John Edwards on Welfare & Poverty 2004 Democratic Nominee for Vice President; Former Jr Senator (NC)

A comprehensive, detailed plan to end poverty

Ending poverty is the single most important cause in my life

37 million Americans live in poverty

The minimum wage should be at least $9.50 an hour

Criticized for personal extravagances after poverty lectures

[One pundit writes], “Seldom has a presidential candidate undergone a trifecta like Edwards’s this year--the $400 haircut, a $55,000 honorarium from U.C. Davis for a speech on poverty, and the $500,000 hedge fund salary--without his campaign imploding.”

It’s true that the media seems to have a double standard when it comes to Edwards, largely because of his willingness to talk about the poor. [Another pundit] points out that “we’ve been shown aerial pictures of Edwards’s mansion, but not of the mansions of other well-off candidates. We’ve heard so much about Edwards’s connection to one Wall Street firm, but relatively little about other candidates’ connections. You see, those other pols aren’t hypocrites: they don’t lecture about poverty.”

Morally wrong that full time workers are still in poverty

But again, the policy proposals were weak and predictable: ”raise the minimum wage“--to a level where, if everyone works 2 jobs, a family might just make enough money to qualify for a tax credit; and ”finish the job on welfare reform“ (for which he seems to see no downside), and ”bring good-paying jobs to the places where we need them the most.“

Poverty in America is the cause of my life

And I think the starting place is to understand that there is no one single cause of poverty. You know, when you have young African- American men who are completely convinced that they’re either going to die or go to prison, and see absolutely no hope in their lives; when they live in an environment where the people around them don’t earn a decent wage; when they go to schools that are second-class schools compared to the schools in wealthy suburban areas, they don’t see anything getting better, there are lots of things that we need to do.

We ought to actually provide incentive pay to get our best teachers in the inner-city schools & into poor rural areas where they’re needed the most. We need to significantly raise the minimum wage. We need to strengthen the right to organize. And we need to help low-income families save so they’re not prey to predatory lenders.

A million new Section 8 vouchers; let poor move freely

We have thousands of people across this country waiting five, six, seven years to get a Section 8 housing voucher. Suppose we have a million new Section 8 housing vouchers, and instead of using them to cluster poor people together, we use them to break down some of these economic and racial barriers so that people can move. It should not be, not in the United States of America, that the only people that can go to another neighborhood or another place are people of wealth. That’s not America. That’s not who we are. Suppose we create a million new stepping-stone jobs so that kids who are having trouble getting work, chronically out of work, we can put them to work in our parks, in our libraries, in public work so that they can have a job so that they can develop a work ethic.

Despite mistake on $400 haircut, understands poverty

A: Well, that was a mistake, which we’ve remedied. It was simply a mistake. But if the question is whether I live a privileged and blessed lifestyle now, the answer to that’s yes. A lot of us do. But it’s not where I come from. And I’ve not forgotten where I come from. Many people know that my dad worked in textile mills all his life. The reason I’m running for president of the United States is so that everybody in this country can have the same kind of chances I’ve had.

Give poor a stake with “automatic 401k” & kids’ savings

• Children’s Savings Accounts have real potential. Imagine how a few thousand dollars in the bank can transform a poor child’s sense of hope and possibility for the future.
• A progressive tax credit could remedy inequalities in our tax code and help millions of first-time homebuyers.
• A work bonds tax credit that would give low-income workers $500 toward a new bank account or safe investment fund.
• An “automatic 401(k) ” proposal is a proven method to encourage retirement savings.
• An initiative to establish bank accounts for the 22 million American households without them. These families--who can ill afford any unnecessary expenses--pay check cashers billions of dollars every year for services most banks provide for free.
• Finally, strong protections against predatory lending would protect the assets that families have worked hard to build.

Principles against poverty:work, opportunity, thrift, family

However, these problems do share one characteristic: the surest route to addressing them is by applying the time-tested ideals at the heart of the American bargain. Our nation was built on the values of hard work, equal opportunity, thrift, and strong families. Today these principles light the way forward.

1. Americans believe deeply in the value of work. Work is the pathway to success and security, but also the source of dignity and independence and self-respect.
2. Our nation was founded as the land of opportunity, and we should strive to provide equal opportunity.
3. Anti-poverty programs should recognize the importance of savings.
4. Americans believe in the importance of community, responsibility, and, most of all, family.

Housing vouchers, not housing projects

37M in poverty is a plague on America

The real story is not the number but the people behind the number. The men, women, and children living in poverty--one in eight of us--do not have enough money for the food, shelter, and clothing they need. One in eight. That is not a problem. That is not a challenge. That is a plague. And it is our national shame.

Poverty is America’s greatest challenge--for citizens & govt

I have talked to people living on the margins. I met a single mother with two children. She has a job that pays $9.50 an hour. She told me about winters where the “choice was between lights and gas.” She chose the lights. No one who works hard should be faced with that kind of choice or that kind of worry.

Ending poverty may seem impossible, but it is not. If we can put a man on the moon, nearly double the length of a human life, and put entire libraries on chips the size of postage stamps, then we can end poverty for those who want to work.

Poverty is such low priority, we have no accurate statistics

Poverty is such a low priority in Washington that politicians are not even interested in developing an accurate statistic. The official measure of Americans living in poverty is incomplete and out-of-date, according to the National Academy of Sciences, and probably undercounts the number of the poor. We do not even count all the poor; this is a perfect metaphor for how poverty is ignored.

30-year goal: Ending poverty in America

If we are going to build a national movement that demands actions from our leaders, each of us also needs to participate in the policy debate and raise awareness among friends and neighbors. We should all pledge to keep talking about poverty until it is at the top of the national agenda. And we should pledge to hold our government accountable for ignoring the suffering of so many for so long.

We should not be satisfied with a modest improvement. Let us set a national goal--the elimination of poverty in America in 30 years. It will not be easy, but I believe in the unlimited power of the American people to accomplish anything we set our hearts and minds to achieve. If we do not rest until poverty is history, it will be.

EITC is a well-run gov’t program that decreased poverty

When programs to combat poverty are well run, they can make a difference. In the 1990s, the Earned Income Tax Credit lifted 7 million people out of poverty. Government programs, when they encourage people to take the initiative and improve their lives, can be effective. The EITC is one of the most important anti-poverty tax programs, yet 25% of eligible American taxpayers don’t know to apply for it. We need to get the right information in the hands of these workers who need it for themselves and their families.

Founded Center on Law & Poverty at UNC

Raise the minimum wage and training fund to help the poor

Moral responsibility to help 35 million Americans in poverty

Raise minimum wage so full-time workers are out of poverty

We need to talk about 35 million who live in poverty

Increase the Earned Income Tax Credit

My “Cities Rising” plan is to help urban America

EDWARDS: I have a plan called Cities Rising. The idea is to bring jobs to urban America. Let’s create incentives for new businesses, incentives for existing businesses. Second, to do something about public school systems. First, pay teachers better. Second, give bonus pay to teachers who will teach in schools in less-advantaged areas. And create wealth for things like homeownership.

Bush honors wealth while we honor work

Finish welfare reform by moving able recipients into jobs.

Help Working Families Lift Themselves from Poverty
In the 1990s, Americans resolved to end welfare dependency and forge a new social compact on the basis of work and reciprocal responsibility. The results so far are encouraging: The welfare rolls have been cut by more than half since 1992 without the social calamities predicted by defenders of the old welfare entitlement. People are more likely than ever to leave welfare for work, and even those still on welfare are four times more likely to be working. But the job of welfare reform will not be done until we help all who can

work to find and keep jobs -- including absent fathers who must be held responsible for supporting their children.

In the next decade, progressives should embrace an even more ambitious social goal -- helping every working family lift itself from poverty. Our new social compact must reinforce work, responsibility, and family. By expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, increasing the supply of affordable child care, reforming tax policies that hurt working families, making sure absent parents live up to their financial obligations, promoting access to home ownership and other wealth-building assets, and refocusing other social policies on the new goal of rewarding work, we can create a new progressive guarantee: No American family with a full-time worker will live in poverty.

Goals for 2010 Finish the job of welfare reform by moving all recipients who can work into jobs.
• Cut the poverty rate in half.
• Double child support collections and require every father who owes child support to go to work to pay it off.

Fully fund AmeriCorps.

To: President George W. Bush

Dear President Bush:

We write to express our strong support for AmeriCorps and recognize the leadership you have shown on this issue over the years. We know you agree that AmeriCorps is an outstanding program which has proven successful in addressing our homeland security needs, leveraging volunteers, and improving the quality of services available to a broad range of Americans.

Unfortunately, as you know, the Corporation for National Service officially announced yesterday unprecedented and drastic funding cuts, from 50 to 95 percent in every state. These cuts mean that under the State Competitive funding stream the Corporation will only fund 2,036 volunteers, compared with 11,236 last year. Many states will see their volunteer allocations under the competitive stream drop by as much as 90 percent and 16 states are shut out completely.

In your 2002 State of the Union address, you called for every American to dedicate 4,000 hours to community service throughout their lives. In your 2004 budget request, you proposed increasing the number of AmeriCorps volunteers from 50,000 to 75,000. Unfortunately, due to serious errors made by the Corporation, fewer than half this number of Americans will be allowed to serve their country through service.

We should support, not oppose, efforts to encourage more Americans to enter public service. We should do everything in our power to reward the American men and women who have chosen to serve the country and their communities in the hope of meeting the nation's critical education, safety, health, and homeland security needs.

We urge you to request additional funding in the supplemental appropriations bill to ensure that AmeriCorps remains a strong and vital program today and in the future.