Nickeled and Dimed Project

Who's There To Help?

2006-05-23T17:19:00.000-07:00

There are a ton of places across the U.S. that help families who need assistance. Churches, community centers, and non-profit organizations help millions every year. Churches have food drives, job fairs, and financial advisors. If go to any one of your local churches all you have to do is fill out an application or go through some kind of screening process to get financial aid.

Goodwill is another non-profit organization which provides job opprotunities, clothing, food, and aid to needy families. They provide job training for citizens seeking jobs. They also get millions of clothing and food from donators each year. This helps feed and clothe the specific people who need it.

Family Assistance

2006-05-22T17:19:00.001-07:00

The United States Department of Health and Human Services has the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program(TANF). The Office of Family Assistance heads this. It was created in 1996 by the Welfare Reform Law. It became effective July 1st, 1997. Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) programs, known as welfare was replaced by the program.

Welfare and financial assistance go hand in hand. In the book, the author didn't explore this option until her last stop. The welfare system is kind of forgotten about. There are millions of people taken off welfare each day.They are finding jobs and working, but they do not meet the new deadlines. In this case, they are being punished. We shouldn't make it harder to get welfare, we should help.

For more information, visit http://www.hhs.gov/.

Labor Unions

2006-05-22T17:19:00.000-07:00

Unions are set up all over the US to protect people weho are employed. A labor union is a group of workers working together to get better pay, environments, or laws. Some unions are

Air Line Pilots Association
American Federation of Government Employees
American Federation of School Administrators
American Federation of State, City, County and Municipal Employees
American Federation of Teachers
American Postal Workers Union

To see a full list or find a union near you visit http://www.aflcio.org/index.cfm

Labor Laws

2006-05-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

Throughout the United States there are tons of labor laws regulating employees. Labor laws are also called compliance assistance.

The Department of Labor or DOL has created different laws that help maintain safe environments and enjoyable workplaces. They list all there laws here(click). Here are a few of them:

The Fair Labor Standards Act has to deal with private and public employment. You are effected by this act because it has to do with laws prohibiting children for working long hours and preventing them for getting paid unfair wages. This act requires employers to pay at least minimum wage and overtime wages fairly and promptly.

The Federal Employee's Compensation Act helps injured or disabled employees who were hurt on the job. It also provides survivor benefits for family members of employees who have passed. This act includes the SHARE Initiative(Safety, Health, and Return-to-Employment) and injury compensation for employees.

For more information on The Department of Labor visit http://www.dol.gov/index.htm

Minimum Wage

2006-05-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

There are many arguments about minimum wage. In this book, the author tried to justify her point that you cannot survive on minimum wage. It's up to you to determine whether she did this or not. I thought it would be good to get the background of this situation.

There are 73.9 million Americans working minimum wage. (click) When looking at Virginia, people who work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks out of the year only earn $10,700. Which is $5,400 below poverty line for a family of three. It is estimated that in order to afford a two-bedroom appartment a worker must work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. That's 125 hours! Anyone with a family does not have the time or energy to work this much. For more of Virginia's statistics(click)

In the book, Barbara, looked for the best job which paid the most.

Poverty

2006-05-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

The author, Barbara Ehrenreich, talked about issues such as poverty, minimum wage, labor unions, and neighborhood/church assistance organizations. The graph below shows the median family income throughout the US. It varies from 14,000 a year to 97,000 a year.

In 2004, the official poverty rate was 12.7% up from 12.5% in 2003. Single parent homes tend to have higher poverty rates than married-couple families. This link shows poverty by family type: click here.

This graph shows the number of people kept out of poverty by social security and the amount of peple who are poor with social security. It is seperated by race. 21% of Blacks are poor with social security and non-married people folow with 15%. 39% of blacks are kept out of poverty by social security and 42% of non-married people.

To find out more information on these "surprising" levels click here