Ehrenreich Challenges Women of the ELCA To Address U.S. Poverty

SAN ANTONIO (ELCA) -- Barbara Ehrenreich challenged Women of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to help break
the cycles of poverty that are built into the U.S. economic
systems. The author of the 2001 best-seller, "Nickel and Dimed:
On (Not) Getting by in America," was keynote speaker July 7 for
the organization's international gathering.
Women of the ELCA's Sixth Triennial Gathering is meeting
here July 5-10 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. The
organization's three-year theme, "Act Boldly," is being unveiled
at the convention amid Bible study, keynote presentations,
workshops, community service, business sessions and elections.
More than 2,100 women from across the United States and around
the world are participating.
In researching "Nickel and Dimed" between 1998 and 2000,
Ehrenreich held a series of jobs -- waitress, nursing home aide,
house cleaner, sales clerk -- that paid an average of $7 per
hour. "I did the work; I did not make ends meet," she told the
audience. "Rent is what did me in."
Without the money to pay an "up front" security deposit of
one month's rent, Ehrenreich said a common solution for her
fellow low-wage workers was to live in residential motels that
cost $250 a week. "That's more than I made at Wal-Mart," she
said.
To afford housing, the people Ehrenreich met often lived in
one room with their whole families or with other people --
sometimes strangers. The only way for them to get by was to pool
their resources, she said.
Other ways they could afford housing were to take on two or
more jobs, or to sleep in their cars. Ehrenreich said some full-
time working women didn't consider themselves to be homeless
because they had a car to sleep in between jobs.
Ehrenreich tried to live the life of a low-wage worker in
the United States, but she admitted that she had some advantages
over many of the people she met. For example, she had no
children to care for.
"I seriously have no idea how I would do this with children.
Do the math," Ehrenreich said. The cost of child care alone "put
you in negative numbers before buying groceries," she said.
Ehrenreich said she met single mothers who had the choice of
working two jobs and neglecting their children or staying at home
and watching their children go without food.
Another advantage for Ehrenreich was that she was relatively
healthy. Health insurance cost too much for people living on $7
an hour, she said, and their jobs were usually dangerous to some
degree.
People without health insurance subsidize the health care of
the insured, Ehrenreich said. Health insurance companies are
able to negotiate lower rates with hospitals for their customers,
while uninsured people make up the expenses hospital face by
paying higher rates, she said.
Low-wage workers would rather "work through the pain" than
pay $1,000 they don't have for an emergency room visit,
Ehrenreich said, so an unhealthy situation becomes all the more
unhealthy.
Ehrenreich said she was embarrassed to admit that being
White and speaking English were advantages she had over many of
the people she met. "Otherwise you are steered into the most
menial, low-wage jobs" regardless of skills, she said.
"I've never been so physically challenged," Ehrenreich said,
and humbled by how mentally challenging the work was, too. Low-
wage jobs are made harder than they need to be, she said, because
they are surrounded by "an atmosphere of distrust and
intimidation."

'Poverty and inequality are not natural phenomena.'
Government and corporate policies are conscious decisions
that have created the U.S. economic systems, Ehrenreich said.
Conscious decisions must be made to stop "the accelerated pace of
inequality" that is separating the rich from the poor and
shrinking the middle class, she said.
The official U.S. poverty level is calculated on food costs,
which have not increased at the same rates as housing and health
care, Ehrenreich said. The actual number of people living in
poverty in the United States is double the official count, she
said.
Top corporate executives make huge salaries, relying on an
army of workers who earn profits for their companies by doing
"back-breaking work" for low wages and few benefits, Ehrenreich
said. And the U.S. government is offering tax breaks for the
wealthiest citizens while cutting funds for social programs that
help the poorest citizens, she said.
Ehrenreich said she was raised by atheist parents who taught
her "to do the right thing regardless of reward." She said she
respected Jesus Christ and his moral teachings, and she resented
greed being masked as a Christian value. "I don't know of any
faith or ethical system that requires the poor to pay alms to the
rich," she said.

'Could we please have universal health insurance?'
Ehrenreich encouraged her audience to continue and to step
up efforts advocating for changes that would eliminate poverty in
the United States. She named many changes that could be made by
local, state and federal governments, including city ordinances
that require companies receiving contracts to provide workers
with a living wage, states instituting minimum wages higher than
the federal minimum wage and colleges providing campus workers
with a living wage and benefits.
A change in attitude toward the value of caring is also
needed, Ehrenreich said. Usually women fill the role of care
provider in U.S. society, but that vocation does not pay the
bills, she said. Women caring for children or parents must also
find a paying job, she said, and that usually involves
"exhausting, underpaid labor."
Lutheran women could speak with their elected officials,
Ehrenreich said. They could also get their churches involved in
providing affordable housing in their communities.
"But don't do it in the spirit of charity," Ehrenreich said.
"Expand your circle of caring to include the whole world," she
said. "Act, and act boldly."

'What do we do as a church now that we know these things?'
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the ELCA, and
the Right Rev. Vashti Murphy McKenzie, bishop of the African
Methodist Episcopal Church, responded to Ehrenreich's speech.
Hanson said the ELCA has a social statement on "sustainable
livelihoods." While using that statement to evaluate the U.S.
economic systems, the church must also use it "to examine our own
complicity in economic injustice," he said.
Looking in the Bible, Hanson said he learned that God sees
the quality of one's faith in "the conditions of the poor among
us." He encouraged people of faith to organize coalitions and
work together to break cycles of poverty in the United States and
around the world. "We can do this but only together," he said.
McKenzie described several efforts churches have made in
community organizing to secure low-interest mortgages and
affordable housing in their neighborhoods, as well as to provide
education and other assistance to help people get off welfare.
McKenzie told the Lutheran women to consider what they can
do in their roles as employer, stockholder, owner, policy maker,
advocate and voter. "Am I going to choose profits over people?"
she asked.
In a question-and-answer period with the audience,
Ehrenreich was asked what she is doing personally to address the
conditions she witnessed. She admitted that she has made some
money from sales of "Nickel and Dimed" and said she is using it
to support such causes as the Virginia Organizing Project and
Jobs with Justice.
Ehrenreich also described some of the daily effects her
experiences had on her. For example, she said she no longer
considers tips to be rewards for jobs done well; tips are part of
the wages on which someone is living.
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