Last Week in Poverty: Food Policy, EITC Expansion and Financial Security for All

Continued from previous page

Dual tracking in Minnesota: “Dual tracking” occurs when a homeowner is foreclosed on while still negotiating with a bank for a mortgage modification. This practice and other mortgage servicing abuses were supposed to be brought under control by the National Mortgage Settlement, but—shocker—the Settlement Monitor gave the big banks failing grades for compliance with basic standards.

In Minneapolis, Jonathan Ceballos reports that he and his family went to their local JPMorgan Chase Home Mortgage Center on Tuesday with revised loan modification documents that the bank had requested. But the next day, thirty sheriffs’ deputies attempted to evict the family from their home—breaking down the door, arresting two people and boarding up the house. But seventy-five community members—organized by  Occupy Homes MN, and including members of Ceballos’ union,  SEIU Healthcare Minnesota—gathered and protested during the eviction. As soon as the deputies left—to chants of “don’t come back”—the Ceballos’s supporters pulled the boards off and reclaimed the house.

When the  Minnesota Homeowner Bill of Rights goes into effect in October, borrowers who are victims of dual tracking will have legal recourse. But until then, you can support the Ceballos’s effort to remain in their home of twelve years  here.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers: has redesigned its website. The  Take Action page is especially convenient—an easy way to get involved with the most amazingly effective, creative and courageous organization I’ve ever covered.

Over the past twenty years the CIW has worked from within its own community of Immokalee to end longstanding human rights abuses and twenty years of declining wages in the tomato industry; organized (and won) the first-of-its-kind Taco Bell Boycott; signed agreements with fast food giants McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Chipotle, supermarkets Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and four of the country’s leading food service providers; and reached a groundbreaking agreement with the Florida Tomato Grower’s Exchange that paved the way for the implementation of the Fair Food Program in over 90 percent of the Florida tomato industry.

If you don’t know the CIW, you are missing out. Check ‘em out and sign up for their newsletter today.

Federal Investments in Children Down Three Years in a Row: First Focus, a child advocacy group dedicated to making children and families the priority in federal policy, released “ Children’s Budget 2013,” a detailed analysis of the more than 180 federal investments in children.

The analysis finds that total spending on children has declined for three consecutive years. Since its peak in 2010, total spending on children has dropped by nearly $55 billion, or 16 percent after adjusting for inflation. The share of the federal budget invested in children is also down 8 percent from 2010, and children have suffered a disproportionate share of cuts under austerity policies like sequestration.

“America can’t afford to overlook children as we make the budget and policy decisions that will shape their lives,” said former Republican Congressman Michael Castle.

Expanding EITC for childless workers: The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one of the most successful antipoverty programs in the United States. It supplements the earnings of low-income families by as much as $6,000 a year, and lifted 6.6 million people out of poverty in 2011.

But childless workers barely benefit from the EITC, if they benefit at all. For example, a childless adult working a full-time, minimum-wage job wouldn’t qualify for the EITC because his or her earnings would exceed the income limit established for workers without children.

“As a result, childless workers are the sole group that the federal tax system taxes deeper into poverty,”  writes the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.