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WORKING POOR
Status Report
The 2000 U.S. Census and follow-up studies in 2001 revealed some
disturbing truths about LA County. Most dramatically there was
a huge increase in the number of fully employed individuals and
families who were nonetheless officially poor or close to it during
the supposedly prosperous 1990s. Factoring in the true cost of
living here (as compared to the national average cost of living
by which the federal government measures poverty), the increase
in the number of poor working people here is astronomical. According
to a study by Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, fully 4.1
million people here (43% of the population) does not earn enough
to meet the local cost of living.
Hunger and malnutrition are widespread. The County Health Dept.
found in 2000 that 1.3 million people here are "food insecure,"
meaning they could not be sure where there next meal was coming
from, and another nearly 600,000 had experienced intermittent
periods of hunger.
How do these families and individuals manage? They line up at
charity pantries for food. They fill up with starches, putting
their health at risk. They double and triple up in their living
quarters, causing intense friction that shows up in more disturbed
or drug-escaping children and more battered women and children.
They often go without utilities. Increasingly they end up on the
streets or in shelters. Try holding a job while living in a shelter
or on the streets, and you know what a real challenge is.
In stark contrast, the county also houses the largest number
of wealthy people in the U.S. and a large and prosperous upper
middle class. (The rest of the middle class is vanishing or doing
worse than in 1990.)
Key factors in "working poverty" are high rents (resulting
from a major housing shortage), high utility charges and a large
low-wage economy. Also, increases in the minimum wage have been
few and far between and have lagged way behind the rise in the
cost of living. The minimum wage would have to be more than doubled
to provide a "living wage" that met local costs. Many
immigrants work in sweatshops that don’t even pay minimum
wage. For budget reasons, the state has only a handful of inspectors
looking at illegal pay rates.
Some statistics:
During the 1990’s, poor families (as measured by actual
cost of living) rose from 36% to 43% of the county’s population.
The number of working poor increased by 34% while overall employment
increased by less than 5% in the 1990’s.
Nearly 60% of LA’s working poor do not have health care coverage.
Solutions:
Organizations that work on comprehensive solutions quite naturally
focus on the major factors. The need for a government-private
partnership to build a massive number of new housing units to
bring down rent costs and to subsidize renting or owning those
units. A vast expansion of the food stamp program to insure that
everyone can eat properly. Higher wage levels – going from
"minimum wage" to "living wage." Health insurance
for all. Bigger and better education programs to allow working
people to improve their skills
Efforts are underway in all these areas with strikingly mixed
results. On the positive side, both the city of LA and the state
of California have approved new Housing Trust Funds that will
create more units. Meanwhile, the federal government has authorized
a very slight expansion of the food stamp program and has placed
sanctions on LA County for its poor handling of the current program.
On the negative side, the Bush administration has cut the housing
budget and, except for food stamps, also cut virtually all other
support services for the poor, including education, and has resisted
increases in the minimum wage. It also provided less funds than
the Clinton administration to LA County’s public health system,
relied on by most working poor people, thereby forcing the county
to close clinics and jeopardizing the county hospital system.
Campaigns underway by a variety or organizations include expansion
of the LA City Living Wage Ordinance to other areas of the county.
What You Can Do
You can become a Poverty Advocate (click
here ) and help enact public policy changes (which is the
greatest need, simply because non-government efforts are overwhelmed
and can’t possibly keep up with the magnitude of the need).
Or you can send Donations to SHARE with the OTHER LA (click
here ) and thereby help us mobilize your neighbors to step
in and help!
If you want to help in any one of innumerable ways more directly
to lift up the lives of working poor, you can find opportunities
to do so by Clicking Here for a list
of Volunteer Opportunities.
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