An ounce of prevention is worth a three minute bout.

When I heard about the health care package that goes into effect in ’14, I didn’t understand all of it (I still don’t, and really, who does?), but what I did understand, I was okay with.  Mostly,

Debt with a return

In general, I’m not so quick on the political uptake. I never feel like I have the “full” story, but I feel like I should, as a good poverty and policy blogger, talk about the looming sequestration, due to go into effect on Friday.

Nothing about this is pretty or kind.  If it goes into effect, it will be painful.  If it doesn’t, there will be posturing and under-the-table decisions that are painful.

Did you know this about SSI?

I am a financial stability counselor with homeless addicts and mentally ill, and part of my job entails helping people find ways to manage their money and recover from financial mistakes of their past.

I was working a budget with one gentleman, an SSI recipient who was newly in an apartment after having been homeless for several months.  I began to talk to him about building savings for future emergencies so he’s less vulnerable to repeated homelessness (a conversation I have with all of my guys). This man immediately cut me off.  “Oh no, I can’t do that.  I’ll lose my social security.”

Takin’ aim

This morning, I stumbled on an article on the Bloomburg website about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sanctioning certain banks for vehicle loans and loan interest rate increases by the auto dealer that appear discriminatory.

Dealers often provide financing by giving buyers loans backed by banks and other lenders, a process known as indirect lending…buyers receive a loan that is costlier than the one the bank gave the dealer.

One particular part of the article jumped out at me:

American Servants

A particularly powerful point, to me, this blog made is that the U.S. still has servants in the form of certain kinds of employment. For example, nannies paid under the table or illegal immigrants.

I have usually heard this phenomenon couched in either two politically-charged terms that have associated judgments. This may be an example of “people stealing American jobs” (and the judgment is “Boooo! “They’re doing something wrong! Stop them!”)

Conversely, it may be “people working hard to make their way” (and the judgment is “Yea – they’re going the ole bootstrap approach! Good for them!”)  I realize these categories are oversimplified, but in both cases, the judgment is on what “they’re” doing wrong.

If these people are relabeled “servants,” that changes the judgment entirely.  It removes the focus from what “they’re” doing and transfers the responsibility to us, the system that allows and benefits from it.

One of the problem with calling them “servants” is that it sheds light on a complicated snarl of possible factors – immigration policy, minimum wage, education and job training, public opinion, and there isn’t an easy or clear way to  unravel that. In reality, it’s a result of a combination of all of those things and more.

A good start may be to call a spade a spade and start calling these people “servants” rather than “employees.” I think public discourse would begin to shift.

Working-Class Perspectives

In season two of Downton Abbey, the inimical Dame Maggie Smith (who plays the “Dowager Countess”) finds out that one of the family’s servants will be allowed to live out his final days (after suffering an incurable war wound) in the family’s lavish second floor quarters. The Countess is displeased by this and opines that “It always happens when you give these little people power, it goes to their heads like strong drink.”

If you are a fan of the show, one of the 7.9 million US viewers who watched Downton Abbey kick off its third season on PBS earlier this month, you know full well that the “little people” in this early 20^th century British world—the kitchen maids, ladies’ maids, footmen, valets, chauffeurs, cooks, housekeepers, and butlers—have very little power. They scheme and scrap for the merest improvements in pay and job title. A few of them rise…

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Minimum wage conundrum

I just read this article from The Economist.

The article points out that a minimum wage boost is not the only thing that will be necessary to help reduce poverty, there is also a need to boost infrastructure and early childhood education.

I know about the need for early childhood education; could boosting infrastructure also be seen as a poverty-reducing measure?