July Task Force Meeting-July 18, 2012

July 2012 Meeting of the Economic Opportunity Poverty Reduction Task Force 

You, your constituents and your partner organizations are invited to attend the “Creating a New Plan-Strategies for Employment and Education” meeting

This subject is especially timely since current figures show that Colorado’s increased unemployment rate is 8.1%-the same as the national unemployment rate-ranking us 34th in the nation. Developing educational strategies and matching job skills and training with areas of job growth are critical to reducing poverty among Colorado’s most vulnerable populations. We are prompted by the new information memo from the Administration of Children and Families, which now allows states to request “work participation waivers” in an effort to spark innovative ideas for enhancing employment for TANF recipients. Sound familiar? It should—we called it SB12-139 last session.

Date:         July 18, 2011              Time:         3:30 pm-5:30 pm
 

Location:     Capitol Building (200 Colfax, Denv)    Committee Room 0112

PROPOSED AGENDA:

3:30-3:45 Call to order/introductions-- Senator Hudak

3:45-4:00 Employment & Education Strategies presentation 4:00-4:30 Discussion and approval of strategies for plan inclusion

4:30-4:45 Quick Break (snacks, bathroom, etc)

4:45-5:15 Brainstorming-What’s missing in this section of the plan? Who knows of “what’s working” for website nomination? What are legislative ideas for 2013?

5:15-5:30 Announcements and Wrap Up   

PPACA and its Impact on Colorado's Working Poor

The hoopla is over and we're back to the everyday grind. In two days we'll be celebrating another year of independence for the country. This year there may be a pause, a consideration and a moment of wonder for The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. No matter how you slice it, or call it, this piece of legislation demonstrates the power of commitment to a common agenda. What will it mean for Colorado's working poor? Well, first and foremost it will increase access to many underserved communities. According to Barbara L. Wolfe, from the Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison, the increase in funding for community health centers will bring more service providers to neighborhoods (especially rural) who have little to no access now. For more on how implementation will decrease barriers to access read "Health Care Reform and Low-Income Families: New Costs, Lower Burdens".

YouTube Activist Channel

"The Human Rights Channel will be overseen by Witness, an international nonprofit organization that has been using video to help activists document human rights abuses for almost 20 years. They are working with Storyful, a news gathering and curation operation that will help provide verification of videos uploaded onto the platform." ~ The New York Times Check out the New York Times Story here. Here is a link straight to The Human Rights Channel.

Reading Room for a shade respite on a hot summer's day

One of the ways we can mitigate poverty is to rethink banking.  Advocates for public communal banking assembled in Philadelphia some weeks ago to plan for and promote a more sustainable financing system for states, modeled on the bank of North Dakota and the one time public bank of Canada (1938-1974).

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9658-how-big-banks-run-the-world-at-your-expense

Also, a 12 year old Canadian girl explains public banking far more clearly and concisely than I can.

http://www.alternet.org/story/155700/12-year-old_girl_explains_what_most_economists_can%27t_about_money_and_debt/?page=entire


The following article looks at "dead zones" in the U.S. - areas where previous productive based industry has left and all that remains are industries based around military bases, low salaried service industries, private prison industry, and tourism - and how those that are beginning to pull out of an economic slump do so.   It is interesting to note the complexity and diversity of economic development that is necessary to create a truly sustainable local economy as opposed to the easy and obvious approaches that most people consider but create many low salaried jobs and not much else.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/155731/how_to_end_the_nightmare_of_jobless_america/?page=entire

"A person's a person no matter how small."-Dr. Suess

What does it mean to live in the state that has the fastest growing rate of childhood poverty in the country, only to then discover that you live in a wealthy "developed" country that has one of the highest childhood poverty rates in the world? Yes, yes, it's "relative" and "relative" means it's not you. Read on, be outraged and then join us this summer as we work on reducing poverty across the state. Report: US Has One Of The Highest Child Poverty Rates In The Developed World. The task force planning meeting for Interim 2012 is June 11th at Pizza Fusion on Colfax & Pearl. Lunch will be provided so we hope to see you there.

Three Ways the Ryan Budget Hits Latinos

Although experts in the field state that the Congressional House budget will be "dead on arrival" in the Senate, we have learned, this year, to keep our voices loud. It may be true that the "whole package" isn't set to pass, but we are learning that even the tiniest of program changes get integrated and have a profound effect on individuals and families struggling to make ends meet. Following is an article written by Melissa Boteach,Director of Half in Ten: The Campaign to Cut Poverty in Half in Ten Years, that highlights the effects of budget cuts on Colorado's fastest growing demographic. For more on the impact of the Ryan budget on the Latino community click here.

The latest from the Reading Room

Last week there was a big dust up over a TED lecture that was slow to be released, not because of any hesitation on part of the man who gave the lecture, but on part of the TED organization.  The content of this lecture is radical in terms of the dominant paradigm in that the man who gave it, a venture capitalist, spoke about the need for the wealthy to pay more in taxes as lower taxes lead to the wealthy becoming more wealthy as opposed to creating jobs.

The video was finally released, but I enjoyed reading the transcript even more thanks to The Atlantic posting it, along with the slides, last Thursday.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/here-is-the-full-inequality-speech-and-slideshow-that-was-too-hot-for-ted/257323/#.T7UVz2j9Qig.facebook


And on Friday, Slate.com posted the following graphic that illustrates the change in poverty county by county nation-wide from 2007-2010.  6 Colorado counties have a lower poverty rate - south east and south central ones, and I have been thinking about the reasons for it all morning.  Is it the influx of second home buyers in Saguache and Fremont counties?  Is there a drop in overall population in the southeast counties?  Would any readers who have more credible answers (or, at least, theories) chime in and share?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2012/05/poverty_rates_most_u_s_counties_see_increasing_poverty_rates.html