How the Safety Net Is Failing Americans and How to Fix It
Jobs bill needed now to repair safety net!
Lawrence Summers the White House economic adviser says “everybody agrees that the recession is over.” The recession may be over in Washington but it is not over in NJ!
Unemployment has remained at 10% for another month. The true numbers are much higher.
In a recent op-ed Peter Edelman and Barbara Ehrenreich, who are among the co-authors of “Battered by the Storm,” a report released last year by the Institute for Policy Studies, stated:
According to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, the number of homeless Americans is up by 61 percent since the recession began in December 2007. That figure will only continue to rise. The number of people living in poverty increased by 2.5 million during the first year of the recession, and it has surely risen further in 2009. The government reported recently that nearly 50 million Americans are experiencing what it delicately calls “food insecurity.”
Among the key findings of Battered by the Storm: How the Safety Net Is Failing Americans and How to Fix It are:
- Levels of long-term unemployment, underemployment and discouraged workers are reaching historic levels;
- The percentage of poor children receiving temporary assistance under TANF (the main federal “welfare” program) has fallen from 62% in 1995 to 22% in 2008;
- TANF benefits are far from sufficient to support the families that depend on them: 2008 assistance payments averaged only 29% of the money needed to bring families up to the official poverty line;
- Even while labor force participation of mothers has increased, the supply of affordable child care has lagged behind, creating a significant barrier to employment for many, especially single mothers; and
- Roughly 57% of unemployed people are receiving unemployment compensation; for those receiving benefits, amounts are less than half of wages, and many are losing work-related health benefits.
The social safety net has eroded over the past 30 years, failing millions of Americans.
Click here to read the full report.
The US Senate is currently drafting its version of a jobs bill. The House approved a $154 billion dollar plan that included funding for the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF). It did not include additional funding for the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing program (HPRP). The Senate return on January 19th and is expected to develop a more modest response to the crisis. A vote is expected in February.
Over the next few weeks we will be providing additional information and calls to action to support a robust jobs bill that funds both the NHTF and HPRP.
Even if the recession is over, it continues to ravage as many as one out of every six Americans.
Ad Edelman and EEhrenreich stated in their op-ed, “We need a massive emergency relief package not only to fund new jobs but to repair the grievous holes in our national safety net. Fifty million people need help now — not in three months or six months, but today.”
