's changed in such a miniscule way. It's now it's 5050 or not even 5050 It's like 34 and 63% or something.

Unknown Speaker  1:14:01
What kind of like ridiculous thing is that? This is a big ministration

Unknown Speaker  1:14:08
what how ridiculous. I was so stunned. I thought when I read that I thought, oh, that must be a mistake. I mean, Hillary Clinton Children's Defense Fund, and there's they're spending money on like helium balloons patrolling the Mexican border

Unknown Speaker  1:14:23
and the Russell Baker with editorial in the

Unknown Speaker  1:14:29
lowly motion here.

Unknown Speaker  1:14:33
Russell Baker had a good op ed. His column in the picture there was very good. He was talking about a number of things, but among them the difference between a President Clinton and a President Johnson and he was pointing out that it's time to renew and Johnson's reputation because he really edits. A lot of my work has been in the Johnson. He deserves being rehabilitated because he did that so much. And he has distinctive leadership abilities. Clinton hasn't really demonstrated where he's at, in fact, so far demonstrating.

Unknown Speaker  1:15:19
His ability to move as Johnson was such, you know, had such extraordinary experience and abilities. Clint needs to learn a little bit from me. I would be interested in hearing from you what if you have you've we've talked about that employment employment post. What do you what do you think when I think I know what you think? Could you say something about Workfare and work attachment? Work Incentive, you know, attachments or punishments, however, we see them that are attached to on worker roles? And would you just say a little more about? In my mind, I think that employment is at the center of poverty. Could you say a little bit more about what you think? Yeah, well,

Unknown Speaker  1:16:17
first of all the women wants to work, we have to give them employment, the education training opportunity, so they can get jobs to pay a decent place to take them out of poverty. And I agree with this, the capitalistic society wasn't signed in a way to do that. But if we want to get to the root problems, we've got to confront that. The The other thing I would say is that we have a lot of stuff about, you know, you haven't been attached to the labor force and your call when you're watching soap operas, and it's hard to get you out, look, if the wages arrived, the benefits are right, the childcare there, you don't have any trouble getting people to come to work. And so it's a matter of constructing the system so that the incentives and disincentives are balanced. And so what we're about to embark on the child Assurance Program, which is a model program, which combines earnings, child support payments, and then instead of quote, welfare, you give a subsidy. And then for every dollar of earnings, you don't reduce the subsidy and actually allow people to move out of poverty. Now, and in addition to that, we cash out for food stamps. So we're trying to move people away from this realization, and you know, identifying people, we're supposed to do all of this and keep it cost neutral. And we're going to try, but we're going to have a model up in Brooklyn, this year, that will actually test out that model. It's been tried other places in New York, Chautauqua County and some of the smaller counties. But you know, if you can do it with a public official, specifically, should trump County, I don't know that I can take that experience and translate it. But we are going to try it. Because I think there is, it's clear that, you know, if you put all of that together, and you take away this for every dollar you earn, after 33rd, I've got to reduce your benefit. I think we're going to see a real difference. But the difference is going to be around the jobs and when you're happy. They're happy to take the job. And if they're not, none of this is none of it's gonna work. Looking at the big picture

Unknown Speaker  1:18:34
here. Besides, it can't be perfect, but I know we're making a big difference. But I still feel if I walk the streets of New York is a drop in the bucket. I mean, what is it going to take? Or is there I'm trying to get some hope here for the office of society. So that the majority of society, you know, take a real book and make some real decisions slower, I suppose we should be somewhat optimistic having just overturned or an administration that it seemed like decades. You know, just destroy and make supply even worse. If you're going to take a bigger crisis along the way,

Unknown Speaker  1:19:23
it could add some numbness, because I mentioned that Southport, North Carolina. This is a book I recently wrote in just figures I had a nice we're not officially take about four different types of sources of figures work it out. In the states of Wisconsin, Ohio and Illinois, which are kind of liberal states. The percentage of single mothers getting AFDC range from 79% 73% 68% those those days. That's it 70 79% 7368 from Wisconsin. Then if we take three other states, Texas, Idaho, New Hampshire, percentage of single mothers getting AFDC is 34% 29% 22%. Now, that's part of what I'm in the last three states, Texas, Idaho, Illinois, they simply say no. But what it does mean is mothers find work, they find work. So it's not even job creation. Now, I know around this table, we don't like the kinds of jobs that are driven. But those states are discovered that people will find work to make them visit the drag County was the Charles Charles Murray approach. Now he wants to abolish welfare, he says, No, fine. And it's there say, No, we don't want to talk this way. That if we said to, we said to anyone, well, there's an FTC. She's really seriously, what would happen if you were stuck? But we don't have to think of the way she

Unknown Speaker  1:21:08
Yeah. And I would ask you a question. Is it that they have found work, or they have found income, which is a very different

Unknown Speaker  1:21:17
thing? Okay. Go on. You've got the ball ledger?

Unknown Speaker  1:21:20
Well, I have no, I'm just asking the question. A bit, because there's a whole underground economy that isn't premised on work as we know it a job with a wage and what it is our it well?

Unknown Speaker  1:21:35
Well, it's just a semantic this. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a job that has a few potential. It doesn't have fringe benefits,

Unknown Speaker  1:21:43
doesn't have health insurance. I don't know what it means for those children, I

Unknown Speaker  1:21:47
hope, but it's my that replaces welfare. Yeah. Because what we're doing here, this thing, what

Unknown Speaker  1:21:55
we touched? Well, we've been talking a lot about women and children. And somebody briefly touched on the male, and particularly the black male, the alienated male from society. And I think like, one of the major problems that we have is, is dealing with family planning and improving sort of the foundation of the family and the support and structure because it seems to me ingrained in the welfare system is that you can't, it's they seem to, it seems to be a better deal. If your husband or your boyfriend is living in a separate place, or a shelter, whatever, and, and the mother and child then will receive assistance. But if you're the whole family together, and he has the income, let's say he's earning a low wage job, but it's not enough to support the whole family. So then man goes out of the house, and she receives welfare, but there's sort of two there are two family, parts of a family that just doesn't make sense for them to live together. And I just think that focus needs to be getting families staying together and strengthening the family. You know, I

Unknown Speaker  1:23:26
think it's a major issue. I agree with your point that we we ought to strengthen families, and we ought to build on the strength of families. But if I don't have any data with me, but my guess is that if I went in and looked at case heads, I wouldn't find many cases like the one in which you've described, in which there is a male partner who is earning enough, not enough to support the whole family and who has to be parted. So the family could get on public assistance, I would imagine that would be missing. In addition, in New York City, if it turns airing New York state if it turns out that the the Parker is unemployed, they can still get public assistance so

Unknown Speaker  1:24:12
that either what is being done in areas where you're just strengthening the family

Unknown Speaker  1:24:23
can I ask you a question on the past when people got married, you know, we don't have religion. They know culturally, you put up with one another. You know, they became kind of Mom Dad marriages, you know, chico. And there wasn't much you know, romance or excitement. That was the expectation. Today, how do you keep people marry can we have you know, equal over So, longing for adventure novelty, the ego are so great. I know how you can Come together. Economically speaking, we saw so many problems housing and everything else, we could just keep spouses together. If you haven't suggestions on this, I'd love to.

Unknown Speaker  1:25:10
I see I've seen a lot of it having to do with laziness, and also some somewhat of the impact from society and media, suggesting the same way that if the VCR is broken, don't fix it, but go out and buy a new one. The same way? Well, you know, I'm sure I'd like something new and fresh and younger and better or, or, you know, and so I think that there's less of a willingness to make compromises and and worked at Barbara Ehrenreich

Unknown Speaker  1:25:47
wrote a wonderful, I think, wonderfully interesting book about these, these cultural, social and psychological I guess, changes in her so much. She makeup, of course, spiritual counseling.

Unknown Speaker  1:26:15
Can I just interrupt for just a second, by the way, Commissioner, before you go, I don't know about the others here. But until today, you were just a name in the newspaper. So Mark was to really see the real numbers.

Unknown Speaker  1:26:33
The spirit of me. In any event, to your to the issue of this interview, this book is called hearts of men, I think, are some warning principles. And it's really a very interesting essay, extended essay on these kinds of things. Barbara Ehrenreich, who has written in print available from a liberal perspective, I guess, she used to be.

Unknown Speaker  1:27:00
I know, this isn't a social solution. There's a friend who recently wrote a book, which was very successful, got a bit of money coming in, which I never expected. And his daughter had recently gotten married. And he likes his son. So he wants that marriage to succeed. So we've taken the royalties from this book, and set up a trust fund, in both their names. The checks, go with both their names, and will continue as long as their memory. He's hoping bribery will work. And I think, what happens then, then it comes back to the trustee, who then decide to give it to the cat hospital or whatever. Do

Unknown Speaker  1:27:48
you think that honestly, together?

Unknown Speaker  1:27:51
I don't know what your

Unknown Speaker  1:27:55
other question is, the 10 Women

Unknown Speaker  1:28:00
are pushing

Unknown Speaker  1:28:02
her into Egypt, if you look back, like when my husband died, a woman would jump into the civil fire or be just a little go into that tomb and go over because the opportunities just weren't there. And that church as a woman with two children and

Unknown Speaker  1:28:22
things are changing, but still women do.

Unknown Speaker  1:28:28
So, you know,

Unknown Speaker  1:28:32
what I cannot I mean, even though things are better for women economic dependency still does keep on it's not that we were doing so great. Yeah. You know, in the workforce?

Unknown Speaker  1:28:40
Well, we know, we know a Weitzman statistic, which I love and cherish even if it's not true, which is that a year after divorce, his living standard has gone up 25% And hers has gone down 70%. And

Unknown Speaker  1:28:59
I thought I heard a phrase this morning and I really liked what he was talking about the feminization of poverty. But someone one of the speeches more than said feminism, feminization of power. I really thought that was a great concept. Any other questions in particular on poverty related?

Unknown Speaker  1:29:25
Well, I guess I would want to touch on what this woman said, what you might think about one of these other controversial things. I don't know if you saw this article in common cause that was

Unknown Speaker  1:29:41
that was written about.

Unknown Speaker  1:29:45
There were two prominent African American thinkers and they got a lot of flack because one of them was talking about, you know, this whole thing about the strengthening of the family. And it was sort of It is very tricky, because you're starting to talk about the strengthening the cause of poverty among the poor as being weak family structures, and we know that more, you know, people of color are more likely to be poor, and then you start talking about their family being, you know, the need for them to improve that so that they can get to the next level. But, you know, I don't I don't know if I really buy that. Is it a byproduct? Or is it a cause?

Unknown Speaker  1:30:34
I really, I think it's sort of, at this point to talk about that when the arguments about the weakness of the black family,

Unknown Speaker  1:30:43
yes. And the whole the cohesiveness of the family and that is the fact that the guy's gone? Or is that what determines the the poor, I just don't believe that.

Unknown Speaker  1:30:54
I will, I guess one of the seminal books in our field right now, the bill Wilson's book blade, Julius Wilson's book that really disadvantage, and Bill Wilson made it respectable to talk about a subject that we couldn't really talk about, for about 15 years, which was the, the problems with, with the lack of so called intact black families,

Unknown Speaker  1:31:18
I take a little different spin on this, you know, I know, well, he's

Unknown Speaker  1:31:22
one.

Unknown Speaker  1:31:25
Again, I'm not here to sell. This is, again, my tables. And as he said, on page 68, what I did was I tracked households headed by women starting in 1950, up through the president. And if we're talking about family disintegration, it's proceeding at the same rate for black

Unknown Speaker  1:31:47
and white, right for the last four years, really important to this book. So

Unknown Speaker  1:31:53
it's something in the water, we're all drinking right now. Black family disintegration is more visible, because the poor, it's highly

Unknown Speaker  1:32:02
areas we can see.

Unknown Speaker  1:32:03
And also because we look at black people as a problem, right? Whereas we don't look at ourselves. I would simply say that family breakup among whites and middle class is really shocking, compared with the standard.

Unknown Speaker  1:32:18
Elbows pointed out to that the two parent family, believe it or not, the income is going down at a very rapid rate. Because the husband was traditionally the breadwinner, his income is going down. So the myth that people have about children and that is the fastest growing poverty in the country went nowhere.

Unknown Speaker  1:32:48
He's totally right. And so are you. I have a piece in The New York Review of Books which will be out next week, in which we see that compared with 1970, men's earnings, not an incremental earnings have stayed stagnant. Womens have come up with it. Since 1970, men in purchasing power men's turnings and women's have come up with debt. So that when we see family income is a little bit higher, it's only because they rely on the secondary.

Unknown Speaker  1:33:18
I just wanted to just finish my point about Wilson Wilson brought this up again, and it's it's a key, the black family, the disintegration of the back of the so called disintegration of the black family is an important element that he examines a number of ways. But in fact, it's one of the weakest parts of his very important book and the idea of the male marriage, no marriage pool, marriage, marriage, the pool of marriage, the MMP, whatever it is, you know, is the component, one of the parts of this argument has really received, we're not the only one who's received it. So either the jury is really still out on that question, or the jury has, in fact, rejected

Unknown Speaker  1:34:07
what you said, you know, we used in the past, a family had to be dad and mom at home. And mom was either doing outside work and a lot of moms did in the past, or she was doing unpaid work at home. And by the way, also, this is part of the thing we talked about this explicitly. mom at home, was also supposed to so in Spirit Day, said that he would go out and work hard. And notice to no hand when dad came home at the end of the day, and he would always put on as he came up to the front doorstep and have a dog face. Mom would say How was your day today? And you know, he would then let it all pour out and he never had. He never got equals on that thing. But I think there's culturally there was something to that. Well, if we want an alternative, let's say the single parents probably which could be, she could be a TV anchor. You didn't even have a single parent home, but she has to have a good income. And if we're going to do that, we then have to really multiply the number of households, then we're gonna have a lot more households around. And the overhead, you know, she talked about affordable housing, we all do. Just the overhead of housing people is expensive to refrigerators, etc. And even think about it. But if we want to do that we have to make do are blessed with other things, because it's quite a luxury to have more people living on their own, just I'll say, again, stay up at night. We have another spin off on that. And that is because young people are getting married later. A lot of them now on studio apartments have their own ages 2728 29. You know, sometimes they share with somebody else. But most of the pre married who are away from home parents do live by themselves. And this is expensive. And you know, people say you can't afford to live in New York. Well, depends on who you are and what you're asking. I think you've had your hand up before. You did actually before you can fly.

Unknown Speaker  1:36:38
Black American male. No, no, no, that wasn't what she was saying. You know, well, I have walked out of her room. So it's kind of like farm labor. I believe that

Unknown Speaker  1:36:52
married couples were

Unknown Speaker  1:36:54
not being done to keep a family together. And as far as I wasn't, I was, I was doing fine.

Unknown Speaker  1:37:09
Now, I just wanted to

Unknown Speaker  1:37:13
we were talking about how hard it is to stay married today. And how some of you know there are sort of positive factors that make it possible. I mean, so called positive factors that make it possible for people who are not happily married to decide to live separately. And one of those positive factors is the fact that the economy, there's more women participation in the workforce, and women have independent jobs and incomes of some kind that whereas in the past, that wasn't, that wasn't the case, to such an extent. And then there were other factors, we were looking at just the media tends to reinforce you know, glamorous images of you know, disposable relationships, disposable families, disposable, refrigerators, whatever, you know, and that was sort of what the complex was. And the people just didn't want to work hard enough, you know, to say they got it, they didn't have to do it. Interested in?

Unknown Speaker  1:38:05
You think that this child was transported on those pushed in Tennessee, which I think usually discussed today? I don't know. What do you think? That's the one last thing mean, I guess I would push that he's in charge. He shared with me.

Unknown Speaker  1:38:26
You know, when I was down visiting in South Park, my old pal that his wife is, oh, she gets an award. She is a prize. Father catcher. She's kind of the county, you know, getting the man to pay. And she, Oh, God. I didn't have to open my mouth, just listening to her stories all the time she testimonies or computerized networks. I think North Carolina's hooked up now was 28 other states where he can be caught through a social security number, and so on. And it's a net gain, to net gain really is you know, it's like with IRS, for every dollar spent, you get so much delinquent tax money. It really is. So I think this is fine. Now she says with a lot of them are in prison, or a they're 16. And now 18 years old, but she says there's money out there to be found. And the one thing I would say in passing, very little of the money goes to her. It goes back to the county to pay the county back for the welfare. That's number one. When she wants money, she has to put in a claim of her own, which she can do through it, but she's probably pretty savvy in the bureaucratic sense.

Unknown Speaker  1:39:45
I guess I was thinking about before that I read that it's that there's a problem with the deterioration of family and that we should be doing some stranger family. And I also understand that when people live separate, everything is more expensive because then you have to say counsel, but I do think that we would be a lot better off if it was much more emphasis put on that parenting is the responsibility of a parent, not a mother. And if society expected that fathers, granted, there will be cases where they're in prison, or they were too young and just don't have anything to support. But I think that that will have an impact also on how people, people now especially young men, you don't have to worry about getting someone pregnant, you just don't have to worry about it. If you're 16, we heard that, that you're supposed to do something about it. But you really don't have to. I think if society had an assumption that this is going to be a responsibility, you might think twice. And if you did it, you know, then you would be forced to take some kind of responsibility.

Unknown Speaker  1:40:47
Does anybody in the table heard of any research being done by anyone on a nor plan for men really was mailed to me, I remember what it was like to be pretty reverse. Oh, no, no,

Unknown Speaker  1:41:05
it was suddenly something about if you had discectomy, they did this study that apparently men who get heart attacks early or die. And there's all this hype and media.

Unknown Speaker  1:41:24
That is, the real problem is that we see parenting as mothers responsibility. And when we think about birth control, we think of things it's always one of sponsibility. To some degree, it has to be because it's women's bodies. And there is when it comes down to the end, you know, you're going to be the one who suffers. It's the manual with didn't didn't do something. But I do think that if we if we set our own promises, so you're an assumption that this was a man's responsibility to begin to start getting that money, of course, the people are paying I think, I think we probably changed it. But we really don't do that often. Right. And then we have

Unknown Speaker  1:42:02
Where are you now? I mean, we talked about everything we've been talking about today and statistics was spoken about. And your comment earlier, our society was created to create jobs. What were we going to do some things a lot worse to me. I wouldn't have.

Unknown Speaker  1:42:25
I love to be silent about this. But as you know, where we're taking American jobs as Mexico, Taiwan, Eastern Europe, because what we call a decent American wage is just too hot, not too much too high. But we'll be underbid by people who do work just as well, just as well,

Unknown Speaker  1:42:48
the greatest, there's such a variance in the rate, you can see that that is not going to reverse itself.

Unknown Speaker  1:42:53
And if we were clever, and better educated, but even at our top education, there are now engineers in Bombay, who could do whatever MIT engineers I wrote 20 years ago. Came out too soon. It's called the end of the American hero. And it was that you know, you don't go onward and upward forever. And there are ways to decline gracefully. Countries have done Sweden has been the scourge of Europe, BEST OFFERS it offers we come down, strike terrorists in Germany, after wireless means that, hey, we tried that. They put their house together, whether we'll do this, I don't know. We're not very Swedish. Swedish

Unknown Speaker  1:43:53
people, my mom, but I think that I think that there's a lot to learn. There, unfortunately, we're having even worse problems there. And inflation is astronomical and you can use and we'd be lucky to have

Unknown Speaker  1:44:18
that happen to be valued at 35% or something like that, which really

Unknown Speaker  1:44:25
trouble global we're really almost at a point, if not absolutely apparent. Let me just start one question. I'm curious what you at this table have to say. What in terms of the the topic you know, of our panel, which is poverty and welfare, what do you think the contemporary women's movement, whatever that is, has to say to issues of poverty or how much relevance we think it can

Unknown Speaker  1:44:58
be the heart of conversation. But,

Unknown Speaker  1:45:00
you know, that, obviously, there has been the whole reason I think that all these other

Unknown Speaker  1:45:10
women's groups have been formed in the last, you know, 1520 years was that the, you know, that many women, especially women of color poor woman didn't feel that, you know, the abortion thing was their main problem. They were, you know that the women's movement, as much as it paid lip service to equal rights and equal pay for all women, it really wasn't so focused. It was really much more middle class, white, liberal, whatever, progressive person. And now I think that is changing. And I know that when I go to my now meetings, it's a much more diverse group of women. And you know, and wack tries to do, you know, they're trying to do that, too. But when you look at the demographics of that group, as well, it is, I think the answer is that the women, you know, really do need to organize in their own communities, which they are doing, and learn the skill to sort of get political power. And it's, it is really changing. And I don't think that necessarily, I mean, I think,

Unknown Speaker  1:46:28
you know, it's, it's noble of these national groups have tried it.

Unknown Speaker  1:46:32
I think many of them are putting the feminization of poverty, you know, right up there with the major issues of violence against women, reproductive rights, that sort of thing. But I think it's also, you know, maybe the focus should be on teaching young women in areas that are economically deprived about, you know, about how to change policies and how that how they can hear even on a small level, how they can affect change, and how the system works. And there are a lot of programs like that. So you see, anything.

Unknown Speaker  1:47:17
Seniors in this country have

Unknown Speaker  1:47:21
been senior citizens.

Unknown Speaker  1:47:24
Because of the large lobby and women and women children in particular, we're not there yet. There's one one thing that needs to get done, I'm not sure that the women's movement in the lives of different pieces of the financial ones are major, we talked about the shelter? Well, one of the issues we talked about proportionately. And there was a city match was, you know, the government was concerned about putting in their portion, because they don't have to do their little semantics that said, sometimes she called the budget should be the policy to the policy. So I think when we talk about religious movement, I think there has been a discrepancy and not a lot before perhaps, but there isn't that kind of understanding and research has gone into support at the moment. And I really credit Security or Medicare solution is a good model.

Unknown Speaker  1:48:28
I believe that the organization will go out more and reach the women who are suffering, in poverty, with children, you know, to work side by side with Human Resources Administration, to provide some type of health, some type of training program, hopefully tried to give these women who are facing poverty, with children, help in finding jobs help in finding housing, and it's, it's all well and good to fight for political thing. You know, but that's not doing anything if you still had the women in poverty down below. But you have to help and you have to help and bring all women together. The more you have, the

Unknown Speaker  1:49:31
stronger you are. Now, another good point this morning to another one of my little phrases like we need a multi issue, multi tactical women's movement. That was another new phrase to me this morning. I think that's a very good point to end on.

Unknown Speaker  1:49:48
And I think that women do agree. I mean, maybe I traveled too idealistic, but a number of women that I work with who have very, very different back bounce the mind. And we do agree there are some things, a lot of really important things that you can feel united men really cohesive about.

Unknown Speaker  1:50:13
And, you know, from personal

Unknown Speaker  1:50:19
right, you've been a very lively very engaged group and thank you very much and thank you

Unknown Speaker  1:50:32
I'd like to express my appreciation for the leadership show

Unknown Speaker  1:50:40
actually, I think I met you became a member of the changing Travel Center here at Genesee, who

Unknown Speaker  1:50:48
was here a couple of years ago

Unknown Speaker  1:50:54
that was one of those depressing up by ever remember it was mostly to that all those old generals or whatever there were radicals? You know like you in sheep's clothing or sticking

Unknown Speaker  1:51:13
around it is really because okay,

Unknown Speaker  1:51:25
you know, what, am I doing my leave? My students love the chain reaction. I don't like it because I think it's simple comedy offers such a neat analysis of

Unknown Speaker  1:51:43
the backlash.

Unknown Speaker  1:51:46
And I don't find it and I for my students love

Unknown Speaker  1:51:50
to click on the things they know about

Unknown Speaker  1:51:54
in the framework, you know, that's neither coherent on premises.

Unknown Speaker  1:52:02
Well, there are those bigots out there. Trying to denigrate Democratic Party failed to take account of their worries. And as a result,

Unknown Speaker  1:52:14
which was really loosely family with Clinton. Federal office was nice to meet you. I want you to I enjoyed this panel. So it was really an engagement. This wasn't she wonderful. I really admire the two of you and it really is to be very nice. Yeah, I don't

Unknown Speaker  1:52:41
know she can't believe what he doesn't use.

Unknown Speaker  1:52:46
Why does she be questioned? Because she's so contentious. For reasons. She has depresses