The Barbara Ehrenreich explosion

We usually skip by opinion pieces, unless it's a slow news day. August 8th was a busy news day, it was also the day that Barbara Ehrenreich had her latest op-ed published by the New York Times. Since it's release it has set off a flurry of comment, blog posts, and debates.

Ehrenreich cites a recent study that was conducted by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which ranks the meanest towns to the homeless. The city is deemed "mean" if it's laws treat the homeless unfairly, such as prohibiting overnight sleeping or begging. Some cities are even going further by outlawing giving food to the homeless. You may remember our post about the survey from July.

A national law advocacy group has put a mid-sized Michigan city into the list of the meanest cities for homeless people. The study ranks the top ten cities that are unfriendly to the homeless, Kalamazoo, Michigan joins Los Angeles, Orlando, Atlanta and others.

The law center that complied the reports says some loitering laws Kalamazoo have are anti-homeless. From this story in the Kalamazoo Gazette, reporter Kathy Jessup explains.

The report, issued by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, put Kalamazoo in the top 10 alongside larger cities such as San Francisco, Atlanta and Orlando, Fla. Los Angeles was No. 1 in the ranking.

The groups said the rankings are based on factors that include "the number of anti-homeless laws in the city, the enforcement of those laws, the general political climate toward homeless people in the city and the city's history of criminalization measures."

According to the report, Kalamazoo's designation is based largely on a 2007 controversy over a city ordinance prohibiting overnight sleeping in public parks and on rules passed in 2008 for downtown's Kalamazoo Transportation Center that addressed loitering, panhandling and illegal substances.

The report says information on Kalamazoo's ordinances and arrests was provided by Michigan People's Action, formerly known as the Kalamazoo Homeless Action Network.

KHAN has been a longtime advocate for local homeless people and an outspoken critic of Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety enforcement practices. The network participated in 2007 talks that shaped the city's park-use, panhandling and loitering ordinances.
The report says dozens of homeless people were arrested in Kalamazoo in 2007 and 2008 for alleged violations in parks and at the transportation center.

Michael Evans, who was the lead organizer of KHAN and one of the people arrested, said most of the charges were eventually dropped after the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty provided legal assistance.

After citing the study Ehrenreich moves on to some interviews she did with homeless people and asked them about their treatment by the law. For our snippet, we jump to Ehrenreich's conclusions, which have helped to fire up the discussion. We hope that it begins turning people to this question; Which is ultimately cheaper for society, prosecuting the poor, or helping them out of poverty?

Some of the community organizers I’ve talked to around the country think they know why “zero tolerance” policing has ratcheted up since the recession began. Leonardo Vilchis of the Union de Vecinos, a community organization in Los Angeles, suspects that “poor people have become a source of revenue” for recession-starved cities, and that the police can always find a violation leading to a fine. If so, this is a singularly demented fund-raising strategy. At a Congressional hearing in June, the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers testified about the pervasive “overcriminalization of crimes that are not a risk to public safety,” like sleeping in a cardboard box or jumping turnstiles, which leads to expensively clogged courts and prisons.

A Pew Center study released in March found states spending a record $51.7 billion on corrections, an amount that the center judged, with an excess of moderation, to be “too much.”

But will it be enough — the collision of rising prison populations that we can’t afford and the criminalization of poverty — to force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment? With the number of people in poverty increasing (some estimates suggest it’s up to 45 million to 50 million, from 37 million in 2007) several states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty — for example, by sending drug offenders to treatment rather than jail, shortening probation and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missed court appointments. But others are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes” but also charging prisoners for their room and board — assuring that they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.

Maybe we can’t afford the measures that would begin to alleviate America’s growing poverty — affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation and so forth. I would argue otherwise, but for now I’d be content with a consensus that, if we can’t afford to truly help the poor, neither can we afford to go on tormenting them.

Book Excerpt from Barbara Ehrenreich

from the New York Times

Barbara Ehrenreich has a new book out called "This Land is Your Land" The New York Times had a excerpt from it. - Kale

By BARBARA EHRENREICH

Could You Afford to Be Poor?

There are people, concentrated in Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Beverly Hills, who still confuse poverty with the simple life. No cable TV, no altercations with the maid, no summer home maintenance issues — just the basics, like family, sunsets, and walks in the park. What they don’t know is that it’s expensive to be poor. In fact, you, the reader of middling income, could probably not afford it.

A 2006 study from the Brookings Institution documents the “ghetto tax,” or higher cost of living in low-income urban neighborhoods. It comes at you from every direction, from food prices to auto insurance. A few examples from this study, by Matt Fellowes, that covered twelve American cities:

• Poor people are less likely to have bank accounts, which can be expensive for those with low balances, and so they tend to cash their pay checks at check-cashing businesses, which, in the cities surveyed, charged $5 to $50 for a $500 check.

• Nationwide, low-income car buyers, defined as people earning less than $30,000 a year, pay 2 percentage points more for a car loan than more affluent buyers.

• Low-income drivers pay more for car insurance. In New York, Baltimore, and Hartford, they pay an average $400 more a year to insure the exact same car and driver risk as wealthier drivers.

• Poorer people pay an average of 1 percentage point more in mortgage interest.

• They are more likely to buy their furniture and appliances through pricey rent-to-own businesses. In Wisconsin, the study reports, a $200 rent-to-own TV set can cost $700 with the interest included.

• They are less likely to have access to large supermarkets and hence to rely on the far more expensive, and lower quality offerings, of small grocery and convenience stores.

I didn’t live in any ghettoes when I worked on Nickel and Dimed — a trailer park, yes, but no ghetto — and on my average wage of $7 an hour, or about $14,400 a year, I wasn’t in the market for furniture, a house, or a car. But the high cost of poverty was brought home to me within a few days of my entry into the low-wage life,when, slipping into social worker mode, I chastised a coworker for living in a motel room when it would be so much cheaper to rent an apartment. Her response: Where would she get the first month’s rent and security deposit it takes to pin down an apartment? The lack of that amount of capital — probably well over $1,000 — condemned her to paying $40 a night at the Day’s Inn.

Then there was the problem of sustenance. I had gone into the project imagining myself preparing vast quantities of cheap, nutritious soups and stews, which I would freeze and heat for dinner each day. But surprise: I didn’t have the proverbial pot to pee in, not to mention spices or Tupperware. A scouting trip to Kmart established that it would take about a $40 capital investment to get my kitchenette up to speed for the low-wage way of life.

The food situation got only more challenging when I, too, found myself living in a motel. Lacking a fridge and microwave, I had to get all my food from the nearest convenience store (hardboiled eggs and banana for breakfast) or, for the big meal of the day, Wendy’s or KFC. I have no nutritional complaints; after all, there is a veggie, or flecks of one, in Wendy’s broccoli and cheese baked potato. The problem was financial. Adouble cheeseburger and fries is a lot more expensive than that hypothetical homemade lentil stew. There are other tolls along the road well traveled by the working poor. If your credit is lousy, which it is likely to be, you’ll pay a higher deposit for a phone. If you don’t have health insurance, you may end up taking that feverish child to an emergency room, and please don’t think of ERs as socialized medicine for the poor. The average cost of a visit is over $1,000, which is more than ten times what a clinic pediatrician would charge. Or you neglect that hypertension, diabetes, or mystery lump until you end up with a $100,000 problem on your hands.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Poverty Takes Center Stage at FCCF Benefit

from the Greenwich Citizen

Ehrenreich: 'Working Poor' are Society's 'Major Philanthropists'
By PATRICIA McCORMACK

Poverty was the "food for thought" at a $250-a-head benefit luncheon Thursday in the swanky ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich.

Attending were 700 well-heeled women and a handful of well-off men from Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan, Fairfield, Norwalk, Westport and other towns along the county's gold coast. Among prominent women were Greenwich philanthropist Joan Warburg, and Mary Sullivan, widely admired for her workhorse campaigning during Ned Lamont's run for the U.S. Senate.

Prominent among men was Jim Himes, former Goldman-Sachs hand now engaged in affordable housing pursuits. Himes is also racing to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Shays in the Fourth Congressional District.

The luncheon centerpiece was an announcement about a record $400,000 in awards to nonprofit entities helping under-served women and girls across Fairfield County. The money will be distributed by the Fairfield County Community Foundation's unique Fund for Women and Girls. Himes is on the Foundation's board.

The main course on the "food for thought" menu was served up by Barbara Ehrenreich, peppery social critic and author from Key West, Fla. She revealed that she cut her eye-teeth in print journalism by using her scientific smarts to knock down a report that feminism causes heart disease in women. When Ehrenreich spoke of that wildly incorrect hypothesis, waves of laughter rose up and rocked the ballroom.

Her rebuttal was printed decades ago in a pioneer of Ms. Magazine, edited by super-feminist Gloria Steinem. The edition was so widely received that Ehrenreich, who holds a doctorate in biology from Rockefeller University, decided to make her living by writing.

After she tickled ribs with that anecdote, Ehrenreich got into the meat and potatoes of her conscience-pricking talk. It could have been titled Poverty 101.

Some of her revelations about poverty and minimum wage work by the working poor -especially single moms - caused some folks in the audience to squirm in their cushioned seats. Consider hearing that:

1. Single moms on the minimum wage job track can't afford decent housing, childcare, auto repairs or schooling to qualify for a career that will lift them out of poverty. (Single mom head of households in Fairfield County number 20,281, the Census Bureau reports.)

2. A big box store entry interview for a minimum wage job includes a mandatory urine sample to test for evidence of illegal drug use. Ehrenreich said the routine indignity is seen by Civil Libertarians as a violation of the Fourth Amendment right of freedom from unreasonable search - though most jobholders and applicants find it simply "embarrassing" when they are instructed to void in a plastic receptacle in front of a management representative.

3. In toiling at minimum wage jobs in Florida, Maine and Minnesota, Enrenreich found most stomach-churning was work as a waitress. She reported that grossly unsanitary conditions in a restaurant kitchen were routinely tolerated by management.

The bottom line in Ehrenreich's little instruction about the working poor: Though toiling long hours under demeaning and deplorable conditions, the "working poor" are the unsung "major philanthropists of our society."

"If they were paid a living wage, we all would have to spend more for their services - in hotels, restaurants and big-box stores," Ehrenreich contends.

She bases her premise on first-hand information gained by toiling in minimum wage - and less - jobs in Florida, Maine and Minnesota in the past.

In Maine, she cleaned houses - sometimes with an electric sweeper strapped on her back. The "maid service" employing her had the backpack appliance designed so crews could perform their menial work with a minimum of wasted time. The hose to the appliance was coiled around the waist. Maids were not allowed to use cuss words, smoke or chew gum. And it was taken for granted that hidden cameras were in motion when owners were absent.

In Florida, she toiled as a waitress with workers who were so poor they put partially-smoked cigarettes back in the package for later use. A "break" room had lockers where workers could store their street togs and other personal belongings. But a sign reminded that management has the right to search lockers at any time.

In Minnesota, Ehrenreich worked in a big-box store where she did all kinds of stuff when told. Making order out of chaos on tables and racks of clothes was a constant and vexing challenge. It was work, work, work. Never an idle minute. Rules about restroom breaks were so strictly enforced that one woman regularly wore adult diapers at her work station. During the entry interview at the big-box store Ehrenreich was promised $10 per-hour. That was a myth. Actual starting pay on her first paycheck was $7 per-hour. Overtime? Forget it.

Details of what Ehrenreich learned by becoming one of the "working poor" are between the covers of her landmark book - Nickle and Dimed: On (NOT) Getting By in America (Henry Hold and Co.). It made The New York Times Best-seller list and sold over a million copies. The paperback version, put out by Metropolitan/Owl, is $13.

The tome that chronicles Ehrenreich's attempt to live on minimum wage is now required reading at more than 600 colleges and universities - from the University of the Ozarks to Yale University.

Ehrenreich ends the book with a recommendation that people should feel shame at "our dependence. . . on the underpaid labor of others."

She declares in the book, as she did at the talk on Thursday, "When someone works for less pay than she can live on - when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently - then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life.

"The working poor - as they are approvingly-termed - are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.

"They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for.

"They live in substandard housing so that our homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high.

"Someday they are bound to tire of getting so little in return and to demand to be paid what they're worth.

"There will be a lot of anger when that day comes - and strikes and disruption.

"But the sky will not fall...and we will all be better off for it in the end."

Ehrenreich, a frequent contributor to Harper's and The Nation, has been a columnist at The New York Times and Time magazine. She was given the 2004 Nation Institute/Puffin prize for Creative Citizenship. The annual award goes to "an American who challenges the status quo through distinctive, courageous, imaginative, socially-responsible work of significance."

Now a grandmother of a certain age, Ehrenreich said she has great appreciation and much admiration for the never-seen housekeepers who made her room at the Hyatt perfect during her stay in Greenwich.

‘Nickel and Dimed’ author says poverty a major issue

from the Reporter Herald com

By Marisa Beahm
The Reporter-Herald
FORT COLLINS — Author and activist Barbara Ehrenreich wants to shatter people’s assumptions about the people who live in poverty.

“Poverty can hit anyone at any time, no matter how educated or well-credentialed you think you are,” she said during a speech Saturday.

Ehrenreich is known for her best-selling book “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” for which she studied working-class poverty by entering into the low-paid work force in three different states to see if she could make ends meet.

She brought the lessons from the experience to a crowd of about 600 at the Northside Aztlan Community Center in Fort Collins.

“(Ehrenreich) is an insightful social critic,” said April Biasiolli, a graduate student at Colorado State University who attended the luncheon talk.

The author of 18 books, Ehrenreich was the keynote speaker in the series “Life on a Shoestring: Perspectives on stepping out of poverty,” a six-week program featuring 40 events in Fort Collins to foster a community dialogue about poverty.

The time Ehrenreich spent working in low-wage positions, which included jobs as a maid, a waitress and at Wal-Mart, dismissed any notions the Ph.D. had that low-paying jobs were unchallenging.

“I will never use the word unskilled again,” Ehrenreich said. “Every job takes intelligence, skill, a great deal of concentration and deserves our respect.”

Ehrenreich said easy credit makes poverty look like less of an issue, because people can use credit cards as a crutch.

“Plenty of people have been living in a recession for a long, long time,” she said.

Another issue people face today is that a college degree doesn’t ensure a well-paid job anymore because of trends such as outsourcing, according to Ehrenreich.

“Poverty increases as high-tech jobs disappear,” Ehrenreich said.

To overcome poverty, Ehrenreich said society must treat it as a moral issue and focus on developing jobs that pay a living wage, not just a minimum wage.

A theater version of “Nickel and Dimed” is being performed by Open Stage Theatre through March 22 at the Lincoln Center.

“It made everybody squirm, and that is a good thing,” said Carol Bennis, executive director of Beet Street, a nonprofit that fosters creativity through diverse cultural experiences and programming.

In addition to Beet Street, Life on a Shoestring is also sponsored by WomenGive, a women’s leadership initiative with United Way that addresses economic self-sufficiency for women and girls in Larimer County.

Series to focus on local poverty

from The Coloradoan

BY TREVOR HUGHES
TrevorHughes@coloradoan.com

Community leaders trying to fight Fort Collins' rising poverty have enlisted the help of internationally acclaimed author Barbara Ehrenreich, a local performance troupe and high school students from around the area.

It's all part of a monthlong effort called "Life on a Shoestring: Perspectives on Stepping out of Poverty."

According to Census data, the rate of poverty for children living in Fort Collins increased 132 percent from 2000 to 2006. A 62 percent increase in the overall poverty rate during that time meant almost 20 percent of all Fort Collins residents were living at or near poverty levels.

Organizers hope the month's worth of events will raise awareness of the growing problem and put the city on track to address it.

"We are overwhelmed with the community's response to this landmark dialog. In our efforts to create a forum where our community can benefit from considering varied perspectives and best practices from other regions of the country, we never imagined that this thematic series would grow into a six-week series," said Carol Dennis, executive director of Beet Street, one of the organizations behind the series, in a statement.

"We believe this series offers something for everyone concerned with the increasing rate of poverty in our community."

The series’ first event is Tuesday, with a panel discussion of poverty issues. Ehrenreich, the author of “Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” a book about trying to live on a low wage, is giving a private reception Friday evening. Also Friday, OpenStage Theatre and Company will perform a play based on her book.

In her book, Ehrenreich chronicles her repeated attempts to live on low-wage jobs, forgoing her college degrees and connections for a series of low-rent motels and apartments. She worked as a cleaning lady, waitress and Wal-Mart stocker, each time finding it very difficult to live happily and healthily without a good-paying job.
In the introduction to her book, Ehrenreich said she wanted to understand what it was like to be poor in America.

“With all the real-life assets I’ve built up in middle age — bank account, IRA, health insurance, multi-room home — waiting indulgently in the background, there was no way I was going to ‘experience poverty’ or find out how it ‘really feels’ to be a long-term low-wage worker,” Ehrenreich said. “My aim here was much more straightforward and objective — just to see whether I could match income to expenses, as the truly poor attempt to do every day.”

On Saturday, Ehrenreich will give the keynote address during a lunch at the city’s Northside Aztlan Community Center. She also will take audience questions and sign her book.

The Life on a Shoestring series runs Tuesday through March 22. Other events include an evening discussion on the best practices of other communities by author/trainer Phil DeVol.

The communitywide series is a collaborative effort of Beet Street and WomenGive, a leadership initiative of United Way of Larimer County in partnership with the Women’s Foundation of Colorado.

‘Project Promise’ raises awareness to poverty issue

from The Appleton Post Crescent

By Kathy Walsh Nufer
Post-Crescent staff writer

Barbara Ehrenreich had to experience what it was like to live in poverty.

The journalist descended into the ranks of the working poor by taking minimum-wage jobs in three cities, a month at a time. In the process, she experienced first-hand the struggle to make ends meet.

During the next several weeks, Fox Cities public libraries are scheduling talks featuring “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” a New York Times bestseller, written by Ehrenreich.

Ehrenreich’s book is central to the Fox Cities “Project Promise” poverty awareness initiative. Part of the four-month program is a “community read” of her book chronicling daily life for millions of Americans working at low-paying jobs.

Speaking to more than 250 business and community leaders at a kickoff breakfast for the campaign Thursday, Appleton Mayor Tim Hanna noted that while the city has participated in the program once before, “Nickel and Dimed” is the first “Fox Cities Reads” in recognition that this issue does not affect just one municipality.

“Many things unite the Fox Cities into a broader community and unfortunately one of them is poverty,” Hanna said. “’Nickel and Dimed’ speaks powerfully to concerns in our society and how people get by or don’t get by.”

According to a recent LIFE study, an estimated 21,600 local residents live in poverty based on the 2006 federal poverty level of $19,350 for a family of four.

Study sponsors are United Way Fox Cities, The Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Fox Cities Economic Development Partnership and the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region.

“Nickel and Dimed,” selected in a public vote last spring, was to be the Appleton Public Library’s second planned “community read” but has since become part of the broader Project Promise effort sponsored by the Community Health Action Team led by ThedaCare, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and the Appleton Public Library Foundation.

“All Fox Cities libraries are embracing this,” said Michael Kenney, Appleton Public Library spokesman.

Fox Valley Technical College students also are reading the book in their second semester classes.

“The purpose behind ‘Fox Cities Reads’ is to get people reading and talking,” Kenney said. “We’re trying to drive home awareness, education and action. Perhaps if eyes are opened that poverty exists here, we may, in our own way, be able to help resolve this.”

The book can be checked out at a participating library or purchased at Conkey’s and other bookstores. The Appleton Public Library has 350 copies available.

Those who wish to participate in Fox Cities Reads should contact their library. The community book read will conclude with a visit from Ehrenreich April 17. She will speak at 7 p.m. at the Appleton Public Library.

In addition to the “book read,” Project Promise offers diversity circles to discuss poverty in the Fox Cities, poverty simulations put on by CAP Services and financial education programs by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and the Financial and Information Service Center (FISC).

Project Promise will conclude with an action forum from 6:30 to 9 p.m. April 30 at the Appleton Public Library.

Kathy Walsh Nufer can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 290, or knufer@postcrescent.com.

Mayor promotes poverty awareness

from The Free New Mexican

By HENRY M. LOPEZ

Mayor David Coss, following the likes of Oprah Winfrey, is encouraging people to read and think more about poverty.

Coss spoke outside the Santa Fe Public Library on Wednesday afternoon to announce a "community read" of Nickel and Dimed: On Getting by (or not) in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. The author -- who traveled across the country working low-wage jobs for the book -- will speak at the Lensic Performing Arts Center on March 11, an event sponsored by the Santa Fe Living Wage Network.

"This communitywide read is a new way for Santa Feans to continue the discussion of how to deal with the very serious issue of poverty in our community," said Coss, who has yet to read the book.

As part of the community read, Coss said, the city will sponsor a panel discussion and other events to spur conversation on poverty, but dates were not announced Wednesday. City spokeswoman Laura Banish said the city was looking for locations to show films about issues of poverty.

The library is stocking up on the Ehrenreich book and expects to have 28 copies available by week's end, said Pat Hodapp, library services director.

The library also has published a short list of films and other books that might be of interest. The city Web site contains a list of questions one might want to consider while reading or watching titles from the library list.

The "community read" might be a first for Santa Fe, but other cities have organized similar events. Pasadena, Calif., is reading Distant Land of My Father by Bo Caldwell, and Santa Monica, Calif., has selected The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Coss made his announcement two days before he convenes a 25-member panel charged with recommending ways to end homelessness in Santa Fe in five years. It came the same day the U.S. House of Representatives passed a federal minimum-wage hike.

"All American workers deserve to be paid a dignified wage that will allow them to provide for themselves and their families," said Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., who voted for the federal increase in a statement Wednesday. "And raising the minimum wage is the first step to a stronger economy for all Americans, not just for a privileged few."

The Democrat-backed minimum wage bill would increase the federally mandated $5.15 per hour wage to $7.25 per hour over 26 months.

The minimum wage in Santa Fe -- the highest of its kind in the United States -- is $9.50 for those employed by firms with at least 25 employees. The City Council will vote late this year on whether to increase the rate to $10.50 per hour in 2008. Coss -- who has become a national figure among those advocating so-called living wages -- said hiking the minimum is only one component in addressing poverty.

"It's wages, it's housing, it's health care costs, and it's education," the mayor said. "As an administration and as a community, we have been addressing these issues with affordable housing, with wages and with work-force development."

The City Council in 2005 adopted an aggressive housing ordinance that requires 30 percent of the homes in new, large subdivisions to meet city affordability standards.

The city also is pursuing development of affordable housing in the Northwest Quadrant. The mayor and City Councilor Carmichael Dominguez are promoting a joint effort with Santa Fe Public Schools to develop a work-force training center.

Coss said the city will work with Santa Fe Public Schools and the Living Wage Network to bring into the March events people dealing with poverty in their everyday lives.

ON THE WEB

http://santafenm.gov/hottopics/nickledanddimedbrochure2.pdf