Green Party on Welfare & Poverty Party Platform

Homeless Bill of Rights to address affordable housing crisis

Citizen Dividend: universal basic guaranteed income

• Welfare reform has forced mothers to abandon their children while they travel to work at minimum wage jobs. With the extreme pay inequity, single mothers cannot afford child care, nurture their children, and move out of poverty.
• The Green Party supports real reforms to end poverty and return dignity and opportunity to all mothers. We call for implementing innovative programs that work with the particular and special needs of motherhood.
• We also support other programs such as a universal basic income (known also as a guaranteed income or Citizen Dividend, as described in True Cost Pricing and Tax Fairness) that will provide for those who nurture the next generation--work that is of incalculable importance to our society.

End faith-based initiatives and charitable choice programs

Negative income tax to keep all adults above poverty line

Workfare is slave labor

Restore federally funded welfare entitlement program

It is time for a RADICAL PARADIGM SHIFT in our attitude toward support for families, children, the poor and the disabled. Such support must not be given grudgingly; it is the right of those in present need and AN INVESTMENT IN OUR FUTURE.
• We believe that all people have a right to food, housing, medical care, a living wage job, education, and support in times of hardship.
• We call for restoration of a federally funded entitlement program to support children, families, the unemployed, elderly and disabled, with no time limit on benefits. This program should be funded through the existing welfare budget, reductions in military spending and corporate subsidies, and a fair progressive income tax.
• Forcing welfare recipients to accept jobs that pay wages below a livable income (“a living wage”) drives wages down and exploits workers for private profit at public expense. We reject “workfare” as a form a slave labor.