Celebrates 15 Years of Fighting for Poor Families' Rights!
Fifteen years ago, the Welfare Rights Committee started to defend the rights of poor families. Every year since, WRC has been on the front lines, fighting and winning hard battles at the Capitol for Minnesota's poor.
In 2007, WRC will again set forth a battle with politicians to protect programs for poor families. The Welfare Rights Committee has been meeting with Politicians to do legislation for next session. This legislative session we will be again fighting for:
1. Raise the Welfare Grants. Last year WRC had a bipartisan bill that passed all Senate committees that raised the Welfare Grant. 2006 marked 20 years since there was last an increase in the grant (a 1% increase took place in 1986). The bill raised money for the grant increase by closing corporate tax loopholes that dedicated $60 million to welfare, child care & healthcare for poor families.
2. Stop Workfare/Slave Labor. WRC fought and stopped Workfare (unpaid labor to "work off" the welfare grant) in the state of Minnesota in our earliest years as a committee. WRC was also successful in stopping workfare from being significant in the 1997 welfare "reforms" in Minnesota (to be used as a last resort). Now workfare is rearing its ugly head again, and needs to be stopped!
3. Undo Cuts to Welfare. For the last three years, the WRC has had bills to undo the $125 SSI cut and the $50 housing cut. These bills passed the entire Senate. Again the money was raised from a "Tax the Rich" bill that closed corporate tax loopholes and dedicated the money to undoing welfare cuts. WRC's bill succeeded in putting a cap on the SSI cut in 2005, and stopping a $200 housing cut in 2004 and 2005 (an increased housing cut was not even proposed by Republicans in 2006)
4. Stop the Five Year Time Clock. The five year limit continues to be a cruel, arbitrary time limit placed on families in poverty. The time clock is ticking even if we're working and unable to make enough to get off welfare. WRC has had bills in the past to eliminate the five year limit, to put a moratorium on the 5 year limit, and to stop the clock.
5. Stop Attacks on Immigrants. Throughout WRC's history we have fought to stop or undo cuts to Immigrants. In 1997, WRC won a measure to stop the federal cuts in SSI and food stamps to immigrants at the state level, and make it up with state money. WRC fought last year in the "Fund Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed" bill to eliminate health care cuts to immigrants.
6. Childcare: Undo Co-pays and Increase Eligibility. Co-pays imposed on poor and working families went up in 2003. We want bring the parent co-pays for childcare back to a reasonable level - poor families don't have the cash to spare. Eligibility for sliding fee childcare must also come back to the 2003 levels.
7. Stop MA Co-pays. WRC has fought the past 3 years to undo MA co-pays.
Fifteen years ago, the WRC, a committee of low-income women and families, jumped into the trenches to fight back against the war on the poor. Since that day, the WRC has been on the front lines, fighting day and night to stop the attacks on welfare other programs for low income families. Every year, the WRC has had its own Poor Peoples Bills at the Capitol, has brought thousands of low-income families to the Capitol to meet with politicians, testify at hearings, and to protest unjust laws. The WRC has won critically important battles and will continue to fight back until every single cut to welfare and attack on the poor is ended!
2006 Victories for the Welfare Rights Committee:
The Welfare Rights Committee fought hard at the Capitol last year to undo the cuts and get back the poor people's money that was stolen from us over the past few years. For the third year in a row, WRC had a bill, "Fund Children's Needs, Not Rich Peoples' Greed". The bill closed corporate tax loopholes and dedicated $60 million to undoing cuts to the poor. It included a welfare grant raise, undoing welfare cuts, increasing child care money, undoing health care cuts to immigrants, stopping the MA copay. Here's what we won:
1. For the first time in 20 years, politicians talked about increasing the monthly welfare grant because of the Welfare Rights Committee. In our "Fund Children's Needs, Not Rich People's Greed" Bill, we demanded that poor family's welfare grants get a 10% raise! The bill passed all Senate Committees, and inspired sharp debate in the House.
2. We had some major VICTORIES in CHILDCARE, including:
-- Starting July 1st, 2006, more families will be able to get off the waiting list and into childcare! Over $10 million dollars was passed to get families into sliding fee child care over the next 3 years.
-- Childcare providers will start to get better reimbursement rates, meaning we will have an easier time finding childcare and they won't be passing the cost onto us.
We fought to get the co-pays for child care reduced (this passed the Senate in our bill) and the Republicans REFUSED to decrease them, so we will have to fight on this again next year.
3. WRC STOPPED politicians who were trying to STEAL $23 million from the welfare money. They wanted to take poor people's money and spend it on other things. Now we have that money to use for our fight next year.
In 2005, the WRC had another "Tax the Rich" bill, called "Fund Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed" that passed all the way through the Senate. It closed corporate tax loopholes and used the money to undo some of the worst 2003 welfare and health care cuts. Here's what we won:
1. A cap on the $125 SSI cut. The bill called for eliminating the SSI cut. The change passed to cap the !125 cut to one time per family ( in past it was $125 per family member with a disability, adding up to $250, $375 etc. per month cut)
2. Stop Republicans increasing the housing penalty to $200/month. The bill called for eliminating the $50 cut. It was successful in stopping a deeper cut.
3. Reducing TEFRA fees for families with children with disabilities and leins on property for individuals using MA.