Copyright 2002 Federal News Service, Inc. Federal News Service
February 14, 2002, Thursday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 2519 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF ELLEN BRAVO DIRECTOR, 9TO5, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
WORKING WOMEN
BEFORE THE SENATE HEALTH,
EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS COMMITTEE
SUBJECT -
THE NEEDS OF THE WORKING POOR: HELPING FAMILIES TO MAKE ENDS MEET
BODY: Thank you very much for the
opportunity to testify today about the needs of the working poor.
Two years ago, 9to5 and the Radcliffe Public Policy Center
at Harvard University received funding from The Ford Foundation and The Annie E.
Casey Foundation to examine how low-income working parents cross the boundaries
of work, family and their children's education. We did so by asking the people
who know this world best -- low-wage parents, those who care for and educate
their kids, and their employers. This was a new approach, both the holistic view
and the involvement of these three different sectors.
In all, we talked with nearly 350 people in three cities, Boston,
Milwaukee and Denver. In each city we conducted in-depth interviews with 30
parents (mostly mothers), 20 employers, 15 child care providers or teachers, and
then spoke with dozens more in focus groups. Half the parents had recent
experience with welfare, the other half did not -- including women who had never
been on welfare. The groups had differing views on many things, but when it came
to low- wage workers being able to keep jobs and raise families, they all
agreed: "It's just not working."
All families face
challenges as they strive to pursue their careers while nurturing their
families. But for families in the bottom third of the economy, economic
pressures and lack of caregiving resources intensify the ordinary challenges of
keeping a job and raising a family to the level of a daily crisis.
Our report, entitled "Keeping Jobs and Raising Families in
Low-Income America: It Just Doesn't Work," is being released as Congress begins
discussion of welfare reform reauthorization. The study's findings challenge the
notion that low-wage work sustains a family. It shows that life is precarious
for low-income working mothers in the U.S. regardless of whether or not they
have been on welfare.
Unfortunately, the whole area of
work and whether the kinds of jobs women leaving welfare would find could
sustain families was not part of the discussion during welfare reform in 1996.
Neither was the issue of overall family well-being. A view was promoted that
women were on welfare because they failed to work. Employment was seen as the
solution and movement off the roles as the measure of success.
Out study demonstrates the problems with this approach. We have to
address the problems of the working poor - and set our goal as ending poverty,
which will necessitate the reform of work.
In our
conversations with parents and employers, we found what works:
- Access to decent and stable employment, usually by means of good
education and training, which allows stability in transportation and
housing.
- Continuing access to income supports until
income reaches self- sufficiency level.
- Access to
quality and stable care - the ability to pay for that, and a solid backup
network of family and friends
- Flexibility on the job
when care needs surpass that care system, however strong it may be.
We also found that most low-income women lack all or most
of these forms of stability -- with disastrous results for themselves, their
employers, and above all, their children. One overlooked fact is how much job
changeover low-income women experience, mostly because of family care reasons,
and the harmful impact that has on kids.
Key findings:
- We found an entrenched mismatch between the demands of caring for families and
succeeding on the job -- intractable conflicts at the most basic level between
the safety, survival and education of children and their parents' ability to
keep any kind of employment
These low-wage parents have
a relatively high hourly wage and still have low annual incomes because many
work less than full time and because they have a high incidence of"churning" or
job changing. Although 40% earned more than $10 an hour, more than two-thirds
had income less than $20,000 a year. Half had incomes less than $15,000. More
than one in four didn't even earn $10,000 a year.
A
Denver child care provider told of a colleague who left the job to work in a dog
kennel. "We pay worse than they do," she said.
A Boston
parent said, "It's not making ends meet at all. I'm robbing Peter, promising
Pam, and dodging Paul."
Education helps -- but most
can't make the time. A young mother began taking compuer classes after her 7a.m.
to 3 p.m. job, "but... I had to cut back my hours to get there on time. And then
I couldn't pay my babysitter." She was forced to drop out.
Employers sometimes blamed parents, but all agreed: "I don't think I
could do it." Even the few employers who offered tuition reimbursement
acknowledged that most employees don't have the time to take advantage of it.
One employer said, "I suppose the only way to do better is leave (my place of
employment) and try to get something better... But really, even if you're a good
worker and all.., without more school they aren't going anywhere." An employer
who runs a housecleaning service admitted he sought non-English speaking workers
precisely because there are so few other work options that offer them a better
wage and because immigrant workers tend to expect fewer raises.
The employers we interviewed agreed that their own jobs do not provide
career ladders. Those who care for our children, our sick and our elderly, those
who prepare food, clean offices, secure buildings, assemble products, don't move
up -- they move from one bottom rung to another. Moving up usually means moving
into another, more skilled job classification -- and that usually requires
additional education.
A supervisor in a Milwaukee
health care company reported that her company pays for coursework to train
nurses' aides to become nurses. She acknowledged an aide would indeed have a
"hell of a time" doing his or her job, taking care of children, and attending
and passing all the courses. But, she said, a few of her employees have used
this program and become nurses, significantly improving their economic status.
She reflected that it took extraordinary determination and "kids that don't get
sick too much."
All the parents emphasize the
importance of education and employment.
But these
lessons can be hard to communicate when children see that their parents work so
hard but remain poor.
- Current strategies for caring
for children in low-income families are fragile, fluid, and patchwork, and the
upheaval these arrangements create destroy many employment efforts.
Problems with child care are the most common cause of
conflicts and anxiety for parents at work and often result in some kind of work
sanction being taken against the parent. These are parents who cannot afford to
purchase routine care and thus rely on a patchwork of arrangements - a neighbor
one day, a relative the next, an after- school activity on another. And these
are just the kind of care provisions that are most likely to fall apart.
Employers reported that the unreliability and complexity
of their entry-level employees' child care arrangements can be a significant
impediment to conducting business.
While most
respondents considered children's care and well-being a major national issue,
they did not see how parents could obtain quality child care earning the wages
they now receive.
Many who are eligible for child care
subsidies are not taking advantage of them because they cannot afford the
co-payment. Fifty dollars a week seems like a dream payment to many parents, but
for those earning less than $15,000 a year, it's a lot of money. Others cite
lack of subsidized providers in their community -- or lack of trust in the
quality of care.
One problem for parents who do use the
subsidies is losing them just when they begin to earn more money -- but not
enough money to pay for child care on their own. Tina Orth, for example, was
earning $10.49 an hour at a bank when she learned she was no longer eligible for
child care subsidies. She had to move her child to a different, less expensive
care provider, one who proved unreliable on enough occasions that Tina lost her
job. She was unable to collect unemployment because at the time, child care
issues were not a valid consideration for eligibility. Finally she got another
job -- and was written up by the LA Times as an example of a success on
Wisconsin's W-2 program. The article failed to point out that Tina was earning
$7.50 an hour, working parttime, with no benefits and no flexibility whatsoever.
She takes four buses to get her daughter to child care and herself to the
job.
Parents of children with special needs were
particularly likely to feel they are constantly being pulled in two different
directions and that, at both ends, the need is critical.
Good care, even when subsidized, is still too costly for many families.
Yet the quality and reliability of those systems have a profound impact on a
parent's ability to hold a job.
It also has an impact
on kids' ability to learn and feel safe. A Boston teacher described a direct
connection between children's educational achievement and their parents' job
situations. "The (children) don't see much of their parents. A lot of these
people could only get jobs at night.., so kids come in without signed permission
slips or homework (done)."
- Inadequate parental time
and attention--a concern for all children-- may be especially detrimental to
children in low-income families.
More than two-thirds
of the parents interviewed reported having at least one child with either a
chronic health issue or a special learning need. These conditions typically
require more frequent and lengthy medical visits and/or school conferences. Yet
many parents reported their jobs offered few resources and little flexibility to
accommodate family responsibilities.
One mother of a
child with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) in Denver reported she
gets at least three calls a week about her child. "My jobs last about as long as
my supervisors can tolerate the interruptions," she said.
Several teachers faulted employers' lack of regard for family
obligations. "They ought to remember they are going to be hiring these kids in
about eight years."
- Work schedule flexibility and
publicly-funded job and income supports reduce the conflicts between job demands
and family life, benefiting both employees and employers.
Nearly half of all parents in this research experienced some kind of
job sanction, including termination, lost wages, denied promotions and written
and verbal warnings, as a result of trying to meet family needs.
For example, a mother in Boston, who works as a security guard for
$7.00 per hour, was called in to her ten-year-old son's school after he became
involved in a fight. Teachers told us it was essential for parents to be
available to help school officials respond to such incidents. The worker told
her supervisor she would miss a day's work, but her absence resulted in the loss
of a week's pay. A young mother in Denver explained how she lost a job she was
very glad to have after her child's bout of chicken pox consumed more than three
sick days. "It was the rule," she said. "They told me, 'no exceptions.'"
A first-grade teacher told us she had never seen so many
children come to school sick - because their parents are not permitted to stay
home with them. My husband, a high school teacher, sees this from the other side
-- older children who miss school because they're staying home to care for a
sick sibling or cousin.
But some parents reported
workplace and public policies that helped bridge the gap between the demands of
work and family.
Topping the list were decent pay and
access to paid sick and vacation time. Flexible schedules and supportive
supervisors were also key. One Milwaukee printing facility supervisor allows
workers to leave early when necessary to care for family obligations. In return,
he reported the employees are willing to come in early or stay late the next
day. "You get it back," he explained. Another supervisor explained, "I don't
turn my back on people because I know a lot of times it's not your fault you're
in trouble."
Some employers developed creative policies
to address parents' work/family conflicts, including transportation to work,
loans and check-cashing services.
The problem is most
parents don't have this or any real flexibility. Nearly three out of five of the
parents we interviewed had no paid sick leave, more than half had no paid
vacation. With a few exceptions, for these workers adjusting work schedules
means leaving a job and finding another one.
I want to
emphasize that all the women we interviewed want to be employed. What they don't
want is to jeopardize their children's care as a result.
What's Needed
What's needed is action by
employers and public policymakers that puts an emphasis on child and family
well-being and commits not to tinkering at the margins but a core set of related
policies to solve these problems.
As a start, we call
on those responsible for TANF reauthorization to redefine the goal of
this program as ending poverty and enhancing the well-being of children and
families, and to broaden the definition of "needy families" beyond those who
have received welfare.
Like families everywhere, those
in this study need three interconnected basics: time, sufficient income, and
access to quality care giving resources. Both workplace and public policy
changes can make a difference:
Policies recommended
include: - More control by workers over their schedules
- Time off when needed for both minor and more serious family illness
but also for school activities and for relaxation.
-
The right to some paid sick leave and vacation time should fall among minimum
labor standards.
- Public policy should also include
expansion of FMLA to cover more people and more caregiving situations and to
provide a source of income during leave.
In order to
allow reduced schedules for those with greater caregiving responsibilities,
part-time work must receive equal hourly rates and at least pro-rated benefits
and be covered by unemployment insurance.
TANF
policy must allow reduced work hours for those with a special- need family
member with no effect on access to benefits over a lifetime. Those who are
unable to find full-time work and need supplemental assistance should also be
able to access this help without having it count against a time limit.
Employers who are offering help would like to see public
support to do so. "Give the government the ability to reward companies that do
offer (these policies)," a Denver supervisor said. "Others will see it and may
do it, too." We support government directing tax and other public dollars to
reward workplaces that meet the family-friendly policies listed here. Built into
any such incentive programs should be the provision that dollars go directly to
worker benefits.
Addressing these three key areas will
make great strides at reducing job turnover and poverty for workers in the
bottom third of the economy to the benefit of families, employers and the larger
community.
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