Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your profession is what you were put on earth to do. With such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.
-VINCENT VAN GOGH, DUTCH
POSTIMPRESSIONIST PAINTER
Another Day, Another Dollar
How do you feel about the work you do? Most of us at some time have had one of those jobs where the minutes drag by and we count the days until we can finally pick up a paycheck and enjoy the weekend. Then there are those jobs that feel more like a calling, where the time flies and at the end of the day we have a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. And at some time in our lives, each of us has most likely known what it feels like to be unemployed or underemployed.
With living wages and full employment, we can create a path out of poverty. UN Millennium Development Goal 1, eradicating extreme hunger and poverty, has a target of cutting in half by 2015 the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day.
"Working poor" should be an oxymoron, yet the reality is that millions of people in our nation and billions around the world work hard at jobs every day and still find themselves in poverty. In the United States, about 37 million people (one in eight) live in poverty even though most of them work. Around the world one out of every five people earns less than $1 a day. At worst millions are forced to beg and scavenge or are trafficked as modern-day slaves-bought and sold into prostitution, domestic servitude, or agricultural work.
Let's work for a world where everyone's work pays, and people have the job training, health coverage, child care, and other services they need in order to do their work. Let's work to establish a reliable safety net for when people's jobs fall through or when they just don't pay a living wage.
Imagine This…
Imagine working full-time, year-round in a minimum-wage job and still being poor. In recent decades the minimum wage has been less than what is necessary to even reach the poverty line, as established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Based on the 2006 poverty line of $16,600 for a family of three, the federal minimum wage would need to be set at almost $8 per hour for the family to break through the poverty line. What does it feel like to work hard, play by the rules, and still be poor?
Working to End Poverty
LEARN
Visit the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign Web site for information, resources, and action ideas for your place of worship or community group.
Get new insights into work and poverty challenges in the United States by reading Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich; No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City by Katherine S. Newman; Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us by Holly Sklar, Laryssa Mykyta, and Susan Wefald; and Growing Up Poor: A Literary Anthology edited by Robert Coles and Randy Testa with Michael Coles. Read them on your own or suggest them for your book group or a class in your place of worship.
Order a documentary DVD or book from and view or read it with others to learn about modern-day slavery and how we can help end it. Download the free Education Pack to use in schools or with a religious youth group.
Explore Wider Opportunities for Women for strategies for improving women's employment, including the Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Project, Work4 Women, and Workplace Solutions.
Invite a speaker who is knowledgeable about human trafficking to speak at your workplace, civic group, or place of worship to raise awareness and develop advocates. Possible sources of speakers include refugee and immigration groups.
Read chapter 11 about microcredit-small loans for self-employment-to learn more about how this tool helps people profit from their hard work and move out of poverty. See chapter 6 for ways to support agricultural workers.
Watch, and discuss with friends, movies about who manufactures what and how, such as Mardi Gras: Made in China (2005), about Mardi Gras beads (used as a fund-raiser for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts), and Waging a Living (2006), a PBS documentary that tests the mantra "get a job" to see if the "working poor" can pull themselves and their families out of poverty, tracking the ups and downs of four ethnically diverse Americans living below the poverty line as they struggle to make ends meet over a three-year period.
Refer to chapter 7 for resources to ensure that the goods you purchase were produced without labor exploitation.
CONTRIBUTE
Donate good-quality work suits to organizations supporting entry into the workforce, such as Dress for Success , so that unemployed people can make a good impression in job interviews. Encourage friends and colleagues to do the same, or coordinate a Send One Suit Week drive.
Contact a high-quality child-care program and then work with others to raise funds for child-care scholarships or subsidies for low-income families. Or house a weekday child-care program in your place of worship. Having available, affordable, high-quality child care can make or break someone's ability to get and keep a job.
Shop at stores like Ten Thousand Villages that provide a market for people in developing countries to sell and profit from their work.
Contribute to organizations working to protect people from exploitation and provide sustainable livings, such as Shared Hope International and Women for Women International .
Don't underestimate your expertise. A few years ago, the Foleys, a Maine couple who own a bed-and-breakfast (B&B), traveled to Armenia to consult with Armenian B&B owners to help develop the hospitality industry there. As International Executive Service Corps volunteers, they drew on their experience to offer suggestions about services, pricing, and marketing.
SERVE
Sign up to help with free tax preparation so low-income workers receive all of the benefits for which they are eligible, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, or work with your place of worship to host such a site. For more information visit the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Web site . For a list of VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) sites, visit or call 1-800-TAx-1040.
Partner with a family transitioning off TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, commonly known as welfare) to provide emotional support and practical assistance. Work through a welfare-to-work site or a community social service agency to arrange the partnership.
Help prepare résumés or polish job interview skills. Work through a community agency to connect with people who need such assistance.
Volunteer to visit schools in low-income communities to talk about your job. Encourage others to participate in "career days."
Advocate for programs and policies that support people's ability to work and provide for their families, such as the minimum wage, the Earned Income Tax Credit, child-care subsidies, unemployment insurance, and safety-net programs that protect children from the worst aspects of poverty. These programs include food stamps; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); Medicaid; the State Children's Health Insurance Program; and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Organizations such as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Children's Defense Fund provide resources to support advocates.
Participate in grassroots organizing for change in your community. ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now , is the nation's largest community organization of low-and moderate-income families in neighborhood chapters in cities in the United States and other countries, working to improve job conditions, wages, housing, health care, schools, neighborhood safety, and more.
Be a voice in your community for more local job training and education funding.
Through your workplace arrange for internships, apprenticeships, and "job shadowing" opportunities for young people who might not otherwise have ready access to work culture, opportunities, and connections that will prepare them for success when they enter the workforce as adults.
Speak out against human trafficking. Connect with an organization like Free the Slaves for advocacy information and support. Call the Trafficking Information and Referral Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 for a referral to an appropriate organization that can help if you think someone is a victim of human trafficking. If the suspected victim is a minor, contact local child protection authorities.
Volunteer with a community organization to help eligible families receive antipoverty assistance such as food stamps, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and child support.
LIVE
Pay a living wage if you employ people in your business-and encourage others to do so.
Pay a living wage if you employ people in your home (for instance, to provide child care or house cleaning).
Provide employees with more job training and/or help with child care, if you employ people.
Live on less. Reduce your monthly living expenses by a certain percentage and commit the money saved to an organization helping people move out of poverty.
Actions Make a Difference
Mildred Lacen works full-time while raising her three children and three foster children in New York. When her taxes were prepared at a free tax assistance site and she qualified for the Earned Income Tax Credit, she received a $7,000 refund-more than a quarter of what she earned working the previous year. It not only helped her pay bills but, she reports proudly, "I was able to put that away and save it toward a down payment on my house." If every qualifying family with children in our nation received all of the cash benefits, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, and food assistance for which they are eligible, according to the Children's Defense Fund, child poverty would be reduced by 20 percent and the number of families living in extreme poverty would be reduced by 70 percent.