U.S. mayors launch effort to fight poverty

from Sign On San Diego

WASHINGTON – Governments should work with private enterprise to boost educational opportunities and the minimum wage to help millions of Americans who are stranded in poverty, U.S. mayors said in a report released Thursday.

“More than 37 million Americans are counted as officially poor and more children grow up in poverty in the United States than in any other leading industrialized nation,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told a meeting of the bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors, where the yearlong study was unveiled.

“Eleven million Americans can't read a bus schedule or fill out a job application,” said Villaraigosa, who presented recommendations for addressing the problems of persistent poverty and the erosion of the middle class.

The report, put together by the mayors' Task Force on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, called for a federal investment of $22.9 billion in high-quality early childhood education.

“We know the achievement gap starts before kindergarten,” said Villaraigosa, who chaired the task force.

The report also called on state and local governments to provide about $32 billion to retool public schools and modernize curricula.

The plan asked the private sector to join with governments and educators to develop work force education and training programs.

It also urged the federal government to boost the minimum wage and the earned income tax credit to help the working poor.

Villaraigosa, a Democrat, said mayors hoped the study would provoke a national debate about ways to begin addressing poverty. He said the recommendations came at a good time, with Democrats recently taking over Congress and the 2008 presidential election campaign getting started.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who co-chaired the task force, said mayors were not asking for a handout from Congress.

Kilpatrick, also a Democrat, said the plan was bipartisan and “mayors can use it no matter where they come from to be able to say, 'Here, this is what the mayors want from you, this is what the mayors want for ourselves and it's not just a tin cup saying give us some money.'”