Who’s Fighting for the Working Poor?
By HHR | July 2nd, 2009 | Category: General, Politics |by Brandon Brice
In 2008 Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards, despite his recent allegations of infidelity, placed a large amount of emphasis on sustaining the working poor in America. In one speech, Sen. Edwards talked about the idea of two Americans.
In the United States the working poor consists of just that, families who earn less than three times that of the federal poverty level On average it’s estimated that two in five American families are considered the “working poor”. In 2008 50% of average American households consist of one parent working full-time or a parent that only has a high-school diploma. Sadly, 2/3 of the statistics are comprised in urban and rural settings throughout the United States, thus concluding that the 2008 election was about “class warfare”.
Realistically, there are hundreds of thousands of families that are defined as the “working poor”; many American voters have jobs or employment that compensates far less than average workers for the same work. Perhaps its local employers are exploiting workers because of lack of education, or information regarding minimum wage requirements, etc. What makes these jobs less sustainable is the small amount of hours that are accessible and the less benefits being offered to these workers.
Other symptoms of families entering the into the working poor phase is that families tend to have additional children than affordable, tend to be less educated (high school diploma-GED), no male counterpart or senior head of household, less likely to be married or having a spouse, which diminishes the chance of a second income for sufficiency from the federal government.
In the case of minorities, African American households and Hispanic-Latino communities have lower educational achievement rates, which effects performance overall in the workplace. Much of the issues relating to the working poor are correlated with work experiences related to technological skills and trades in an economy that is constantly re-creating itself.
So what are the solutions to changing the status of working poor families’ throughout the United States? Perhaps first we should increase but reform housing subsidies, EBT food stamp opportunities and offer a realistic medicaid healthcare package with the emphasis on preventative measures for working men and women. Another real problem regarding employment is transportation which is a major issue amongst working families residing in rural areas commuting into inner city jobs.One solution is to increase the minimum wage according to the average standard of living.
Reciprocating this approach of raising the minimum wage, should empower the working poor to seek more additional educational training for long term employment. Other incentives for the working poor are to offer early morning and/or evening courses for parents with children and if the federal government wants to get involved Congress should offer a financial tuition remission for only working families.
The GOP has the perfect opportunity to build the capacity for identifying all barriers for working families nationwide and offer real solutions. The GOP must first address the issues of housing, transportation, and training and education opportunities in urban minority communities. The Republican Party in 2010 and 2012, regardless of the candidate, should set the tone for supporting the “working poor” consisting of working parents, working families and working seniors in order for the working poor to successfully move to self-sufficiency and self sustainability.”
Brandon Brice is a graduate of Howard University and is a former fellow of the New Jersey Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. As a long time member of Republicans for Black Empowerment, Brandon is an active contribute to HipHopRepublicans.com. Brandon Brice has worked as a policy intern for the former House Speaker Honorable J. Dennis Hastert and has served as a fellow at the United Nations. He has been featured on C-SPAN’s Road to the White House, BET’s What’s At Stake, Fox News Strategy Room, Hannity, Fox & Friends and Hot97 with Lisa Evers. Brandon is a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc, and attends the Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church.
Your not aware that the GOP is dead set against any of your solutions which you didn’t come up with in the first place. And like most of the post’s on this site everything comes from studies and polls. Both are the tools of those trying to find out about something they no nothing about. Not from real world knowledge but second hand knowledge from those that look in from the outside.
There are a lot of factors that keep blacks, latinos, and whites in cycles of poverty but you didn’t touch on them because you would have no way of knowing.
The republican party fights against the working poor. If you want to fight for the working poor fight against your own party who is the first to cut funding to our schools. Who’s corporate masters raise the prices on everything raising the cost of living every time the minimum wage goes up. Who only wants to cut food stamps and is in the pocket of the medical insurance companies that drive your anti universal healthcare stance. Who’s anti union/pro low paying exploiters of the working poor, thus preventing the working poor from coming together in a manner that would better their situation giving them some type of power.
Your party in it’s current form calls the solutions you suggested Socialism.
I am very proud of our working poor. They are not a problem or issue they are the solution. These are the families that struggle and scrape and claw their way out of the ghetto. Our job is to make sure conditions are in place that will reward the hard work and sacrifice.
What percentage of the working poor are First Generation American? Immigrants? I know many working poor families that manage to send money back home even with the 3 minimum wage jobs and the 4 children.
This attitude of struggle and hard work is what has made America strong it should not be spoken of as a problem but celebrated as one of our dearest virtues.
Yes we need education so the next generation is better off built this generation has to pay its due!
Jason your comments are starting to look like spam all of them seem childlike and irrational. I know you hate Republicans but please stop exaggerating and becoming the dramma queen of commentators.
Great Article, Brandon! Jason you obviously did not read and reflect on his article before commenting. Claiming that the GOP is opposed to Brandons solutions shows an ignorance of the Republican Party and its various coalitions. There is no God Father type figure in the GOP, there are various schools of thoughts and from time to time these schools of thoughts may dominate. This does not mean that there are not other people in the party who agree and run on platforms similar to Brandon. The more conservative the candidate the more likely he will run counter to such issues the more centrist he may adopt some of them. The same is true of conservative and liberal Democrats. There may be people who call it socialism just like some on the left refer to free markets as a cruel attempt to subvert the poor. There are extremes in both parties and they both make extreme statements to make there points. This in itself does not fairly sum up the overall feeling of the diverse people within that party.
Lets see…GWB votes AGAINST heath insurance for working poor, regardless of race…..Fed Chmn Alan Greenspan delivers a speech at the WSJ (’95?) in which he brags that… “his job as Fed Chrmn was to manipulate the economy to INCREASE worker INSECURITY!!” Katrina was an “Ethnic Cleansing” by neglect…IMO Yup, the Repukes sure are looking out for the working poor all right there Profé…
I’m reading this article then reading the comments and I can’t help but feel like none of you are actually part of the working poor. Great article.. ..what now? I am a proud mother of a 2 yr old little boy, FT employee, and FT student. I work for a company that cut my pay because they lost the contract for the building I worked in. I can barely pay my rent (which I was only able to pay half of this month), let alone put groceries in my house. I struggle to pay my sons school tuition because I want him in an atmosphere where he’s being taught. Not just playing until I get off. We have full coverage health insurance through my employer which costs an arm and a leg but I “over qualify” for anything else. I can’t get EBT Food Stamps because I “over qualify.” The maximum income for a family of 2 is $1510 GROSS - monthly. Unless you’re broken, on the streets, with multiple children it seems you have no options for assistance or help. So I make the decision constantly on food or electricity. Water or gas. Rent or child care. Every month is comes down to who will be more lenient. I cry every night because I don’t understand how I can be such a positive person, do everything right and STILL struggle. So while you all argue about what political groups care the most or who dropped the ball, I’ll continue to cry for my family and the hundreds like mine.
I think the notion that a government of a free market system can solve this problem is false. I would like to see a local social program that gives poor people rides to work, maybe even helps them procure transportation for themselves. This would be much more efficient than trying to expand a bus or rail system that is already insolvent. As for the other contributing factors to being one of the working poor, government is incapable of helping. Poverty is a state of mind, not a state of money. I may be broke from time to time in my life but I will never be poor. I don’t have a degree. But I can support myself, a child, allow my wife to stay at home with the kids, own a house, two cars and so on. Some people will always be poor because they can’t unlearn the social contructs of poverty.