Unknown Speaker  00:01
Lots of people up here and lots of people out there and very little time. So, as you can see, there's no real Moderator. So there'll be no official introductions, we know who we are from the material you have in your packets, there's a little description of everybody. So if you're not sure who we are wanting to, say who we are. You want details about who we are, we decided that I was up first, we will go second. And Bruce will go 30 Because of what we've decided to talk about. And we hope to leave time for you all to have a discussion amongst yourselves. And we'll just say one word, about the rights initiative, the file that's being handed out is about the right conditions for projects that are different to college to the Family Policy Center. Because that hunters can University on public assistance. And this is an effort to start a program of leadership training and organizing, so that the voice of women on out there could be heard because it is a Thursday, today. And we will be talking about how to work through the Wi Fi. We just want to get to know more about what okay. The theme of this time of the attack on families causes consequences and cures. So I'm going to sort of talk about why this is happening now. I'll say a little bit that within the new legislation and some my sense of why this is happening now. I mean, you will know I assume that this summer, the personal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act of 1996 was passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton and at this legislation, which is called the new federal welfare Bill slashed many safety net programs. It's the bill that denies access to many benefits for both documented and undocumented immigrants. And of course, it's the bill that abolished aid to families with dependent children the program was had provided income support to women and children's conception, which was in 1935. As part of the Social Security Act. It's a placement is called folks have to walk the block grant for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, tamps. This will place a sec and many of the details if you're following this, the tape, you know, are still being worked out. It's an implementation nightmare, which may be good for us. But in any case, it's punitive impact is very clear. And the key provisions one way to understand this is like frosted the provision for key words, they fall into three distinct clusters. Related to enforcing work regulating family, the ending entitlements, we're going to go over these quickly in case anybody doesn't know exactly what's in this bill, which is certainly possible. And then I'm going to argue as part of a broader strategy designed to promote economic recovery by imposing austerity on the rest of us then the study started in 19. And the key provisions of tam were move women from welfare to work. In an unprecedented change for public housing tamped limits, a eligibility to AFDC for five years in a lifetime to come on. Shorter If the state wants to the bed is it was AFDC. Let someone be eligible as long as they were eligible, there was no time limit on tamp also intensifies AFDC, but many still work requirements. States must enroll 25% of their caseload and work activities by 1997 and 35%. And by 2000, or two individuals must find a job within two years of receiving aid and work a minimum of 20 hours a week and 9735 hours a week in 2002. Tim also narrowed what counts as work, like going to college, due to Canada's work may not count anymore is diminished. The emphasis on training and education allows the state to use funds that we use for the welfare check to subsidize employers who hire welfare recipients.

Unknown Speaker  04:40
Individuals who do not satisfy the work rule and states that do not meet the participation quotas, pay severe financial penalty. Now all this is among the books even though the the work program that came with AFDC never enrolled more than 10% 37% of all People in a potato is the kind of work activities and upping the standards. These numbers is

Unknown Speaker  05:13
tamp also the second category is regulating family life. Tamp regulates family life and permits the state to deny aid to children born to women receiving welfare. And since many states have already done this in the past five years we can even though it's not mandated, we can expect this to spread very fast. This is called a child exclusion or the family cap. Camp also includes a $20 million fund to be shared by up to five states that decrease the out of wedlock birth without increasing abortions. Now, it's a five states big deal but the competition to me the competition was what they call it a legitimacy. The word I don't use on my own legitimacy bonus, will extend the impact far beyond the process because all the things that we're trying to do that contrary to the Conservatives call to get government on people back tamp also allows the same doctor checkup mothers with children are to true and requires teen parents under age 18 to live at home instead in school prohibits parents who have been convicted of drug felonies and ever been receiving aid except that they're successfully in a drug treatment program, and stiffen existing child support rules such that we may not be able to qualify for assistance. And the third main classes are called ending entitlements. And in some ways, these are even more far reaching than the other ones. Tamp basically embargo abolishes the individual entitlement to aid and the guarantee of federal funding that backs up the federal government's commitment to the poor for the last 60 years. So entitlement is both a philosophical commitment and a budget arrangement, a funding arrangement, they're both been abolished. Tamp potamkin. Place the entitlement with block grants is different funding arrangements, which transfer the stamp ability for providing benefits from the federal government to the states gives the states very broad discretion to set their own rules, including contracting out to deliberately benefit the provision of the services private entities, agencies. At the same time, as they did this, they kept the federal dollars is the federal government still gonna send money to the states for this, but they they kept it for five years that that vaccine. The meaning of when I said that it ended the federal guarantee that was prior to this money was available to everyone to qualify now they said 16 point 4 billion a year, divided up and come with me. So if a state runs out of money due to weather, recession, or population growth, or other events, these are normal events, they happen all the time when this happens. And these events increase the number of people in need. The state's going to have several lousy options, raise taxes, which I don't think such a lousy after the states will politically programmatically cut other programs which will power the social programs create a waiting list with turn people away. Now, so you say goodbye entitlements, hello waiting lines for public assistance. We have not had that since before the Social Security Act of 35. Now for women and children will suffer first and foremost from this rejection of federal responsibility for the down shot. But in addition, the package of tabs and the Home tab is only Title One of the PRA. Nine other horrendous titles. And they look they legitimize the attack also not only opponents for the poor, but they legitimize the attack on the more popular programs that serve the middle class and the poor such as Social Security, Medicare. And when you hear it when you hear the deficit hawks topping the balanced budget, the budget balances the Social Security fear mongers, the people and the privatize it I just standing in the wings, waiting for the right time to move to go after these other programs. The discussion has already begun. If you see it on TV, you'll see ads in the time there was last week that was the conflict okay. Now why now the Kolkata reforms are not innocent, nor they unrelated. When we look at the impact of tam To the provisions that targeted work, family and entitlements, it becomes clear that points the points, they are part of a wider strategy. As I was thinking about that they are point to point part of this wider strategy

Unknown Speaker  10:16
that was initiated by Reagan in the early ad and continued by President Bush and Clinton. This used to be called supply side economics or Reaganomics, but basically it's designed to promote economic recovery and social stability by cheapening the costs of labor, strengthening traditional family, weakening the role of the federal government, limiting the influence of popular movements going fast because I'm worried about time and redistributing input income upwards from the have nots to the half. So I'm gonna link the first part of my discussion to this. One way to cheapen the costs of labor, as many of you probably know, is to increase the number of people looking for work camps provision to do just that. The welfare reform is build support for replacing welfare with work, which is what this program does, by claiming that women on public assistance were lazy at the programs that support and many other things. However, now why leave now is a tamp will not lower welfare costs will not prepare women for work. And it was certainly one that most women in jobs except which they were labor shortages, in some local labor markets. job ladies out there a labor shortage. So the current rate to de industrialized, globalize and downsize production means that only some of the women forced to have welfare will find work. And once the labor market is flooded with many new job seekers, rising unemployment and increased competition for low wage jobs will do what it'll make it easier for employers to keep wages down and harder for a union to negotiate good contracts. A long line of people waiting for one stop, undercut the power of workers unions to fight back. So talk about keeping the course of the wider attack on oil, cook cash benefits, chickens, the cost of labor is still another way. Now, instead of creating dependency, we've heard about dependency this morning as well, that the critics were claiming these programs to cash benefits, one could argue have the potential, especially to high enough to level the playing field in the workplace, because they are an alternative source of income. So AFDC food stamps, unemployment insurance programs, provide a backup a financial backup with jobless and low paid workers that was using these programs, right. And like a strike funds like a strike by this helps workers fight back by increasing their bargaining power. By enabling them to avoid the most dangerous and exploiting the job, I'll click on a point of going and making it harder for employers to keep them in line. Perhaps this is why and I think this is part of the story. public aid has always been set, the value of the benefit has always been set lower than the lowest prevailing wage since the colonial school laws. So teachers across the globe and then we have restoring the traditional family. We've heard a lot about that this morning. You look at the stated purposes of tamp. They include reducing out of wedlock pregnancies and encouraging the formation of maintenance of two parents households that is that marriage that you were talking about. So in this view, as the single motherhood is a major cause of the nation's social ills from school dropouts, to drive by shootings to the deficit. Now the child exclusion that I mentioned before the quote unquote, legitimacy, bonus and all the other efforts to control women's reproductive choices with peers, not because the data supports the existence of the relationship between AFDC and a woman's childbearing decision, there is no solid research support for any relief of that kind of relationship, rather than was passed to stigmatize and penalize single motherhood. Playing to the racial stereotype of black women is hyper sex, and the moral panic unleashed by changes in family structure, women's roles and gay rights. The nation's leaders are using the government to promote this limited version of family values that we've discussed this morning. Now, the availability of cash benefits, also has the potential to empower women, and it could never get away in this campaign. And so it's family values, rather than promoting dependency again, the availability of income outside of men or marriage outside of markets of job increases women's leverage in both those views. And it can strengthen women's bargaining power and the family provides a way for then to stay dangerous and exploitive relationships with men as well as those kind of jobs are simply allows them to raise children on their own, as I see it, therefore, the call to end welfare as we know it, at least in part reflects an ethics contain these threats of patriarchal control by forcing poor women or welfare into marriage. And by sending a message to the rest of us about what happens to those people who did not play by the rules, and I think this point was elaborated quite well this morning. By the Book promise all the panelists redistribution upwards. In addition to cheapening the cost of labor and restoring it traditional family welfare reform isn't part of this effort to redistribute income upwards.

Unknown Speaker  15:48
by dismantling the welfare state and shrinking the federal government, they're also connected. When they say 35 to 1975, the welfare state grew and expanded due to pressure from social movements, but also because the senator the business of industry, its service and benefit programs facilitated the consumption of goods and services. Available money has been assured employers are ready to fly and healthy, educated and properly socialized workers. And by meeting the demands of social movements, quieted social unrest, by 1975, to change international competition, to search for cheaper and cheaper labor, let industrial lead us to export of capital production and jobs abroad. The wage cuts the attack on trade unions and reduced investment and social welfare loss there diminish stake in the US workforce. So corporate leaders began to rationalize their abandonment of American workers by eyewitness social welfare spending. With the coverage increased the cost of money interfered with the profitable investment and so on. They began to play to the economic panic among the working and middle class that helps create a course and ratio panic among the so called angry white men that follow the institutionalization of hard won gains of the civil rights movement. So they began to equate tax and spending colleges, big and bad government to call popular movements, really special interests, seeking too much democracy versus 40 years of however, the grudging and it was begrudging business support that social welfare, businesses began to insist on reducing benefits, cutting programs, privatizing services, internal social welfare back to the States, to so called devolution revolution. It wasn't just social welfare that interested in getting rid of social welfare, because when extended to other functions of government, smaller federal government would have the added advantage gave the government off their backs, stop the state from being able to regulate and limit business profits. So the effort to solve the problems of visiting government by imposing austerity on everyone else has taken its toll. During the last two decades, the purchasing power of wages and government benefits fallen sharply. Of course, the income gap between the rich and the poor has reached record highs. The social movements have taken a major beating. Unfortunately, the more of the racial and economic panics, created by these and other changes have become the breeding ground for the backlash against the downtrodden. The divisive toxicity of a skewer the true causes of a nation. However, I will say and I hope it's true, and I hope it develops. The people of the nation are rising up angry,

Unknown Speaker  18:55
especially today.

Unknown Speaker  18:59
And there really is a lot of activity going around. It just doesn't get the coverage that it deserves. They are becoming why officials on Citrix and they are not taking the mounting pain or the punishment lying down. So all of you who are involved have become involved in in the fight against poverty, homelessness, unemployment and draconian welfare reform. I like to go back to the 60s and say, there are struggles there to win and please keep up the.

Unknown Speaker  19:41
Good afternoon. My purpose here today is to discuss the ongoing the ongoing cycle of poverty, even after the signing of the welfare bill. The administration would like you to think and would love for you to believe that the country will become a better place by pushing people off of welfare Some argue it is a matter of saving millions. Others believe that it is a good thing to get able bodied people off of welfare and to work. Well, it sounds good, but there are some underlying serious underlying problems that have not been looked at. nor are there any provisions implemented in order to have millions of people not only get off but stay off for welfare and become financially independent. As a mother of five children My first concern regarding the issue of childcare for some reason, the Republicans have forgotten the largest, the largest percentage of people on welfare, mothers with children. Whereas the mother is supposed to leave her childhood children if she wants to attend a training program or college, there was a high cost for good childcare. And for a mother on welfare with two children out under the age of three, it is impossible for her to afford that high costs. If the administration would invest in decent childcare programs for young children, I think we would see a significant change in the amount of people who remain on welfare for long periods of time. But that's not all proper reform doesn't end there. While the goal remains to push people off to work, there are a few minor problems. Number one, where are the jobs, a family of three, and not be expected to live on a Burger King or McDonald's check, especially when you consider the high cost of rent, utilities, food, clothing and the ever increasing cost of coffee, at least in New York. As the administration gradually starts pushing people onto work onto the workforce. The question is not just finding jobs, but what kind of jobs and do they have benefits, which is key because many who are on welfare claim one of their biggest concerns is medical care for themselves and their children. Now, we all agree that the way to get off of welfare is by obtaining a good job with benefits. But that benefits that are commensurate with the high cost of living. But the majority of people's being removed from welfare have no more than a high school diploma. And there's a high percentage that have no more than a ninth or 10th grade education that will become of these people. Well, to be frank after being removed from public assistance to some five to $6 an hour job with no benefits, they will return to welfare. In New York, there are over 450,000 adults on welfare. According to report in The New York Times there are 271,000 New York residents who are unemployed seeking work, but who are not on public assistance. Currently, New York's unemployment rate is 8.5%, which is 57% higher than the national average at 5.4. New York will have trouble on its hands if it cannot adequately satisfy the 271,000 people seeking jobs. And the over 450,000 people literally kicked off of public assistance, sticking decent employment as well. The only solution that I can see to stop people from returning and remaining on welfare for long periods is to educate them. If the if the government wants to make reforms, they should be positive ones that would allow people to leave welfare never to return the key elements for proper reform, decent childcare, high school equivalency, training programs, and or definitely a college education. Without these elements, there is no room for financial advancement or independence. And thus the cycle of poverty will continue. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker  23:27
I feel a little bit like I felt at the end of the morning session or like I guess capital Paulette said at the when she got up to speak the disadvantage of being last is that it's all been said. So I feel a little bit in that position. But what we thought I would talk about is what is to be done, a friend of mine and I actually went chancer to some whom some of you may know teaches sociology here at Barnard says that people like she and me, a lot of people sitting here always have a what is to be done chapter at the end of each of our books. So this is the what is to be done chapter.

Unknown Speaker  24:05
I think when we think about ways in which we can fight back against what has been going on. I know it's a very difficult time to even think about fighting back. After the passage and the President signing the welfare legislation, I too cannot bring myself to call it welfare reform legislation, the welfare repeal legislation. I think it's a hard time to imagine what we can do. But I think nonetheless, we have to think and I think we have to think in terms of stages and grades of fighting back. First of all, I think we have to think short term in terms of short term actions and long term actions. Short term, it seems to me the very first thing that all of us must do is to try to fight the stereotype Types and scapegoating and the demonizing. And I don't think that's too strong a word that has been going on over the last several years around the issue of poor women, particularly poor women receiving welfare benefits. We need to combat the myths that have been included in that discussion myths, which Mimmi has been very powerful in pointing out and combating the myths about the number of children, that poor welfare recipients have the myths about the number of years that the typical recipient has been on AFDC the myths about teen pregnancy, that teen pregnancy is planned in order to get those enormous welfare checks enormous welfare checks, the myths that the myth that there are jobs out there, the myth that AFDC paid enough to live good lives on the myth of the welfare queen, as was mentioned this morning, we need to combat these myths, we need to get our facts straight. And know that we can go out there, whether it's around the dinner table, whether it's when we're having coffee with friends, whether it's when we're in our church group, or in our sociology classes, or wherever we are, we need to have the fact that they at the edge of our fingertips, edge of our tongues and combat those myths. Constantly, it seems to me in the somewhat longer term, though not yet long term basis, we are in the middle of an election campaign. And it's not much of an election. For many of us, particularly here in New York, there are other states in which there are real choices. But certainly for New Yorkers, it's the presidential election than the local elections. But nonetheless, even in the elections of a Congress for the House of Representatives, it seems to me we need to be asking candidates even at this late date, whenever we have the opportunity where they stand on these issues. And we need to ask local candidates and local officials how they are going to respond to this harsh and devastating legislation. The Children's Defense Fund has come up with a number of questions that people need to address to their legislators and to the people who are running for office. Let me just run read through the three that I think are particularly applicable. One, that we must ask people who are running for office one, given the huge cuts in federal assistance, how will you make sure 1000s of children in our state won't be denied the basic services they need to What specific steps will you take to ensure adequate nutrition for children in light of the severe cuts and food stamps at the federal level? And three, what steps will you take to protect legal immigrants, children and families who will be denied benefits under almost every federal program, we need to face local officials and elected representatives with these issues. We need to face them with it before the election and after the election and constantly because the states of course, are going to be largely making policy. You know, we also many of us still do believe in getting out the vote even though many of us believe there isn't much of a choice out there, at least at the presidential level. But many millions of people were registered by the motor voter legislation, and it seems to be still important to get out the vote as much as we can. A third level in which I think we need to act is that about around policy toward immigrants. I know that Mimmi alluded to this just a few minutes ago, and several people have alluded to it. But I think it is extraordinarily important to recognize what is being done on the federal level and will be done on the state level. around the issue of immigrants. Again, let me quote the Artic recent article in The New York Times which really summarizes what the new welfare legislation has meant to to immigrants. Under the terms of the new welfare law, the federal government will bar most legal immigrants from food stamps and SSI supplemental supplemental security income for the elderly and disabled states may also help halt Medicaid benefits to illegal immigrants if they choose. And then they go on although legal immigrants are already ineligible for nearly all federal benefit programs, they have to receive prenatal they have received prenatal care and some of the Medicaid benefits the new law will cut off Funding for virtually all services to illegal immigrants except public education, immunizations, and emergency medical care. Now, the article actually goes on beautifully, to indicate the short sightedness of such a policy, and how that really could devastate the health of both legal and illegal or undocumented aliens, that the term immigrants and their children, and I think we need to be aware of this part of the implication of the new legislation and fight this whenever possible. I know, for example, that there is a suit being brought in California against these actions, showing how preventing any group of people from getting prenatal care, for example, will harm the Infants who are born, and also, of course, can harm the rest of the population. Because obviously, if we're not protecting certain elements of the population for infectious disease, we are perhaps not protecting all of us from infectious disease. So there are many levels on which this can be fought. And I'm sure that there will be suits brought the lawyers in the in the audience, I'm sure know far more about this than I, but it's an area which I think we can fight back. I think many of these issues are unconstitutional. We need to support the groups who have been defunded, which was mentioned this morning. The legal groups that have been defunded, but we need to support them in their efforts and do everything we can to fight that legislation. Particularly. Fourthly, I think we really need to reframe the issue, and maybe that should have been number one, rather than number four. But it seems to me that what we need to do is to reframe the issue publicly whenever we can. The issue is not welfare. The issue is poverty. Okay, so that when President Clinton and anybody and everybody else talks about the number of people who are

Unknown Speaker  32:14
last but aren't. The enormously in and redefine the issue of the issue is really poverty in such a rich country, we also should be talking with equal about redefining the poverty line, there is a fair amount of discussion these days about the total inadequacy of the party. Never adequate, adequate than ever, and I don't want to go into details on that. But we're knowledgeable about that, because of the all of the data on poverty are based on this enormously inadequate poverty line, which everybody agrees nobody can live on in 1996. America, so that we need to redefine the issue that is poverty. And finally, it seems to me and this is my most utopian, I sell like Al Gore, my most utopian risky scheme. We're all of you watching that vice presidential debate and eventually chiming in every time he talked with all of his buds buzzwords, but my most utopian suggestion of all has been as many well known as my thinking for the last decade and I think it is still valid, that ultimately

Unknown Speaker  33:48
does not believe that we are going to get adequate services for the poor or for women or even for children for whom we can probably muster up the most of our people unless we have after school care for all who need it, unless we have unless we put our system what virtually every other industrialized society currently has. And that is a universal family policy that is a true safety net effort their composition keeps them from course that has to include John God and not after it seems to me we should be pushing for a WPA kind of program, we have plenty of work that needs to be done in this country, what we need to do is fund those jobs through the public sector, because I don't think the private sector is surely going to be able to do it. It means paid parental leave at the time of the birth or adoption of a baby or illness in the family. And I think ultimately, it really means the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for the inner cities of our all across our country, which will not even be able to survive with benefits that we need to provide for most of the people in the United States. It sounds utopian, but it's a short term. It's long term. I think it's where we need to be thinking in the long run, I think we need to legitimize these kinds of goals. I think we need to point out to critics that true welfare reform can never take place until we have jobs, job training, health care, daycare, after school care, and of course, decent benefits to people who work that anything else is an absurdity, that it's a farce. And that, that really politicians are putting something over on the American people, and I certainly cannot talk Derrida struggle, dare to win. Which brings me back to the good old days. But let me end with a different quote. And that's a quote by Simone de Beauvoir who said it is in the recognition of the genuine conditions of our lives, that we gain the strength to act and our motivations for change. And there is no question about that this morning's conference and the people in this room certainly recognize the genuine conditions of our lives and have the strength to act and the motivation for all of you toward those goals I think we'd like to open it up really for discussion and comments and thoughts from all of you. We do have lots of time yeah. Absolutely. I always leave out the most important

Unknown Speaker  37:24
things to me that we need to raise

Unknown Speaker  37:30
terms of revenue I agree absolutely about

Unknown Speaker  37:41
that. Back is not buddies you're working

Unknown Speaker  38:50
and, you know nobody else if you want to say

Unknown Speaker  39:15
no, I mean,

Unknown Speaker  39:16
I can't say I absolutely agree with you. And I think that it's very important to look at some of the proposals that are also being put out there. And will for example, is is has been writing The Economist has been writing about a wealth attacks on wealth. I mean, I think we need to explore various ways of doing this and again, try to educate people out there, that we pay some of the lowest taxes in the industrialized world and that for the higher taxes that most other industrialized people in most other industrialized countries pay they get a great deal more than we do we have to make those connections. So,

Unknown Speaker  39:55
there is a an organization called Share the wealth which is taking on the If you're interested I don't have the address here but they're based in Boston Boston I think they may have some people working in New York City but they have made this the issue exactly as you say that and they do go around the country talking to people but obviously top leaders to take up the issue and meet specific get out there as

Unknown Speaker  40:39
well maybe you have

Unknown Speaker  40:40
actually moved me abroad Vince has a wonderful new book out that would help you do that and then you're supposed to

Unknown Speaker  40:47
set the same time I noticed downstairs for sale keeping women and chopping women until the last I have to one of mine I noticed

Unknown Speaker  41:23
I've been talking about the demonization of poor women and the myths and all the rest and three or should have a book out one of these days she will and we'll talk about

Unknown Speaker  41:32
one word by the

Unknown Speaker  41:34
Institute for Women's Policy Research regulating the lives of women I mean it goes right another time right now and a couple of rounds of welfare reform services solutions

Unknown Speaker  42:14
of work tokens that work

Unknown Speaker  42:20
within our reach that's right it is downstairs there's one more that what is it the central social policy and law is that what it's called has put out a wonderful like monograph about those common myths and and really details the fact you know so that's another

Unknown Speaker  42:48
social welfare policy right Seventh Avenue anyway you can you have your hands full now let's go back there yeah

Unknown Speaker  43:03
that I don't see when dealing with women they certainly do give their personal

Unknown Speaker  43:44
Well, I've just thought the top of my head I think that men do have a stake so the. Right

Unknown Speaker  45:54
Think he's can to another kind of problem in this kind of discussion, because I don't know if Margaret Thatcher was there, whether it was any different. In other words, worse, we get to this point where, and, you know, I'm a flaming feminist. So this, this issue starts to, to run up against my notions of biology is destiny. And I don't think biology is destiny. So I don't you know, so the man is the political leaders in the corporate executives who I say have abandoned the American workers who have made these decisions. It may be a part within them, but it also be who they are, where they are in the kind of power they have in society. So that goes to the public got mutable, the men with our society change, so So we want them we have to change those structures, they change those structures. So the system operates differently. But I think men have you been duped men in general, you've won could have been duped because of the Gender Wars and because of misogyny in our society and race. And the same things around race, that to decide with the wrong average male vote aside maybe more with a certain kinds of decisions, then women do as the gender gap politics seems to show. So we have to undo that not only with shoes, literally waste and raising inflation. I would like to partner with you, we have failed. Scientists in favor of whether there might have been a goal in addition to the proposed order. What was the nature and the nature of the forest. And

Unknown Speaker  48:17
there are two main points in the United States. The downsides as well, for employment unemployment. In the United States, what the examiner wanted was Sherman a

Unknown Speaker  48:47
piece of gold.

Unknown Speaker  48:52
He also said he wanted to have a vibrant economy, we must have to be certain that they needed to deliver go that you immediately have a major threat to the stability of the United States. And then immediately you must raise interest rates so that you are sure that we'd like to get a downsizing so that you are sure that we bought these my assistants, excuse me also, good for us, our social sciences, our welfare policy and our supporters in Stark Law, they're more about

Unknown Speaker  49:39
the voices and the faculty. So for

Unknown Speaker  49:43
all of these years,

Unknown Speaker  49:44
we have really good

Unknown Speaker  49:46
relations and the next few days and the one after that. I think that when for example, that a direct relationship,

Unknown Speaker  49:59
whether it be We met whether the web is relationship with the President will be forced to reinforce your beliefs we

Unknown Speaker  50:15
will celebrate.

Unknown Speaker  50:18
And I think that only

Unknown Speaker  50:21
we went to practice which is why

Unknown Speaker  50:25
it appeals to them to see that it affects them, those women,

Unknown Speaker  50:31
and I think that that is why. Children

Unknown Speaker  51:00
and I just don't like that kind of work. I think women suffer.

Unknown Speaker  51:10
Care is working, very dangerous.

Unknown Speaker  51:16
Shelter Sydney, New

Unknown Speaker  51:17
York in this video will show you how to choose which reminds you.

Unknown Speaker  51:26
That has to be an issue, it's gonna be out there. It's not that safe. This summer of things in any company, fortunately suffering the issue of innocent victims

Unknown Speaker  51:36
versus bad. And

Unknown Speaker  51:38
that's not going to

Unknown Speaker  51:43
pass. Is that simply back to the restaurant?

Unknown Speaker  52:22
Well, I certainly agree. I'll take the first point, because I certainly agree with the point you're making about a devaluing women. And by the way, men too. I mean, men are going to suffer under these new regulations, certainly around immigration and so forth. I think that part of us are falling into a trap is I think you're pointing out of speaking to those issues that seem to resonate more positively with voters. I'm sure you're all familiar with the polling. I think it was a Gallup poll that talked about should we cut welfare benefits for, you know, poor women or whatever. And 75% of those polled said absolutely. Yes, we should. And then the the question was reframed. And should children be entitled, should poor children be entitled to benefit? And you know, blah, blah, blah, finishing out the question, and the it was exactly the same percentage that agree that poor children should be entitled to adequate benefits. So that I think that some of us, and I think you're right to point it out, are falling into that trap of talking in terms that seem most favorable to the electorate or the, you know, the general public out there. And in doing so, we are being co opted, in the sense to say the evil woman isn't entitled than the good innocent child is. And I think you're absolutely right. On the other hand, it's a good way. I mean, that's the whole premise behind the Children's Defense Fund. That's the whole premise between marriage, you know, a Marian Wright elements work, right. It's not that she doesn't care about women, obviously, or men, for that matter. For men in the it's the children, you know, get sympathy more, so I think you're right, but dot dot guy. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Labor Movement. Do you want to

Unknown Speaker  54:20
anybody the whole feminist movement, I think moved in that direction that you're objecting to, and as the politics moved to the center, and I think that we do have some responsibility not to do that. That with me while I had made it does have a tactical value, I think strategically is a mistake in the long run, because we have been shooting ourselves in the foot with women's rights. So it's a tension that we have to deal with. The labor movement. I don't know I'm really not not an expert on the labor because I wasn't using organizing. But I I mean, I feel more optimistic than I have in a long, long time. I thought the union somehow better I believe that was a good thing to do. I don't know the details of how it worked out. But I think we have to keep organized Labor's feet to the fire. I mean, I think that the Sweeney leadership, he's more conscious of gender issues and race issues and all the others. But when push comes to shove, these are the issues that get second play, in all our struggles, when we go for universal benefits, if we don't watch out for gender and race issues, they will have a universal policy. But just like the Social Security Act, certain people will be left out, we have to be very, very careful. And I think the same thing, also a mass movement, like the unions movements, to get all workers, but when it comes to negotiate, they're gonna go for childcare or higher wages for certain slots, you know, and whose slides are those. And so they're not whole questions of sexism and racism and homophobia and all these things. We produce themselves in our progressive movements, unless they're really careful.

Unknown Speaker  56:04
Just one more comment about the union movement. Obviously, the reason that so many of the Western European countries have such strong policies is that they work together with labor, labor unions, and the it was really the labor unions, at least in Scandinavia, for the most part that fought for many of the policies that they have. So insofar as people like us can join in and can bring labor unions more into the fray, that we are interested in the stronger optics that the women

Unknown Speaker  56:41
deliver what happens for women. Nothing to do with power, but I think I bet my life on the younger side of two years on picket lines and marching.

Unknown Speaker  57:07
And I think the time has come a week have gotten actively political, and you got to take notice of the military budget in March in February. I would got to join all those things. Now I understand about them. Right, was gonna join all those things. And I'm certainly willing not to sit on the sidelines.

Unknown Speaker  57:31
Until I get out there that to work with the kinds of things that have a universal family. We've got a look at now, the gap for rich? No, see, you know.

Unknown Speaker  57:57
There are ways of

Unknown Speaker  57:58
doing it. But I think that the conferences are wonderful that we got organized to get out there and really sit down and say by the end,

Unknown Speaker  58:21
maybe because he's not listening,

Unknown Speaker  58:23
yet accurate every single day.

Unknown Speaker  58:32
Yeah. Education, women on welfare and their children. And when we talk about welfare, particularly in America, I'm just wondering like, how are we persuaded to educate themselves being that they might feel that they are unfairly represented?

Unknown Speaker  58:54
Well, you know, what, in the welfare system, I don't see that there's a proper assessment of what that mother was doing at that time. If they need to restructure how the system is in the first place, and somehow have a face to face find out? What the Mother, how long has the mother been in school? What is her educational level? What is her experience if she has any experience and start from there? Because currently, they're just willing to take the mother off of public assistance and put it up, clean up Central Park or the subways or whatever have you. And that goes for the hrs the home relief for single people as well. They don't know what their educational job experience is. And I think that has to be assessed to start making the proper moves. And I think also they should have a say as to what it is they want to do. I don't think someone should be pushed in nursing. They don't want to take nursing, I don't think so much become a doctor. They want to be a doctor because we have quite a few people who are in certain positions and they really don't belong there. I think I think all of that needs to be restructured and I think it needs to be assessment I think we should also have that recipients input, as well as to what it is they want to do. And let's go from there.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:08
And also, just to add to that many of the women on welfare do know what they want to do want to get education, and they're barred from it from ever right from indifferent caseworkers or try to walk up the door and they get pushed away. So we don't want to assume that they don't have those ideas already. And there are people who are discouraged because they think it's not possible for them also. So you need to get some, some people that have to be held to see them. Precisely in New York

Unknown Speaker  1:00:45
City, the eligibility

Unknown Speaker  1:00:49
for asylum organization is

Unknown Speaker  1:00:55
closely a little track. I mean, it's sort of been taken over the eligibility verification review. For those who don't know, it was it's opening up of the procedures, right and probably around eligibility for home, we'll leave making it up making the country members network, but making it hard for people to qualify or making a home visit. And if you weren't there, and you weren't, you didn't have a residency you were also very harassing kind of things that were done. I mean, it seems to me that what happens are some of the many people were very excited and scared by a lot of these policies and after work, or they scare people away, and all they really want to do is have less people on welfare, for the reasons that we've talked about. So if you can scare them away, it's easier to take time in the office to correct the app people are applying. So you have and then I think that legal services, which was been cutting up with tech people back then was been hearing a lot of 80% were getting reinstated. So it wasn't working all that well. And then I think the whole thing got sort of taken over by the whole Workfare Workfare issue. So to get much more in the public arena, and I don't know whether the eligibility, I don't know exactly what happened, do you know if you've been following them, I know as much as you. So I'm not sure. But I think that the issue that much larger now with work bandwidth, where people are being forced to work with the benefits

Unknown Speaker  1:02:32
of cleaning up and forced to leave.

Unknown Speaker  1:02:34
And it's having a big impact on the college program. And so I think that, you know, right now, there's organized, more organizing going on around among the column where works, it's called the work experience, part of the web workers are actually organizing because they want to be treated as regular workers not as a work fair participant. And this is a very important issue. If I could just take a minute more to say, first of all that organizing, and it's very scary when you're on welfare to organize, you're in a very, very risky position, those very brave people who can even begin to do that. Number one, number two, the, when you work with your benefits, you may or may not equal the minimum wage, even though he's close to so you undercut workplace rights, such as minimum wage. And and the other thing that's a real big issue in New York City and elsewhere is that since the mid 70s, the municipal workers and the unions have gotten increasingly strong, while the manufacturing workers, like humans have gotten weaker, because they've been disappearing. So starting in the mid 70s, the city started contracting out services to private agency social areas, as a part of the way to break the union. And work there is another way to weaken the union or break the union because the union that had fewer people, if the Parks Department, the city, you can have only 500 people hired and they have 300 Workfare participants, they only have workers to sit on that employees, they cannot join the union. So they have much smaller union and a much weaker union. So there's a lot of union bashing issues underneath some of the other party when it comes to work, to workforce issues, so that they are the fight is to be acknowledged, as employees to allow to be allowed to join the unions and various and to be sure the same protections that the unions want for regular employees that work there. Don't have and then just want to say one other thing about that. It's been on my mind a lot. You know, there's been this big discussion in the office in the unions about whether they should have worked better or not as opposed to people working there in the subways or in the parks. And the union's here again, I think I'd like to take a slightly stronger position they, they say they want to, you know, sort of equal protection for Workfare participants but they still talk about That is them in us. And I think the work, people don't work, they are no different than the people who are working except that they don't have a job. And people who are working to lose their job to come work for participants or potentially work with a disability. And the people I've worked with as soon as their jobs up and they'll be employees. So I think that like, in terms of reframing, and so when you hear this issue discussed the the distance or the other thing, I think it's important to say that this is the same pool of people, mostly the low paid workers. And they, they're in that they're either in the job or they're getting some kind of public aid. And it's a rotating pool, and the unions are trying to protect their base, which they should, but they should do it by saying more jobs for everybody, not special treatment for our members versus. She knows all about it.

Unknown Speaker  1:05:51
We're one of many groups doing this organizing workers. So I would just like to interject, if anybody needs more information about that campaign, I have it here

Unknown Speaker  1:06:01
to say a few words. A few words. I mean, maybe I said it wrong. So please correct me if

Unknown Speaker  1:06:06
I'm wrong. What's going on right now absolutely, for most nobody know is that people are being forced to work backwards. Mostly those are people who are formerly HR disabled adults. That is slowly changing and picking up steam. With MPC recipients also, now being forced to work for their benefits. So people understand what it means to work for your benefits is basically what they're doing is they're taking the benefits that you get food stamps, rent subsidy, if you are how about you must document goes to a landlord. And a small cash assistance, I believe. So taking those all those three things, adding them up and dividing them by the minimum wage. And that's how many hours you have to work in the month in order to receive those benefits. So you have to understand no one's getting paid to work. We're working off in servitude benefits that they receive. So I don't think what people don't understand

Unknown Speaker  1:07:27
what we used to call workhouse without wall.

Unknown Speaker  1:07:32
So anyway, but there are attempts being made now by some community groups to organize for their workers black workers experience program into right now Workers Association, two primary goals, their long term goal being why focus on too long I want to get to is to eliminate the web program web does not lead to jobs. Right. Okay, well, we need government created works. Programs, okay. With living wage jobs are right, in the very short term in terms of organized and how you when you go out, I other people go out to the worksite and talk to workers into a care program. You have to say, you know, what are the issues here? I'm asked to sweep up the street to clean and works and I don't get gloves. I don't get it reflected best if I have a long road, I have to move. Toxic chemicals by city employees can refuse and are not required to do. So it's it's getting me needs specific to worksite issues. In addition to that, you know, I think ideally, you just have to step in here. I'm not head of a union. So I can't make that happen for myself. But I think we all have to create enough requirements, the streets, if you will to make the union to pay attention. Because this is a workers issue. This is their constituency. One of the people talking about the parks right now, wet warfare workers out number of parks, city parks workers, I believe by four to one for one. So the city is gotten this is balancing the city budget on the backs of welfare worker. People have to understand huge economic issues not to racial issues,

Unknown Speaker  1:09:27
slave labor, slave labor.

Unknown Speaker  1:09:30
Absolutely. So I don't want to take up your time, right. But if anyone's interested, come get some information for me. We need everyone's help. We need your support. I think this is obviously an organizing campaign. We're actually out here organizing workers, but it's also a public education campaign. So when you start educating the public and all people saying So again, I'm in a fight for our Justice Center. You don't have time to say Khalsa I'm getting so Oh, thank you.

Unknown Speaker  1:10:06
Unfortunately, our time is just about up. Should we say your phone number?

Unknown Speaker  1:10:11
Oh, sure. Urban Justice Center number is 229-208-0212 Yes, sorry, extension 318. And you're more than likely to get my voicemail, but I call everybody back.

Unknown Speaker  1:10:33
You're one of those few people how's everybody back? I'm afraid our time is just one to one more.

Unknown Speaker  1:10:41
I've worked with women and their children for almost 20 years. And the whole issue of education and training is so important. In the last four or five years, my work has been mostly around trying to draw connections between the use of children and women who can't keep children safe unless you also help keep women safe. And I just want to stay with the resistance to understanding violence against women in the context of children is enormous. People don't want to people want to hold women responsible for all the problems in families, and in fact, all the problems in society because they start to do the right thing, of course, the woman's fault. And they all the other thing I want to say, in the fact, there's been there has been a tendency to criminalize the issue of domestic violence, which will take many hours to discuss the pros and cons of that. But like the new welfare reforms, the only two entitlements left the billion tacked on within that I've worked with Mr. Foster Care, and the only two things that are going to still be there when the benefits are taken away. And then their children are taken away, because they're already working for any child can be put into foster care for as long as the state wants, and anyone can be put into prison. So those are the only two things that are left that are truly the more and more than four families in this case are made. More and more these options will pass.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:33
I could just add one thing to that they sometimes we talk about welfare as a women's issue and just gets two points. One is that they're just beginning to research to be done and how many women on welfare they are because they did better. And they tried to escape bad or roughly 50%, but two thirds or some of the anecdotal figures. I mean, it is obviously a hard research to do. And there's a group in Chicago, because that's when it's some of the dirty secret of welfare. And the second thing is that, you know, the whole discussion of orphanages, the whole child welfare issue, you have the big discussion on welfare from the views of bad mothers, they don't take proper care of their children. And some groups like the Manhattan Institute of conservative think tank and Charles Murray, they really would like children taken away from these bad mothers, in any any way possible. The orphanage discussion, the residential treatment, residential homes better than these, these homes, you know, and so, if you in fact, take the only way I'm gonna leave, the mother can support her children away from her, her welfare grant and make it so low, they haven't taken it away, but they've made it much more fragile, then she's gonna have a hard time taking care of kids, and then the whole neglect stuffs gonna start looming larger, or she's gonna decide she can't afford a kid. And she will ask the state to put them into foster care, which was done in the 1920s and 30s. Because she thinks there'll be better provided for because there'll be some money for them, and she doesn't have any way to take care of them. So that leads to Golden halfway up and because their parents were alive, or at least one was, but they were in orphanages. So and then also get yourself in trouble to try to take care of a kid. I think it's a very, very important point you make and it shows you what we are. I mean, if you want to look at it as a women's issue, the misogyny and the sexism involved in cutting welfare has another another whole story here that we didn't really get to that that begins to touch on it. Well, of course, of course it is the job much more expensive, much more expensive. And you know, the AFDC check wasn't in New York 500.

Unknown Speaker  1:14:44
Families three including Oh, but it's much cheaper in Kentucky to live right?

Unknown Speaker  1:14:50
That's right. We haven't we haven't hit Mississippi which is $120 for making the rest of us look good. Thank you all for coming. Are you really to record