The continuation...

Okay so what I didn't have time to write back on Equal Pay Day was this: while white women make about 77 cents to the dollar that white men make, women of color and trans women make even less.

According to TransGriot, black women make 68 cents, and Latina women make 59 cents. WHAT. So let's all keep these numbers in mind when we talk about how much women make: we should be working with the lowest common denominator, not the highest. Since ALL women should be making as much money as their male counterparts (and not be punished for little things like gestating the next generation), we need to focus less on this 77 cents, and more on this 59 cents.

Also: this. Sweet lord, let's not forget about transpeople. They are more often likely to be discriminated against in all areas of life, so the fact that they face serious uphill battles in work is not surprising. We need a lot more local and state-wide non-discrimination laws for the workplace, y'all.

Happy Equal Pay Day!

(shamelessly stolen from Feministing)

It's Equal Pay Day! Well, now it's the very end of it because I spent all evening at the climbing gym instead of studying and writing blog posts. I will add more to this tomorrow - I have much to say!

Welfare Queens!

I wish I could say my posts are so rare because I'm off living an extraordinary, exciting life, but really I'm just hanging out with my dog or climbing up big walls of rocks (not a metaphor for difficulties, just my obsession). I'm going to try to do better for the rest of the semester!

Last month, I read this article (I learned how to do links, guys!) and was pretty blown away. First of all, Good magazine is covering so many awesome things, so y'all should check it out if you get a chance. Their print magazine is pricey, but their site is really beautiful (and free!).

To my point: the people in this article are amazing. Profiled here are Dee and Tiny, a mother-daughter team that works tirelessly to help not only themselves, but the poverty-stricken around them through art, writing, and performance. They have created POOR magazine, they have founded MamaHouse (a rented building housing the homeless), and they have plans for a permanent Homefulness: a cohousing project by and for her the homeless.

Tiny is inspiring, and her work with POOR is incredible. These people are advocates and activists, are writers and performers, are teachers and learners. The whole article is really worth your time. I could outline it til the end of the day, but Jess Hoffman's article will still be better. Go!

New Hampshire and its lack of state-appointed defense lawyers

New Hampshire, like most states, is facing a budget crisis. To cope with this, they've joined Mississippi in not providing lawyers to low income parents being accused of child abuse or neglect. I mean if we're talking about people who are beating their children, that doesn't sound so cruel, right? But that's not what NH is talking about.

In an NPR story that aired yesterday, a father who cannot currently provide a home for his child is attempting to represent himself with the looming threat of his child (a four year old) being taken away from him permanently. This particular man has a 10th grade education and, due to his dyslexia, can barely read. Imagine attempting to keep the state from taking your child away with these limited tools.

The state prosecutor in this case laments that his job is like "shooting fish in a barrel." These people cannot properly navigate the legal system or properly represent themselves, and a lawyer going up against them clearly has the upper hand. Judges and lawyers alike are dissatisfied, and families are being torn apart.

The father interviewed is not abusing his child. This issue is economical, not physical. Yet he risks losing his child permanently, with no parental rights or responsibilities. It seems likely that this will be true of the vast majority of NH cases, as the vast majority of parents do not abuse their children. Let's call this what it is: an attack on low income families.

Paul Ryan's budget plan

It passed! I would be worried, but the Senate will put the kibosh on this. Oh, lord.

So the plan will cut $5.3 trillion below President Obama's budget. Sounds good right? I mean I am a big fan of cutting the spending, after all. We are spending money we don't have and all that. However, this doesn't sound good if you're not in tip top shape. It doesn't sound good if you're poor. It doesn't sound good if you're old. It doesn't sound good if you like to drive over roads and bridges.

Here are the numbers. Medicaid and other health programs will be slashed by $770 billion, Medicare by $205 billion. Programs including welfare, transportation, and agriculture subsidies will be cut by about $2 trillion.

Cutting spending is great, right?! It comes at absolutely no cost - at least not for the wealthy. Ryan's budget also reorganizes the tax structure, granting the top 25% a tax cut.

I personally believe in a social construct. I want people to make as much money as they can, and I want those who make a lot to help those who haven't or who can't make as much. I don't think this is asking a lot, and I honestly don't believe I'm in the minority. I understand that the wealthy pay a huge portion in taxes. SO DO I. The difference is that what I have left over isn't as much as they have left over.

At the end of the day, this budget will not pass through the Senate. I can rest easily. But the principle of it, the very idea that people care so little for the people serving them food, cleaning the buildings they work in, caring for and teaching their children, or constructing the very world around them is TERRIFYING.

This-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps ideal that the GOP still subscribe to will never work for those it was never intended for (ie anyone who is not white and male and Christian). This plan will not work for this nation's poor, its uninsured (or insured, in fact), its aged, its farms, or its infrastructure. It will work quite nicely for the nation's wealthy, so we can rest easy that they'll still be just fine.

SXSW and homeless hotspots

I'm sure everyone has heard about the "homeless hotspots" at South by Southwest this week. It's gotten play on innumerable blogs, on Twitter, and even on the Daily Show. At first I sort of shrugged it off: if people want to dehumanize themselves for some money, is it my business? I'm not offended by porn or prostitution (legalize it!), why should I be offended by this?

And I'm not. While I think it would have been better for BBH Labs (the creator of this idea) to generate positive publicity, I also don't think they've committed some terrible crime against humanity. SXSW has become a ridiculous event filled to the brim with tech-obsessed yuppies. I haven't seen any news of the event bringing attention to the issue of homelessness in any other way. While I in no way believe we should see the homeless as hotspots rather than, oh I don't know, humans?, I also don't think attendees of SXSW don't know a human being when they see one. Hopefully they are being courteous and chatty, maybe tipping their hotspot a couple extra dollars for his or her troubles.

After all, these men and women are not being paid a lot. They're making $20/day to stand in the sun so that men and women (presumably with homes) can access their twitter feeds. Maybe BBH should have added a little something to the t-shirts aside from "I'm so-and-so, a 4G hotspot" - maybe something about an organization that works with homeless communities dealing with mental health or addiction issues. They didn't, and that sucks, but I still don't think the whole thing was an affront to our collective humanity.

Tanya McDowell and the price of public schooling

I realize this title is nearly identical to a previous title. Bear with me, I clearly possess no creativity of any kind.

In April of last year, Tanya McDowell of Connecticut made headlines because she lied about her address in order to get her son into a better public school district. She lied because she is homeless. Last week, she was sentenced to five years in prison and will pay no more than $6,200 to the Norwalk, CT school system for her son's "stolen" education.

This is a difficult issue, and it has been from the time it first made headlines to the present, now that McDowell's verdict is in. While I don't necessarily approve of people lying in order to get ahead, I do approve of parents who ferociously advocate for their children. Ms. McDowell wanted her son to go to a better school than the one in her town, and she found a way (by telling a lie) to do it. Can we all do this? No. If we did this in the Boston area, Brookline and Newton would be overrun. But should we all have to go to jail if we did? I don't think so.

Of course, the press has not been able to separate the issue of the lie from the fact that she is/has been a drug dealer. She was caught selling narcotics to undercover officers, for which she will also serve time. I don't see the connection between these two: why she was dealing drugs is irrelevant to her decisions regarding her son.

What it comes down to for me is this: public school is public. It is free for all through our taxes, and we need to work harder in our communities to make our schools decent. While I understand that what Ms. McDowell did was wrong, I can't say that I blame her. We all want better for our children, and I can't condemn anyone who will work so hard and risk so much for hers.

The Help and domestic workers

Two things right up front: I have worked as a domestic employee for nearly five years now and I have refused to see The Help. And on we go...

The Help came out last year, and this weekend it was nominated for a fair few Oscars. Now, the reason I haven't seen this film is because I think it's harmful. I hear that it greatly sugarcoats the absolute misery of Jim Crow America and largely reduces the African American maids to supporting roles for the young white star. Maybe I should see it and decide these things for myself, but in general I don't like spending money on things that misrepresent history.

All of this has been discussed before, particularly with great eloquence by Melissa Harris-Perry; if you haven't watched her new weekend MSNBC show, you should start. So I'll move along to my point. What The Help has done well is shine a light on domestic workers. While the movie (and book, of course) was about African American maids in the first half of the last century, there are still many issues facing domestics today.

In only one state (New York) is there real protection for domestic workers, and that did not come about until 2010. This was not come by easily, either; groups like the National Domestic Works Alliance launched worked for years to pass the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights. The same group is currently pushing a similar bill through in California. Domestic workers were excluded from parts of the National Labor Relations Act during FDR's presidency to appease Southern segregationists. The fact that this has not changed in any state but New York is absolutely despicable and terrifying.

As a nanny myself, I spend a lot of time in playgrounds with other nannies. While I may make an absurd amount, I have sat with women who make less than minimum wage with no overtime despite working far more than 40 hours per week. They don't have health insurance or paid time off, despite often having children of their own to care for. Nothing regulates this, and we all benefit from it and are hurt by it. We may love being paid under the table, but every now and then things happen that make us really wish we were accounted for somewhere as an employee. That someone was held responsible.

I'm one of the lucky ones. The worst experiences I've ever had have been sexual harassment from fathers, a few unpaid hours, and the general annoyances of working for bizarre people in their homes. I am paid a decent wage and get to return home to my own apartment at the end of the day. This is not true for most, and it will continue being a distant dream for them as long as they remain underrepresented.

I had so many vasectomy jokes!

...but they've all fallen by the wayside, because other people have already said them. What a bummer! I still don't know how to link to things, so here is what I'm commenting on: http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/pdfs/AbortionomicsFINALReport.pdf

So this new article is out, titled "Abortionomics: When Choice is a Necessity," and it's pretty amazing. I should preface this post by saying that I am very much pro choice, and believe very strongly in a woman's right to autonomy over her own body. I've also been everywhere from dismayed to downright terrified by the recent discussions of contraception in the national conversation. Imagine my excitement, then, when I found Abortionomics!

This article brings together a number of studies to show that as the economy flounders, more low income women and families have to opt for abortions rather than carry a fetus to term. Shocking! Not only do they opt for abortions, but they rely more heavily upon contraceptives and vasectomies (trivia: which of these three options has not been attacked by the Great White Men of Congress?).

It is not surprising that abortion rates are higher among low income women; while at a national level the number of abortions has fallen steadily since Roe v. Wade in 1973, between 1994 and 2000 the only group whose abortion rate rose was that of low income women. Financial strain is usually a driving force behind deciding to end a pregnancy. As income level increases, the rate of abortion decreases. It's not tough to find the correlation.

So what's the answer? Let's not defund family planning institutions. Let's stop debating whether or not contraception (used by something like 98% of sexually active women, right?) should be covered by insurance policies. Let's wage war on vasectomies! I jest about that last one. Let's all read the above report. LET'S TRUST WOMEN.

Oh and let's watch last weekend's SNL Weekend Update segment "REALLY? With Seth And Amy" because Amy Poehler is a gift from Yahweh.

White Poverty

This week there were two New York Times articles that caught my eye. If I knew how to link to them, I'd do just that - unfortunately I do not. One, titled "Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It" looks at a particular county in Minnesota where workers are depending on tax refunds like the Earned Income Tax Credit, but disavowing the programs themselves. The other article, "The White Underclass," by op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, uses his own hometown in rural Oregon to examine the larger issues of white poverty in America.

In "Even Critics..." the emphasis is obviously on the hypocrisy of these people being afforded 'government handouts' while decrying them. Some profiled say they are not asking for the credits, that they could easily get along without them. The issue here is that these people can get along without them - what about the rest of the country? Of course the rural poor face different obstacles than the urban poor, but so do the Caucasian poor vs the minority poor. I in no way mean to disrespect the hardships of the men and women and families in this article, simply to point out that while one or two of them alludes to not needing the government, others do.

Kristof's article had less that spoke to me, but it echoed the issue I found in the first article: what is so special about white poverty? While I believe all people struggling should be represented, I often feel like writing on income inequality is so racially or ethnically divided that it never gets to issues at the heart of poverty; it merely lingers on the fringes, pitting one group against another. I recognize differences in the way various people experience poverty, but I also think there has to be a way to discuss these issues without a game of who-has-it-worse.

Pennsylvania and the price of schooling

The school district for the towns of Chester and Upland in southeastern Pennsylvania is broke. Well, it will be by the end of the month. Teachers are currently working without pay while officials attempt to work toward a solution to the district's $20 million of debt.

As if this miserable situation needed a further complication, the local charter school (which also receives state funding) educates roughly 50% of the area's students and is suing the district for unpaid bills - bills the district obviously can't pay. While the charter school counterpart can provide laptops to students, the public schools are struggling to keep the lights on.

The issue here is that the district is poor. According to the New York Times, Chester Upland receives 70% of their financing from the state - local taxes just aren't cutting it. A nearby wealthier district require only 10% of their budget to be state funded, because the median income is roughly $50,000 higher. While the district has made huge cuts to their teaching force and critical programs like art and languages, the charter school has remained unaffected. These two schools co-exist in the same depressed district, yet one triumphs as the other flounders.

There is discussion of dissolving the district. I don't know exactly what that would mean for the families living in the towns this district serves, but I can't imagine it being anything good. At the end of the day, there is no reason children shouldn't be educated simply because their parents make less money than the parents two towns away. Pennsylvania has a lot to figure out before the month is up.

Mitt Romney and the "very poor"

Last Wednesday, in the gaffe heard 'round the nation, Mitt Romney said "I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor, we have a safety net there - if it needs repair, I'll fix it..." in an interview with Soledad O'Brien of CNN. While it's really nothing new in the Republican race to have low income Americans thrown under the bus, the candidates are not always so transparent about their disconnect from the people they claim to desire to represent.

To say you are not concerned with the estimated 46.2 million Americans living below the poverty line (not to mention the many above said line who are still just scraping by) while seeking the highest office in the land is unconscionable. These are people who pay taxes, who work, who send children through the public school systems you are hoping to be in charge of. Through the release of his tax information, we all now know that Romney pulls in roughly $57,000 each day - perhaps if he was supporting a family of four on that annually, he would begin to empathize with the "very poor" he can't bother to be concerned with.