The Other (Poor) LA

By Kelly Virella, AlterNet
Posted on August 15, 2000, Printed on May 27, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/9638/specter_of_poverty_haunts_convention

When Republicans paraded blacks and Latinos across their convention stage in late July, they may have been trying to mimick the diversity of Philadelphia. If Democrats want to put on a demographically correct convention, four straight days of minority appearances wouldn't be enough to accurately represent the real LA.

A procession of 4.1 million hungry and bedraggled Los Angelinos -- mostly Latinos, Asians, and blacks -- would have to file through the convention hall to accurately reflect LA's demographics, according to a study released on Friday by the welfare and workers' rights organization, LA Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE).

An estimated 43 percent of LA county residents live under the poverty level set by LAANE in its study. About 1.1 million of them live in households with at least one working family member. That explains why LAANE dubbed LA "Capital of the Working Poor."

Using $33,300 per year as its poverty threshold for a family of four, the study determined that the number of working poor Los Angelinos has increased 34 percent since 1990. LAANE set its poverty threshhold twice as high as the official Federal Poverty Level ($16,700 in 1998) to more accurately reflect the cost of living in LA, said Jessica Goodheart, LAANE's research director.

"The government doesn't even use its own Federal Poverty Level," Ms. Goodheart noted. "Several welfare programs set their income eligibility requirements 180-250 percent higher than the Federal Poverty Level."

Even the US Bureau of Labor's conservative analysis indicates that the ranks of LA's working poor have swollen, from 16 percent in 1990 to 20 percent in 1998.

The study attributes much of the working poor's growth to LA's massive de-industrialization. In the early '80s, LA's tire and auto plant industry collapsed. Then in 1990, following the end of the Cold War, LA's aerospace industry faltered, eliminating half its jobs.

Now the fastest growing sector of the economy is service, which offers mostly low-wage occupations. "Relentless expansion of the retail and restaurant industries led to the largest increase in working poor jobs of any sector," the study reports.

The study also blames opposition to organized labor for the growth of LA's working poor. Organized laborers earn 20 percent more per year than their non-union counterparts, according to the study. Complaints to the National Labor Relations Board, such as the one filed by employees of Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel citing 22 incidents of intimidation and threats against union organizers, are not uncommon in LA.

"Loews employee's wages, which started at $7 per hour and were usually subject to an annual $.15 cent raise, had been frozen for about a year when the workers began to organize," said David Koff, a spokesperson for the local Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International. "It was only after we tried to unionize the workers that the hotel raised the starting wage by $2.50 to $9.50."

LA's Living Wage Ordinance, which the city council passed in 1997 over Republican mayor Richard Riordan's veto, was intended to tackle working poverty by requiring local, taxpayer-supported businesses to pay workers at least $7.72 per hour as a starting wage and to issue them limited health insurance benefits. In lieu of health insurance, workers may accept a starting wage of $8.97 per hour.

But the annual salary of a worker earning the living wage is about $15,000 per year, even less than the Federal poverty level. "The living wage has helped, but not that much. Workers are barely getting out of poverty, " a spokesperson for Jackie Goldberg, a city council member instrumental in the passage of the ordinance, admitted.

Ms. Goldberg is pushing for an increase in the living wage and an extension of the associated health care benefits to the workers' dependents. However, part of the solution may lie in simply informing the working poor of the program or benefits available to them, Ms. Goodheart admitted.

As many as 25 percent of poor families eligible for federal tax credit don't actually claim it, a study in the Journal of Poverty Law and Policy estimated. Among single mothers who receive welfare, each of whom is presumptively eligible, that rate soars to 58 percent, the Joint Council on Poverty Research estimated.

While some benefits and social services are underutilized, others are operating at full capacity and have long waiting lists. Therefore LAANE also urges the state of California to supplement the city's protection of worker's rights. Increasing the minimum wage, strictly enforcing existing wage and hour laws, providing health care for poor workers, and investing more in training and education are measures the state can take to improve the plight of the working poor, LAANE says.

In response to LAANE's study, State Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigoso, who is running for mayor of LA, is calling for greater investment in education to address working poverty.

"Mr. Villaraigoso authored the largest school bond in the history of the nation -- $9.2 billion for new school construction and building improvements," a spokesperson for Mr. Villaraigoso said. "He helped push legislation through the Assembly that gave UC schools funding to recruit students from low-income communities. He wants to keep the focus on improving opportunities for higher education and the quality of k-12 education."

LAANE's study also urges congressional Democrats to move beyond their support for periodic, federal minimum wage increases. Weak federal labor law and lax penalties for infractions perpetuate union-busting, the study says.

Notably, federal and state efforts to promote commerce in underdeveloped areas of cities like LA have actually exacerbated LA's increasing economic homogeneity, the study contends, by luring more businesses offering low-paying service sector jobs into those areas. Such programs "do not hold the businesses who receive tax breaks for opening in depressed communities accountable for the economic renewal of those communities," Ms. Goodheart explained.

Further, the federal government's immigration policies drive many Latino and immigrant workers into poverty, the study says. To address this problem, LAANE advocates the legislative enactment of the AFL-CIO's amnesty proposal, which requires full workplace protection of undocumented immigrants and gives them a chance to obtain permanent status.

Some advocates of the working poor in LA are satisfied with Al Gore's record and message about their plight. When asked how Democrats will remedy the problem, Mr. Villaraigoso's spokesperson said, "This is exactly what Al Gore is talking about: expanding access to higher education and health care and revitalizing low-income communities so that the working poor can be lifted to middle class status."

Others, such as Susan Delugach, LA City Council Member Jackie Golderg's Chief of Staff, are concerned that Gore will do politics is usual. "We need a dramatic increase in the Federal minimum wage. I don't hear Gore saying that. "

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