Petition to Pay Living Wages - Yes You Can Help!!!

Yes, you can help reduce poverty!  

Please log on to www.gopetition.com/online/19024.html to petition the City of Orinda to adopt a law confirming that the City will pay Living Wages to all employees and that any contractors doing business in the City of Orinda will pay their employees Living Wages for any work done in Orinda.

Petition Text -

- 37 Million people live at or below the federally defined poverty level in the United States.

- Working families deserve Living Wages, not a minimum wage (currently $8 per hour or about $17,000 per year).  The minimum wage falls way below the federally defined poverty level.

- The current weakness in the economy will result in less good jobs and less families able to afford their basic needs.

The undersigned members of the Community of Orinda urge the City of Orinda to adopt the following Living Wage Pledge -

1.  All employees of the City of Orinda will be paid a Living Wage.

2.  The City of Orinda should only do business with companies that agree to pay their workers a Living Wage for jobs they work on in Orinda.

3.  The Living Wage shall be no less that $12.50 per hour and be reviewed on an annual basis. (The City of San Jose has a Living Wage Ordinance that requires minimum pay of $12.66 per hour plus $1.25 per hour for health benefits if not separately paid.)

Living Wages are decent wages for hard work - even at the proposed pay, a person working 40 hours a week, every week of the year, only makes $26,000 per year.  

Please sign the petition today!  Make a difference.

Interview with Boona Cheema, Executive Director of BOSS

In its 35 year history, the non-profit organization BOSS (Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency) has created programs to help homeless people achieve health and self-sufficiency. BOSS, based in Berkeley, provides services to over 2,000 homeless families each year in the East Bay.

I met Boona Cheema, the Executive Director of BOSS, at a event where she talked about her efforts and goals and then had the opportunity to visit with her.  Some thoughts she shared -

(on what motivates her)   "When I see a homeless mother get up at our shelter at 5:30 or 6 am in the morning, with three kids, get them up, take them to the bus station, send them to 3 different schools, pick them up, take care of them, get them to bed.  I'm like YES.  It's the people that put one foot in front of the other and with strength, courage, and intelligence - that's where I live."

(on the need for housing for the poor)  "We have not built affordable housing for poor people. We have taken away housing and land during the last 10 years for development."

(on the election)  "What I don't hear Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, or Senator McCain talking about is affordable housing for poor people - that's why there needs to be a fourth candidate...We have to elect someone who will balance what we are spending on war with what we are spending here."

(on the future)  "We need a federal commitment to affordable housing for poor people.  We going to have homeless people in the future.  I'm worried about the veterans coming back from Iraq and Afganistan and the people here losing their jobs."

(Ms. Cheema is pictured to the right with me.)

Do the Poor Vote?

Statistics -

                                 Incomes > $75,000 Incomes < $20,000

Regular/Intermittent Voters      66%                     46%

Rare Voters/Didn't register        34%                 54%

The poor are much more likely not to vote than the rich.  The reasons - they don't care about politics and/or have no confidence in the government.

So the poor end up having little say and the candidates don't appear to need to say much to the poor since they don't are more likely not to vote.

Source: 

"Who Votes, Who Doesn't, and Why."  The Pew Research Center.  18 Oct. 2006.  http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=292.

Poverty is Painful- Literally

Time Magazine just reported that Americans in households making less than $30,000 per year spend nearly 20 percent of their lives in moderate to severe pain - more than 2 1/2 times the rate for households earning above $100,000.  At lower incomes, pain largely results from physically intensive jobs together with less access to health care.  

Poor people live shorter than wealthier people,  a considerable portion of their lives is spent in pain from physical work, and their day to day life is a struggle.   We need to fight the internal war on poverty - with at least the resources we expend on external wars.

Source:  

Kingsbury, Kathleen, "Millions of Americans in Chronic Pain."  Time Magazine.  2 May 2008. http://www.time.com/time/health/ article/0,8599,173255,00.html.

Waging a Living Wage - Podcast

Campaigns are starting across the country to raise wages so that people who do work can sustain their families.   Living wages is a political hot potato because many businesses oppose being forced to raise the wages of their workers (since they don't want their costs to increase) and these same businesses have strong ties with politicians.

But as Madeline Janis-Aparicio, an individual leading campaigns to pay a living wage in Los Angeles points out, imagine what people's lives are like who are making $5.15 an hour.  They can't buy food.  They can't pay rent.  They can't pay their electric bills.  They have to live part of the times...in their cars.

The Podcast link on Living Wages (click on the link on the right of this page) talks about various efforts to induce companies to pay a living wage.  Minimum wages could become Living Wages if businesses were to just raise prices by 1 percent and pass this benefit to their workers.

Source:  Goodman, Amy, "Perspectives on a Living Wage."  25 Aug. 2006, http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/wagingaliving/special_goodman_la.html.

Putting a Face on Poverty - Videos

I have included several videos on this blog, some of which are intended to put a face on poverty and others of which are discussions about possible solutions.

Poverty is largely hidden.  The places where we allow poverty is where you can't see it.   If people acknowledge there is a poverty problem,  perhaps there will be a greater will to do something about it.  But you can't acknowledge what you don't see - and that is likely why little has been done during the last 40 years when President Lyndon Johnson first pledged to end poverty in the United States.

The panel discussions largely focus of creating more and better paying jobs as well as a safety net of services for people who are very poor and don't have anything or anyone to lean on.  For this to happen in a meaningful way, there needs to be political will.  However, poverty doesn't make it as a national priority goal because our poor people are hidden where you can't see them and they are unlikely voters - unfortunately, they are less visible than the residents of Bagdhad.

Sources:

"Poverty in America - Healthcare."  15 Nov. 2007. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8267066399851303004&q=poverty+in+america&hl=en.

Wholey, Dennis.  "Poverty in America (Part 1)."  This is America Show.  17 May 2006. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8622463747024825563&q=poverty+in+america&hl=en.

 

"CCUSA Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America Launch:  Highlights of Congressional Hearing."  10 Jan. 2007.  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7573547532093132168&q=poverty+in_ameria&hl=en.

"Child Poverty in America."  Dreams Innovation Production.  1985. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=976814404625130571&q=poverty+in+america&hl=en.

Step 2 to Tackling Poverty – A Living Wage Job

As John Edwards stated, "Every American should have the change to work their way out of poverty."

Jobs require training and preparation. Jobs also require a commitment to invest local and national resources to provide incentives to create new jobs and provide oportunities for our disadvantaged poor people. Adult education and literacy services are also needed to help build skills required to secure living wage jobs.

Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (or BOSS) is one local organization dedicated to helping homeless families and individuals obtain jobs, housing, and heath care in Berkeley. For instance, the Boss Clean City Program is a partnership with the City of Berkeley that helps employ the homeless in public works jobs throughout Berkeley. 

How do we create one million jobs? We provide significant incentives for employers to create jobs and require our cities to provide jobs for the poorest members of our community.

Sources:

"A National Goal: End Poverty Within 30 Years." 2008. http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/poverty/.

"Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency." 2007. http://www.self-sufficiency.org