CA Rally and Press Conference

Join Us

Friday, January 8. 2016

11:00 AM

3737 Main Street

Riverside, CA 92501

Stand with us as we call on the governor and the Legislature to produce a state budget that lifts Californians out of poverty and invests in the future of our communities. 

NOT JUST IN FERGUSON

A recent Department of Justice report found that courts and law enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri, are systematically and purposefully taking money from the pockets of poor people—disproportionately from black people—to put into court coffers. The context may be different in California, but many of the practices are chillingly similar. As a result, over four million Californians do not have valid driver’s licenses because they cannot afford to pay traffic fines and fees. These suspensions make it harder for people to get and keep jobs, further impeding their ability to pay their debt. They harm credit ratings. They raise public safety concerns. Ultimately they keep people in long cycles of poverty that are difficult, if not impossible to overcome. This report highlights the growing trend of license suspensions, how the problem happens, the impact on families and communities, and what can and should be done about it. Click here to read the full report.

Via: http://www.anewwayoflife.org/category/blog/

New study says a third of Californians in poverty

Nearly a third of California’s households “struggle each month to meet basic needs,” largely because of the state’s high cost of living, a new study by United Ways of California concludes.

The study relies on what the organization calls a “real cost measure” that goes well beyond the Census Bureau’s official poverty measure, which dates back to the early 1960s and pegs California’s rate at just half of what the United Ways study found.

The organization’s methodology is, however, similar in thrust to an alternative poverty measure that includes all forms of income and is adjusted for the cost of living. By that measure, nearly a quarter of California’s 39 million residents are living in poverty.

The United Ways study is centered on a household budget “composed of costs all families much address, such as food, housing, transportation, child care, out-of-pocket health expenses and taxes.”

While overall, by that method, 31 percent of California’s families “lack income adequate to meet their basic needs,” the rates vary widely by ethnic group and locale.

Over half of Latino families fall under the United Ways poverty measure, as well as 40 percent of black families. White families (20 percent) and Asian-American households 28 percent) are better off.

Geographically, poverty rates range from as high as 80 percent in inner city Los Angeles to as low as 9 percent in suburban Contra Costa County.

The study identified housing costs as the major factor in poverty, with struggling families spending over half of their incomes for shelter, with rents of two-bedroom housing units ranging from $584 a month in Modoc County to $1,905 in Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties.

Via: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article27256111.html

Senate passes minimum wage boost for California

As labor unions lead a nationwide push for a higher minimum wage, the California Senate on Monday approved raising the state’s required hourly rate to $11 in 2016 and $13 in 2017.

Under Senate Bill 3, which passed by a vote of 23-15, California’s minimum wage would also begin increasing annually in 2019 based on inflation. The measure heads next to the Assembly.

“The president of the United States has defined income inequality as the defining challenge of our time,” said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who authored the measure. “Wages are growing at the slowest rate relative to corporate profits in the history of the United States of America.

“We must do more to address this, and we can.”

Leno pursued a similar minimum wage increase last year that passed the Senate but failed in an Assembly committee.

Since then, several major cities have raised their wage floor, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, which will both reach $15 per hour in the next few years. After joining striking fast-food workers in protest, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson said last November he would also explore raising the city’s minimum wage above California’s $9-per-hour rate.

Introducing SB 3, Leno noted that a minimum wage of $13 per hour would equate to about $26,000 per year, just above the federal poverty line. He tried to appeal to Senate Republicans, making the argument that higher wages would lead to greater consumer spending and drive the economy.

“There are thought leaders on the conservative right who support increasing the minimum wage,” Leno said. “We taxpayers subsidize employers who pay sub-poverty wages,” because those workers get public assistance for housing, food and health care.

None were convinced, and they were joined by Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, in voting no on the bill.

“It’s a capitalistic society,” said Sen. John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa. “We need to honor the work of those that are creating the jobs, that are paying the taxes ... With a minimum wage increase, you are attacking businesspeople who are subsidizing this state and this nation.”

The California Chamber of Commerce placed SB 3 high on its annual list of “job killers,” bills that the powerful business lobby argues would have a negative economic impact on the state, and their argument was echoed during Monday’s debate.

“Let’s work together to find real solutions to create jobs and lift people out of poverty,” said Sen. Jeff Stone, R-Temecula, “not kill jobs, as this measure would unfortunately do.”

Two other moderate Democrats – Sens. Steve Glazer of Orinda and Cathleen Galgiani of Stockton – left the room during the vote. But the remainder of the caucus carried the bill, speaking passionately about the difficulty that many workers face in supporting their families on low wages.

“There is not honor in going out and working hard and then you got to go beg for” help, said Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Los Angeles. “When you get out there and get a job, you should have enough money to feed your family. You should have enough money to pay for the roof over your head and decent conditions.”

“The problem is, we want to pick and choose the work that we value,” added Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino, the measure’s co-author. “All work has value.”

Via: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article22841253.html#storylink=cpy

Los Angeles Lifts Its Minimum Wage to $15 Per Hour

LOS ANGELES — The nation’s second-largest city voted Tuesday to increase its minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15 an hour by 2020, in what is perhaps the most significant victory so far for labor groups and their allies who are engaged in a national push to raise the minimum wage.

The increase, which the City Council passed in a 14-to-1 vote, comes as workers across the country are rallying for higher wages and several large companies, including Facebook and Walmart, have moved to raise their lowest wages. Several other cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have already approved increases, and dozens more are considering doing the same. In 2014, a number of Republican-leaning states like Alaska and South Dakota also raised their state-level minimum wages by ballot initiative.

The effect is likely to be particularly strong in Los Angeles, where, according to some estimates, almost 50 percent of the city’s work force earns less than $15 an hour. Under the plan approved Tuesday, the minimum wage will rise over five years.

“The effects here will be the biggest by far,” said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was commissioned by city leaders to conduct several studies on the potential effects of a minimum-wage increase. “The proposal will bring wages up in a way we haven’t seen since the 1960s. There’s a sense spreading that this is the new norm, especially in areas that have high costs of housing.”

The groups pressing for higher minimum wages said that the Los Angeles vote could set off a wave of increases across Southern California, and that higher pay scales would improve the way of life for the region’s vast low-wage work force.

Supporters of higher wages say they hope the move will reverberate nationally. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced this month that he was convening a state board to consider a wage increase in the local fast-food industry, which could be enacted without a vote in the State Legislature. Immediately after the Los Angeles vote, pressure began to build on Mr. Cuomo to reject an increase that falls short of $15 an hour.

“The L.A. increase nudges it forward,” said Dan Cantor, the national director of the Working Families Party, which was founded in New York and has helped pass progressive economic measures in several states. “It puts an exclamation point on the need for $15 to be where the wage board ends up.”

The current minimum wage in New York State is $8.75, versus a federal minimum wage of $7.25, and will rise to $9 at the end of 2015. A little more than one-third of workers citywide and statewide now make below $15 an hour.

Los Angeles County is also considering a measure that would lift the wages of thousands of workers in unincorporated parts of the county.

Much of the debate here has centered on potential regional repercussions. Many of the low-wage workers who form the backbone of Southern California’s economy live in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Proponents of the wage increase say they expect that several nearby cities, including Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Pasadena, will also approve higher wages.

AdvertisementContinue reading the main story

But opponents of higher minimum wages, including small-business owners and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, say the increase approved Tuesday could turn Los Angeles into a “wage island,” pushing businesses to nearby places where they can pay employees less.

“They are asking businesses to foot the bill on a social experiment that they would never do on their own employees,” said Stuart Waldman, the president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, a trade group that represents companies and other organizations in Southern California. “A lot of businesses aren’t going to make it,” he added. “It’s great that this is an increase for some employees, but the sad truth is that a lot of employees are going to lose their jobs.”

The 67 percent increase from the current state minimum will be phased in over five years, first to $10.50 in July 2016, then to $12 in 2017, $13.25 in 2018 and $14.25 in 2019. Businesses with fewer than 25 employees will have an extra year to carry out the plan. Starting in 2022, annual increases will be based on the Consumer Price Index average of the last 20 years. The City Council’s vote will instruct the city attorney to draft the language of the law, which will then come back to the Council for final approval.

The mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, a Democrat, had proposed a slightly different increase last fall and later negotiated the details with the Democratic-controlled Council. Mr. Garcetti said Tuesday that he would sign the legislation and that he hoped other elected officials, including Mr. Cuomo, would follow Los Angeles’s path.

“We’re leading the country; we’re not going to wait for Washington to lift Americans out of poverty,” Mr. Garcetti said in an interview. “We have too many adults struggling to be living off a poverty wage. This will re-establish some of the equilibrium we’ve had in the past.”

New York City does not have a separate minimum wage, but Mayor Bill de Blasio has spoken out in favor of higher wages statewide. “Los Angeles is another example of a city that’s doing the right thing, lifting people up by providing a wage on which they can live,” Mr. de Blasio said in a statement “We need Albany to catch up with the times and raise the wage.”Continue reading the main storhe push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage is not confined to populous coastal states. In Kansas City, Mo., activists recently collected enough signatures to put forward an August ballot initiative on whether to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020. The City Council is deliberating this week over how to respond and could pass its own measure in advance of the initiative.

As the Los Angeles City Council considered raising the minimum wage over the last several months, the question was not if, but how much. The lone councilman who voted against the bill — a Republican — did not speak during Tuesday’s meeting.

Still, for all their enthusiasm, some Council members acknowledged that it would be difficult to predict what would happen once the increase was fully in effect.

“I would prefer that the cost of this was really burdened by those at the highest income levels,” said Gil Cedillo, a councilman who represents some of the poorest sections of the city and worries that some small businesses will shut down. “Instead, it’s going to be coming from people who are just a rung or two up the ladder here. It’s a risk that rhetoric can’t resolve.”

Even economists who support increasing the minimum wage say there is not enough historical data to predict the effect of a $15 minimum wage, an unprecedented increase. A wage increase to $12 an hour over the next few years would achieve about the same purchasing power as the minimum wage in the late 1960s, the most recent peak.

Many restaurant owners here aggressively fought the increase, saying they would be forced to cut as much as half of their staff. Unlike other states, California state law prohibits tipped employees from receiving lower than the minimum wage. The Council promised to study the potential effect of allowing restaurants to add a service charge to bills to meet the increased costs.

And while labor leaders and the coalition of dozens of community groups celebrated in the rotunda of City Hall after the vote, they acknowledged there was a long way to go.

“This says to Los Angeles workers that they are respected, and that’s an important psychological effect,” said Laphonza Butler, the president of Service Employees International Union-United Long Term Care Workers here and a leader of the coalition. “To know that they have a pathway to $15, to getting themselves off of welfare and out of poverty, that’s huge. This should change the debate of the value of low-wage work.”

Statewide Day of Action Budget Revise Press Conference & Rally

Join us May 14 & 15, 2015 for

Statewide Day of Action

Budget Revise Press Conference & Rally

Sacremento - May 14

State Capitol, South Steps

When: 11:00 am or

Following Budget Release

Contact: Pete Woiwode, 510-504-9552

pete@communitychange.org

Los Angeles - May 14

300 S. Spring Street, 90013

When: 12:00 pm

Contact: Aurora Garcia, 562-519-3106

agarcia@communitychange.org

San Jose - May 15

1381 S. First street, 95110

When: 10:00 am

Contact: Pete Woiwode, 510-504-9552

pete@communitychange.org

Riverside - May 15

3737 Main street, 92501

When: 1:00 pm

Contact: Maribel Nunez,  562-569-4051

mnunez@communitychange.org

The President Proposes to Make Community College Free for Responsible Students for 2 Years

David Hudson

January 08, 2015 
06:16 PM EST

This month, the President unveiled a new proposal: Make two years of community college free for responsible students across America.

In our growing global economy, Americans need to have more knowledge and more skills to compete -- by 2020, an estimated 35 percent of job openings will require at least a bachelor's degree, and 30 percent will require some college or an associate's degree. Students should be able to get the knowledge and the skills they need without taking on decades' worth of student debt.

The numbers:

If all 50 states choose to implement the President's new community college proposal, it could:
Save a full-time community college student $3,800 in tuition per year on average
Benefit roughly 9 million students each year

Under President Obama's new proposal, students would be able to earn the first half of a bachelor's degree, or earn the technical skills needed in the workforce -- all at no cost to them.

The requirements:

What students have to do: Students must attend community college at least half-time, maintain a 2.5 GPA, and make steady progress toward completing their program.
What community colleges have to do: Community colleges will be expected to offer programs that are either 1) academic programs that fully transfer credits to local public four-year colleges and universities, or 2) occupational training programs with high graduation rates and lead to in-demand degrees and certificates. Community colleges must also adopt promising and evidence-based institutional reforms to improve student outcomes.
What the federal government has to do: Federal funding will cover three-quarters of the average cost of community college. Participating states will be expected to contribute the remaining funds necessary to eliminate the tuition for eligible students.

Expanding technical training programs:

President Obama also proposed the new American Technical Training Fund, which will expand innovative, high-quality technical training programs across the country. Specifically, the fund will award programs that:

• Have strong employer partnerships and include work-based learning opportunities
• Provide accelerated training
• Accommodate part-time work

Read the full fact sheet of the President's proposal. 

via: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/01/08/president-proposes-make-community-college-free-responsible-students-2-years

Join us, statewide budget action day!

Join us Friday!

Throughout the state we are rallying to  "tear down the wall of poverty" for California's most vulnerable! Find a location near you and join us!

San Francisco

350 McAllister St.

When: 12:30 PM

Contact: Pete Woiwode, 510-504-9552

pete@communitychange.org

Sacramento

Capitol Room TBD

When: 11:00 am or following Governor Brown's statement

Contact: TBD

San Jose

1381 South First St. 95110

When: 10:00 AM

Contact: Pete Woiwode, 510-504-9552

pete@communitychange.org

Fresno

2550 Mariposa Mall 93721

When:10:00 AM

Contact: Rose Aguste

raguste@healthaccess.org

Los Angeles

300 S. Spring Street 90013

When: 12:00 PM following budget release

Contact: Aurora Garcia, 562-519-3106

agarcia@communitychange.org

San Bernardino

300 N. D Street 92418

When: 11:00 AM

Contact: Maribel Nunez, 562-569-4051

mnunez@communitychange.org

Maria Shriver returns to Sacramento to discuss women and poverty

After more than three years away, former First Lady of California Maria Shriver returned to Sacramento Thursday to deliver a new report on women and poverty to the governor and legislators.

Her afternoon kicked off with a discussion of the report's findings at the California Museum, attended by dozens of the capital's most powerful women, including Secretary of State Debra Bowen and U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento.

Shriver emphasized that women's empowerment efforts must broaden from the "1 percent" and "talking about getting the corner office" to include the one-third of American women living in financial insecurity.

"They are looking for some help to give their family a life that's better than theirs," she said during the 45-minute conversation, part of Dewey Square Group's quarterly She Shares speaker series.

Calling on the government to get creative in how it helps women, Shriver said her work on this subject is largely influenced by her father, Sargent Shriver, who headed the War on Poverty in the 1960s. Shriver affectionately referred to him as "Daddy" as she spoke about initiatives like Head Start and low-income legal services.

When they're funded, Shriver said, "Those programs work."

Even as she spoke about raising a family, Shriver conspicuously avoided mentioning estranged husbandArnold Schwarzenegger. His name only came up once, when Shriver urged more bipartisan cooperation in the state and federal governments.

Having grown up a Kennedy, she joked, "I think the first Republican I met was Arnold."

With veteran U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman announcing his retirement earlier in the day, buzz also surrounded whether Shriver, a resident of his Los Angeles district, might enter the family business and run for his seat.

"No. Nope," she told The Bee after the event.

PHOTO: Maria Shriver meets event attendees before speaking about women and poverty at the California Museum on January 30, 2014. The Sacramento Bee/Alexei Koseff

via: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2014/01/maria-shriver.html

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2014/01/maria-shriver.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2014/01/maria-shriver.html#storylink=cpy

Statewide Day of Action

Join us this Friday, January 10th 

for our 

Statewide Day of Action

Choose a location nearest you and let your voice be heard!

San Francisco

Where: 350 McAllister Street

When: 12:00 pm

Contact: Pete Woiwode

(510) 504-9552

pete@communitychange.org

Sacramento

Where: Capitol Room TBD

When: 11:00 am or following

Governor Brown's statement

Contact: Pete Woiwode

(510) 504-9552

pete@communitychange.org

San Jose

Where: 200 E. Santa Clara St.

When: 10:00 am

Contact: Pete Woiwode

(510) 504-9552

pete@communitychange.org

Bakersfield

Where: Liberty Bell at 

1415 Truxton Ave., 93301

When: 12:00 pm

Contact: Paola Fernandez

(661) 378-7290

pfernandez@communitychange.org

Los Angeles

Where: State Building at

300 S. Spring Street, 90013

When: 12:00 pm

Contact: Astrid Campos

(714) 396-8242

acampos@communitychange.org

Riverside

Where: California Towers at

3737 Main Street, 92501

When: 11:30 am

Contact: Maribel Nunez

(562) 569-4051

mnunez@communitychange.org

The Republican War on Hungry Women: The Newly Invisibile and Undeserving Poor

While the rest of the world debates America's role in the Middle East or its use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the U.S. Congress is debating just how drastically it should cut food assistance to the 47 million Americans -- one out of seven people -- who suffer from "food insecurity," the popular euphemism for those who go hungry.

The U.S. Government began giving food stamps to the poor during the Great Depression. Even when I was a student in the 1960s, I received food stamps while unemployed during the summers. That concern for the hungry, however, has evaporated. The Republicans -- dominated by Tea Party policies -- are transforming the United States into a far less compassionate and more mean-spirited society.

The need is great. Since the Great Recession of 2008, the food stamp program, now called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), has doubled from $38 billion in 2008 to $78 billion in the last year. During 2012, 65 million Americans used SNAP for at least one a month, which means that one out of every five Americans became part of the swelling rolls of "needy families," most of whom are women and children.

Democrats defend the new debit card program, which can only be used to purchase food, as feeding needy Americans at a time of high unemployment and great poverty. Republicans, for their part, argue that the program is rife with fraud, that its recipients (who are mostly single mothers) are lazy and shiftless, and that we must make drastic cuts to reduce government spending. Their most Dickensian argument is that if you feed the poor, they won't want to work.

But as the New York Times economic columnist Paul Krugman has repeatedly pointed out, welfare entitlements, including the food debit card, are not only good for families; they are also good for the economy. People who receive such help spend the money immediately. Single mothers hold down multiple jobs at minimum wages to keep their family together. The debit card allows them to go shopping and to buy needed groceries. Such entitlements boost spending and the economy, rather than depleting it.

Despite these arguments, the cuts have already begun. On November 1, 2013, Congress cutnearly $5 billion from SNAP and Republicans now want to cut another $40 billion dollars. The stalemate has resulted in the failure of Congress to pass the farm bill, which provides SNAP subsidies to farms, mostly of which are large agricultural corporations.

Meanwhile, poverty grows, the stock market zooms to new heights, the wealth of the one percent increases, and corporate executives continue to get tax exemptions for business entertainment expenses, which allow corporations to deduct 50 percent of these costs from their annual taxes.

In all this discussion, the real face of poverty -- single mothers -- has strangely disappeared. Welfare policy in America has always favored mothers and children. In a country that values self-sufficiency and glorifies individualism, Americans have viewed men -- except war veterans -- as capable of caring for themselves, or part of the undeserving poor. Women, by contrast, were always viewed as mothers with dependents, people to be cared for and protected precisely because they are vulnerable and raise the next generation.

As I read dozens of think tank and government reports, and newspaper stories, however, I am surprised to notice that even strong opponents of the cuts describe SNAP's recipients as children, teenagers, seniors or the disabled. Why have single mothers disappear from such accounts about the poor? There are plenty of "needy families," "households," and "poor Americans," but the real face of poverty and the actual recipients of food assistance are single mothers, whose faces have been absorbed by the more abstract language of "poor Americans" and "needy households."

Even the strongest opponents of these cuts don't focus on women or mothers. Instead they publicize pinched-faced children -- a better poster image -- staring hungrily at food they cannot eat. Or, they discuss the public health impact these cuts may have on children. According to most reports, even from the Agriculture Department, "children and teenagers" make up almost half of the recipients of food assistance. But they don't mention the mothers who receive this assistance in order to feed those children and teenagers. From the stories about food stamps, you'd think that only children, teenagers, the elderly and the disabled have gone hungry.

The words "women" or even "mothers" rarely appear. In a powerful column against the cuts, the liberal and compassionate New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, for example, argued that "two-thirds of recipients are children, elderly or disabled" and warnedhis readers about the long-range impact of malnourished children. He, too, never mentioned women, who are the main adult recipients of the SNAP program and who feed those children, elderly or disabled. Nor did he point out that those who apply for such assistance are the mothers and women who seek to nourish these children. It's as though women are simply vehicles, not persons, in the reproduction process of the human race.

Yet the reality tells a different story. In 2010, for example, 42 percent of single mothersrelied on SNAP and in rural areas, the rate often rose as high as one-half of all single mothers. What's missing from this picture -- on both sides -- are the real faces of hunger, which are not "needy" families, or "poor Americans", but single mothers with "food insecurity" for themselves and their families. According to the Center for Budget Priorities, women are twice as likely to use food stamps as anyone else in the population. They are the ones who apply for the SNAP debit card, go shopping, takes buses for hours to find discounted food supplies, and try to stretch their food to last throughout the month for their children, teenagers and, less often, husbands. They are the pregnant women with older children whose infants are born malnourished, and the Americans who, at the end of the month, make hasty runs to relatives, food banks and even join other dumpster divers.

When journalists do focus on the women who are recipients of food assistance, they discover a nightmare hiding in plain sight. These women are either unemployed, under-employed or service workers who don't earn enough to feed themselves and their families. By the end of the month, they and their children frequently often skip meals or eat one meal a day until the next month's SNAP assistant arrives.

So why have women disappeared from a fierce national debate over who deserves food assistance? I'm not actually sure. Perhaps it is because so many adult women, like men, now work in the labour force and are viewed as individuals who should take care of themselves. Perhaps it is because Republicans find women's appetite, as opposed to that of children, an embarrassment, hinting at sexual desire. Perhaps it is because this is part of the Republican war on women's reproductive freedom -- a single mother with children is somehow guilty of bringing on her own poverty.

Whatever the reason, the rhetoric does not match the reality. Once in while, the media publishes or broadcasts a "human interest" story that gives poor women a face.

"It is late October," one reporter began, "so Adrianne Flowers is out of money to buy food for her family. Feeding five kids is expensive, and the roughly $600 in food stamps she gets from the federal government never lasts the whole month. 'I'm barely making it, said the 31-year-old Washington, D.C., resident and single mother."

End of story. On to weather and the sports.

For the most part, however, poor women remain invisible, even as the mothers who feed the children, teenagers, elderly and disable who live with them. They do not elicit compassion. If anything, they are ignored or regarded with contempt.

Whatever the reason, Americans are having a national debate about poor and needy Americans without addressing the very group whose poverty is the greatest. The result is that we are turning poor, single mothers, who are 85 percent of all single parents, into a newly invisible and undeserving group of recipients.

Republicans may view single mothers as sinful parasites who don't deserve food assistance. But behind every hungry child, teenager and elderly person is a hungry mother who is exhausted from trying to keep her family together. Women who receive food assistance are neither invisible nor undeserving. They are working-class heroes who work hard -- often at several minimal wage jobs -- to keep their families nourished and together.

This story originally appeared on openDemocray.net.

 

California still has highest poverty rate under new method

California still has - by a huge margin - the highest poverty rate of any state under an alternative Census Bureau calculation that includes the cost of living.

The Census Bureau report, issued Wednesday, says that nearly a quarter of California's 38 million residents live in poverty by the alternative method - almost 9 million - and the state's 23.8 percent rate is approached only by Washington, D.C.'s 22.7 percent.

Among other states, the second highest alternative poverty rate is found in Nevada at 19.8 percent while the lowest rates are found in Iowa (8.6 percent) and Wyoming (9.2 percent). Nationally, the alternative rate is 16 percent.while higher than the national official rate of 15.1 percent, it is surpassed by those of many other states.

The official rate is based on half-century-old criteria that have been criticized as being obsolete, leading the Census Bureau to develop the alternative method that uses broader indices, including the cost of living. The official rate assumes, in essence, that the cost of living is the same nationwide.

California scored the highest rate during the Census Bureau's first report on the alternative method and continues with that dubious title. A few weeks ago, the Public Policy Institute of California released a report using methodology similar to the Census Bureau's alternative and came up with similar results.

The official rate is used for a wide variety of federal and state programs. Were the alternative method to become the official one, there would be huge upheavals in those programs, possibly meaning a big jump in federal aid to California.

PHOTO: Kazoo Yang, 31, spent most of the day packing up her possessions as Sacramento police officers evict 150 homeless people from an illegal campground along the American River. The Sacramento Bee/Manny Crisostomo

via http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/11/california-still-has-highest-poverty-rate-under-new-method.html

L.A. County leads California in poverty rate, new analysis shows

Los Angeles has the highest poverty rate among California counties, according to a new analysis announced Monday that upends traditional views of rural and urban hardship by adding factors such as the soaring price of city housing.

The measurement, developed by researchers with the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, found that 2.6 million, or 27%, of Los Angeles County residents lived in poverty in 2011. The official poverty rate for the county, based on the U.S. Census' 2011 American Community Survey, is 18%.

The new analysis set California's poverty rate at 22%, the highest in the nation, compared with the official rate of 16%. Counties such as Placer and Sacramento, with more moderate housing costs, have lower poverty rates than those of metropolitan areas, researchers said.

"We always see maps of official poverty and think of the Central Valley as the most impoverished," said economist Sarah Bohn, a research fellow at the public policy institute and one of the study's authors. "This really turns that on its head."

The new model aims to present a fuller picture of poverty by taking into account living expenses and government benefits ignored in the official formula.

Social scientists have argued for decades that the federal definition of poverty, which dates to the early 1960s, falls short on two counts: ignoring the benefits of government aid, including food stamps, Social Security, subsidized housing and tax credits, and failing to account for regional cost differences in transportation, healthcare and housing.

The report released Monday found that although many Californians find it difficult to make ends meet, things would be much worse without state, federal and local safety net programs, including food stamps, CalWORKs and the earned income tax credit. Out-of-pocket medical costs, however, increase the hardship, particularly for Californians over 65, the report said.

The U.S. Census Bureau for the last two years has released its own alternative poverty rate that attempts to recalibrate the poverty threshold. The rate is for research purposes only, but if adopted nationally, it could lead to a dramatic redistribution of federal funding in state and local jurisdictions.

The new California estimates could add to the pressure for change.

"People in Los Angeles deserve more help from the federal government than people in Mississippi," said Dowell Myers, professor of policy, planning and development at USC.

Myers said there has been tremendous resistance to adjusting the poverty rate, "even when it makes total sense."

Daniel Flaming, president of the Economic Roundtable, cautioned the rural poor often have higher transportation costs and fewer social service agencies than their city counterparts.

The rural poor are isolated "and there are very few places to turn for help," he said.

gale.holland@latimes.com

Just Picking on the Poor: The Facts and the Faces of Cutting SNAP

Today, the House of Representatives votes on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly food stamps. The proposal would cut SNAP by nearly $40 billion over the next 10 years. These cuts would hurt millions of people, namely seniors and the poorest among us. But it will most heavily affect low-income families with children where the parent(s) work for a living but don't make enough to adequately feed their families. Working families with kids are 72 percent of all SNAP beneficiaries.

According to the Census Bureau, food stamps kept 4 million people out of poverty last year. The Congressional Budget Office reports that the House proposal would cut assistance to nearly 4 million low-income people in 2014 and an average of 3 million more each year for the next decade. Christian leaders across the evangelical, Catholic, Protestant, African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American church spectrum are reacting with moral outrageat this assault on the people that Jesus specifically instructs us to protect.

Many of these leaders are from the Circle of Protection, a coalition of more than 65 heads of denominations and religious organizations, plus more than 5,000 church pastors. We have been working for more than two years to resist federal budget cuts that undermine the lives, dignity, and rights of poor and vulnerable people.

Who are the pastors? They run across the political spectrum, but are characterized by one thing -- they actually know poor people, work with low-income families, and have SNAP beneficiaries in their congregations. All of the pastors I've ever talked to who know, work, and worship with those affected are adamantly opposed to these cuts because they know what they will mean to people they love.

One pastor I spoke to recently, a good man and friend, told me he was worried about government dependence, like the food stamp program. When I told him that the vast majority of food stamps go to working families with young children, and that they are usually only on the program temporarily during hard economic times; he said, "You should get that out." He didn't know the facts and the faces of SNAP. So many of us in the faith community have worked to tell the facts and show the faces -- to share our stories, to "get that out."

The program has enjoyed bipartisan support through the years, but now congressional Republicans are determined to cut these critical nutrition programs to America's hungry. Although SNAP benefits are modest (an average of less than $1.50 per person per meal), SNAP is the nation's foremost tool against hunger and hardship, particularly during recessions and periods of high unemployment. Currently, 47 million Americans benefitfrom SNAP, but that number is expected to be greatly reduced once the economy recovers. SNAP is designed to expand in periods of great need and contract when the economy is better.

Is it ignorance of how deep the problem of "food insecurity" or hunger is in America now? Is it just ideology against government per se? Because many poor people do have to turn for help to their governments, anti-government rhetoric can often turn to anti-poor rhetoric. Have you seen the Fox News "face" of a SNAP recipient -- a young blond California surfer who brags about cheating on food stamps? Why is Fox News lying? Why don't they tell the real facts and show the real faces of kids who are still hungry even though their parents work?

If you know the facts and faces of the hungry families that are helped by SNAP, I believe it is a moral and even religious problem to vote to cut funding for the program. The Bible clearly says that governmental authority includes the protection of the poor in particular, and instructs political rulers to promote their well-being. So the argument that the poor should just be left to churches and private charity is an unbiblical argument. I would be happy to debate that with any of our conservative Congressmen who keep telling our churches that we are the only ones who should care for the poor. To vote against feeding hungry people is un-Christian, un-Jewish, and goes against any moral inclination, religious or not.

Finally, for politicians to defend these SNAP cuts because of our need to cut spending in general is un-credible and incredible.

These same politicians are not willing to go to where the real money is: the Pentagon budget, which everyone knows to be the most wasteful in government spending, or the myriad subsidies to corporations, including agribusiness subsides to members of Congress who will be voting to cut SNAP for the poor.

Tea Party-elected Rep. Stephen Fincher, (R-Tenn.), who likes to bolster his anti-poor rhetoric with misused Bible verses, collected $3.5 million in farm subsidies between 1999 and 2012, according to the New York Times. Fincher is helping to lead the effort to cut food stamps to working families with children by illogically quoting: "The one who is unwilling to work should not eat," all the while collecting millions of dollars in agricultural subsidies. Congressman Fincher's position is hypocritical -- and it's this kind of hypocrisy that makes Christians look bad and turns young people away from the church.

You see, for many House conservatives this isn't really about SNAP, but about their opposition to the idea that as a society we have the responsibility to care for each other, even during the hard times or when resources are few. Conservatives know their ideas for privatizing Social Security or cutting funding to Medicare and Medicaid are politically unpopular, but their ideology of individualism that borders on social Darwinism remains unchanged. SNAP is the perfect target for them. The image of what it does and whom it serves has been widely distorted by the media, while the people who benefit from it have little influence in the halls of Congress and pose little risk to the political careers of Republican members.

They are going after cuts to the poor and hungry people because they think it is politically safe to do so. So let's call that what it is: moral hypocrisy. Our job, as people of faith, is to protect the poor and to make it politically unsafe for politicians to go after them -- to pick on the poor. So we will be watching who votes against feeding the hungry this week and will remember to bring that to public attention when they run for re-election.

We will be doing our own faith count today. Stay tuned for the results.

via: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-wallis/just-picking-on-the-poor_b_3956677.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics

One in Five California Seniors Live in Poverty

A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that one out of five California senior citizens lives in poverty. Nationally, the figure is 15 percent – far higher than the nine percent “official” figure (based on the federal poverty level) that is commonly used in such calculations.

This disturbing finding – which has serious implications for proposals under consideration in Washington to reduce cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security benefits – isn’t news to Greenlining. Two years ago, our report, “The Economic Crisis Facing Seniors of Color,” found much the same thing: Official stats greatly underestimate poverty among the elderly. And because they tend to have less in savings and are less likely to have a retirement plan at work, seniors of color are disproportionately likely to be poor.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: With a fair tax system – for example, one that doesn’t reward corporations for stashing profits in overseas tax havens – we wouldn’t need to even thinking about balancing the budget on the backs of the elderly.

via Greelining.org

More than 1 in 5 California children live in poverty, study finds

As California diversifies, it will face serious economic struggles if it fails to pay attention to widespread childhood poverty, according to a report released Monday by the Center for the Next Generation. The center found that more than 1 in 5 children in the state are living in poverty.

The study, "Prosperity Threatened: Perspectives on Childhood Poverty in California," focuses on new U.S. Census Bureau figures, finding that childhood poverty is endemic among the state’s fastest-growing population -- Latinos -- with nearly 1 in 3 Latino children living at or below the poverty line.

Researchers contrasted the numbers with data on seniors, which showed fewer than 1 in 10 living in poverty.

“We can’t honestly separate our state’s economic future from current poverty rates among our kids,” said Ann O’Leary, vice president and director of the center, who co-wrote the report. “Our ability to thrive as the world’s ninth-largest economy depends on having an educated, healthy and stable next generation of workers.

"We’re headed in the opposite direction,” she added.

The study, which was funded by the center, details a trend of increased childhood poverty in California that accelerated during the recession. And while childhood poverty fell in five California counties between 2006 and 2011, 16 counties saw a reduction in senior poverty during the same period.

Los Angeles County, with more than 9.6 million people, is home to nearly 2.4 million children -- more than 17% of whom live in poverty, according to the study.

Of 51 counties studied, L.A. County ranked 22nd in terms of poverty rate.

In Orange County, slightly more than 16% of the children live at or below the poverty line, according to the study.

“We’ve taken steps to provide our seniors with some level of assurance that they’ll be cared for in their later years,” said O’Leary, adding that the study, funded by the center's general budget, began last fall. “California’s grandparents should ask why their grandkids don’t get the same treatment.” 

The report noted a correlation between education levels and childhood poverty rates; counties with the highest number of parents with college degrees also have the lowest levels of childhood poverty. The opposite also is true, the study found.

O'Leary and her coauthors suggest that state leaders make tackling childhood poverty a central goal of any economic recovery plan.

The center's mission is to influence the national debate over sustainable energy and improving opportunities for children and families.

via LA Times