| | | | Please forward this e-card and tell others to sign up for updates. | | Exclusive to Spotlight | About Spotlight | | - Commentary for Spotlight—Worker-Owned Cooperatives: A Resilient Model for Grassroots Economic Development
 In the latest commentary for Spotlight, contributor Meche Sansores, executive director of Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security (WAGES), contends that community-based cooperative businesses (or worker co-ops) are effective pathways out of poverty that can generate opportunity for low-income households. Worker co-ops are created, owned and governed by their workers who generally set work benefits above industry standards. Sansores notes that because co-op members collectively share the responsibility of acquiring startup capital, they are able to build wealth and assets to ensure their financial security. WAGES uses this model for the low-income women it serves in California’s Bay Area. To date, WAGES has built five cooperatively-owned, eco-friendly housecleaning businesses, which bring in $3.2 million annually and employ more than 100 low-income immigrant women. Co-op members typically double or triple their incomes, opening up a range of opportunities, including enrolling in English as a second language courses and sending their children to college.
| Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity: The Source for News, Ideas and Action is a non-partisan initiative that brings together diverse perspectives from the political, policy, advocacy and foundation communities to find genuine solutions to the economic hardship confronting millions of Americans. This weekly update highlights the latest news, research, events and exclusive commentary on poverty and opportunity. The items highlighted in this newsletter and much more can be found in their entirety on our website www.spotlightonpoverty.org | | | | Events | | | | March 7 Forum—2013 Policy Forum: Serving Low-Income Neighborhoods The George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration will host a policy forum to discuss the current state of community development policy in the U.S. following the foreclosure crisis that hit low-income communities particularly hard. Panelists include Mark Calabria, director of Financial Regulation Studies at the Cato Institute; Lisa Hall, president and CEO of the Calvert Foundation; Maurice Jones, deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; and Joseph McNeely, executive director at Central Baltimore Partnership. The forum will be held from 5:30-7 p.m. EST at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. To register, click here. March 18 Audio Conference: Insights from the Ideas for Action Awards: Financial Asset Building Spotlight will host a national audio conference, in partnership with the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, the Northwest Area Foundation and the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs, to explore programs that help families build financial assets. Speakers, representing the 2012 Ideas for Action Award winners, will discuss best practices for addressing immediate and long-term financial security, and present examples of unique approaches to implementing Individual Development Accounts in financial institutions such as credit unions. Speakers include Mae Watson Grote, executive director of The Financial Clinic, and Marybeth Foster, executive director of the Iowa Credit Union Foundation. The audio conference will be held from 2-3 p.m. EST. Click here to register. | | Reports, Briefs & Articles | | | - Report Details Reforms to National Housing Policy
The Bipartisan Policy Center’s Housing Commission—made up of former White House Cabinet members, former U.S. senators and housing experts from both sides of the aisle—released recommendations to improve federal and state housing policies to further economic recovery and meet the needs of the most vulnerable families. Among the recommendations, Housing America’s Future: New Directions for National Policy suggests delivering federal housing assistance through a reformed Housing Choice Voucher program that eventually limits eligibility to only households with extremely low incomes. In addition, the commission recommends federal funding to reduce housing instability by providing short-term emergency assistance to low-income renters who suffer temporary financial emergencies. - Research Offers Contrasting Views on Raising the Minimum Wage
- An issue brief from the Economic Policy Institute argues that the declining value of the minimum wage has played a key role in wage stagnation and the rise of inequality over the last decade. The brief, Declining Value of the Federal Minimum Wage is a Major Factor Driving Inequality, finds that a higher minimum wage would benefit low- and middle-wage workers, particularly women who constitute a majority (54.5 percent) of low-wage workers. The brief argues that a higher minimum wage would also benefit workers who earn more than, but close to, the proposed minimum wage, since they would also receive wage increases as employers adjust upward to reflect the new minimum.
- The Heritage Foundation released an issue brief that asserts that raising the federal minimum wage would be ineffective in reducing poverty and that Congress should seek other anti-poverty strategies. According to Who Earns the Minimum Wage? Suburban Teenagers, Not Single Parents, minimum-wage workers are often young workers in school who do not have to support their families and older workers who live above the poverty line. The brief further argues that increasing the minimum wage would lead businesses to fill fewer entry-level positions, making it more difficult for inexperienced low-income workers to gain the experience and skills necessary to rise out of poverty.
- Annual Report Explores Food Hardship in America
In 2012, more than one in six Americans (18.2 percent) reported that they did not have enough money to buy food that they or their families needed, according to a report from the Food Research and Action Center. Food Hardship in America 2012 finds the national rate in 2012 remains virtually unchanged from the rates in 2009, 2010 and 2011, indicating that families continue to struggle with under- and unemployment, low wages and limited government supports. The report suggests that with the Farm Bill still on the agenda for 2013, Congress has the opportunity to strengthen the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program so it can continue to help these households put food on the table.
| | | | | Spotlight on the States | | | |  A brief from Children’s HealthWatch examines the effects of subsidized housing on family well-being in Minnesota’s Minneapolis-area. For more on the state of Minnesota, click here.
| | | | Spotlight on Twitter | | | | Among all U.S. children under age 18, 45% live in low-income families and 1 in 5 live in poor families: bit.ly/10f9pWU @NCCP via @povertynews #poverty 
Have an interesting poverty stat? Tweet @povertynews or e-mail it to: info@spotlightonpoverty.org. | | | | | |
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