January 2008

by Pat Tassoni

“The existence of poverty in the US should not be accepted as a necessary evil or an insoluble problem, but should be considered a crisis requiring emergency measures. It is a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of resources.”

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ending poverty, creating opportunity

June 2007

by Monica Peabody

I have been involved with the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition (WROC), for a long time. I have a 17 year old daughter and became aware of wroc when she was an infant and we lived in a studio apartment in Seattle. Her father had abandoned us and no one wanted to hire a woman who refused to put her newborn into daycare, insisting she could work with her on her back.

March 2007

On March 1, 2007 thirty-one families with children living in poverty lost their welfare grants. Thus begins the most mean-spirited welfare reform policy this state has yet known: full family sanction. It means the end of a cash grant for families receiving welfare assistance who are perceived as not following the rules for WorkFirst. A steady flow of families will face full family sanction in the next 6 months, and as many as 1,269 may lose their cash income.

July 2006

by Monica Peabody

Governor Christine Gregoire was the keynote speaker at this year's graduation ceremony at the Evergreen State College. She is strange company in the list of past graduation speakers; Shirley Chisolm, Leonard Peltier, bell hooks, Winona LaDuke, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Ken Kesey, Amy Goodman, to name a few. Stranger still is Governor Gregoire's recent decision to cut the welfare benefits of children whose parents are perceived as not complying with welfare to work rules. Strangest of all is Governor Gregoire's refusal to explain or even acknowledge her decision.

June 2006

by WROC members Karin Murphy, Shannon Blood and Monica Peabody

SANCTION: A penalty intended to enforce compliance or conformity; a coercive measure adopted usually by several nations against a nation violating international law.

Does this seem like a word that should be associated with Washington's poor children? Yes, according to Governor Gregoire. As of March 2007, children living in Washington will be "sanctioned" -- their welfare benefits cut off -- if their parents are perceived as not complying with welfare to work programs. Though it will harm children already facing a lack of support for . . .

January 2006

by Pat Tassoni

The existence of poverty in the US should not be accepted as a necessary evil or an insoluble problem, but should be considered a crisis requiring emergency measures. It is a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of resources.

-- MLK, Jr.

The Statewide Poverty Action Network is working with local churches, labor organizations and non-profits to bring 1,000 poor people to Olympia on January 16 for a march to the Capitol and related events. Uniting under the above words of Martin Luther King, Jr. on his holiday, they will urge elected representatives to make ending poverty in . . .

November 2005

by Monica Peabody

Do you benefit from taxes? Do you drive? Ride public transportation? Read books from the library? Do your children go to school? Do you receive public assistance? Go to the park? Recycle? Use tap water?

Do you pay taxes? Washington state collects several types of taxes including sales tax, business and occupation taxes (B & O) and property taxes. There is a notion that only property owners pay property tax, however renters pay property taxes, because rents increase to cover the costs of property taxes. Sales tax costs the same for everyone, regardless of income. Low-income . . .

October 2005

by Pat Tassoni

Poverty is a form of violence. It is a result of inequality rather than a proof of inequality... The existence of poverty in the United States should not be accepted as a necessary evil or an insoluble problem, but should be considered a crisis requiring emergency measures. It is a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of resources.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

July 2005

Olympia, WA -- 6/22/05 -- Since 1999, WROC has been grading DSHS on customer service and the WorkFirst Program. Olympia WROC members delivered this years grades to Region 6 Administrator, Cindy Mund, on Wednesday, June 22, 2005. We were surprised that the entire management team for the region was also present.

June 2005

by Dave Lindorff

The cat's finally out of the bag.

Having failed to attract much interest in his plan for privatizing Social Security and killing it off more or less directly, President Bush, in a rare, but typically scripted press conference at the White House last week, declared his intention to convert the 70-year-old retirement security program into a welfare program, pure and simple.

Bush's latest scheme would see retirement checks slashed for those earning as little as $36,000 a year (by 13 percent according to one estimate).

February 2005

by Lee Sustar

Say you're expecting to rely on a modest retirement fund. Along comes a hotshot stockbroker promising that if he can handle your money; he'll guarantee you 15 or 40 percent less of a payout than you would have gotten in the first place.

It sounds absurd, but that's the essence of George W. Bush's Social Security "reform." For all of Bush's hype about diverting a portion of the Social Security payroll tax into individual retirement accounts, his proposal is simply a smokescreen for a cut in benefits.