America's Working Poor Struggling To Get By
KINKADE: Welcome back. Well, the American Dream is rapidly becoming the American illusion. That's the conclusion of a damning report from the United Nations on inequality in the U.S. America's ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, says that report is misleading and politically motivated. But the U.N. researchers say policies from the Trump administration will make poverty in the U.S. worse. One of the biggest problems already facing America's poor is housing, but that is only part of the problem.</s>ENGLISH: There are people out on the streets in one of the wealthiest nations on the planet. You know, that are struggling for meals, for shelter.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things are tight right now. Rent's high everywhere.</s>KINKADE: Had you ever been homeless before?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never, never.</s>KINKADE: These are America's working poor. Earning so little, they can't afford a home, not even one for rent.</s>DEMETRIUS PHILIPS, WORKING POOR: You know you might work today, might not tomorrow, which then puts you in a bind because you're only making like $40 to $50, maybe $60 a day.</s>KINKADE: So, how much were you earning an hour?</s>PHILIPS: More in like 8 bucks an hour.</s>KINKADE: And you're 30?</s>PHILIPS: Eight.</s>KINKADE: 38.</s>PHILIPS: Yes ma'am.</s>KINKADE: Maudine Fall works several jobs in catering and cleaning. But most businesses won't give her more than 30 hours a week to avoid paying health care. She's been homeless 18 months. So, do you ever feel vulnerable than you're living on the street?</s>MAUDINE FALL, WORKING POOR: You really cannot rest -- like you --</s>KINKADE: You can't relax?</s>FALL: No.</s>KINKADE: You're on edge.</s>FALL: I am.</s>KINKADE: John Bobbit, used to own his own maintenance business.</s>JOHN BOBBIT, WORKING POOR: I had four people working for me.</s>KINKADE: Today, he's making grilled cheese sandwiches at SafeHouse Outreach in Atlanta. Losing everything in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit, forced him on the streets for the best part of a decade.</s>BOBBIT: You may not take a shower for two or three days. I wouldn't hire -- I wouldn't hire myself if I was looking like that. I never was really religious at that point, but I started praying into God at that point.</s>KINKADE: He decided to start walking New Orleans to Atlanta, over 700 kilometers in 32 days. Safe House Outreach helped him find a full-time job. But he was jobless after just 18 months due to illness. Now he oversees the kitchen here, which serves hundreds of meals a day to the homeless.</s>KINKADE: Which we take this down?</s>BOBBIT: Yes.</s>KINKADE: The official unemployment rate might be at record lows. But SafeHouse Outreach, says they've seen an increase in the number of underemployed.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On a given year, we'll see about 4,000 people.</s>KINKADE: This is the report being presented to the United Nations that finds if you are one of the 40 million Americans living in poverty, you're likely to stay that way. The American dream, it says, is rapidly becoming an American illusion. Across the U.S., people working for tips can often earn as little as $2.13 an hour. And have to make up the rest in tips just to meet the federal minimum wage of $7.25.</s>ENGLISH: They're not livable wages. These are -- these are little tokens that they're throwing. These are the crumbs from your table.</s>KINKADE: Nolan English is the director of the outreach program.</s>ENGLISH: At least, 40 percent of the people that we serve are working and holding down two or three jobs.</s>KINKADE: Around the clock, seven days a week, they send out teams to talk to people who are struggling, living below the poverty line. One man living in a park started convulsing in front of us. Had Nolan not being there to call paramedics, the situation could have been far more dire. The U.N. report found unlike other wealthy nations, the U.S. has neglected its signed international agreements, which state that access to health care and food are basic human rights.</s>ENGLISH: The only thing that could be done with this current administration would have to be a total change of heart.</s>KINKADE: So, what is behind all of this? Premilla Nadasen is a history professor with Barnard College, researching social policies. And she thinks and I quote, "Since the 1970s, the safety net has been diminished considerably. Labor regulations protecting workers have been rolled back and funding for education and public programs has declined. The poor have been the hardest hit." Well, Premilla Nadasen joins me now from New York. Good to have you with us. Of course, the U.S. prides itself on being a champion of peace and democracy and equality, and a land of opportunity. But many note that America's reputation has been tarnished, not just its treatment of people trying to come into the U.S., but its poor citizens, people that are already here trying to get by. And you say that this has been going on for a long time.</s>PREMILLA NADASEN, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, BARNARD COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Absolutely. So, as we are witnessing the horrific separation of families at the U.S. border, it's also true that federal policy has been destroying family life for people who are currently living here in the United States. The Trump administration has recently -- has recently proposed a stiffening of work requirements for individuals who are receiving public assistance. This includes welfare as well as food stamps. And in some ways, this policy is not new. Those who are receiving food stamps and welfare are already required to work and, in fact, the vast majority of people on public assistance do work. As your earlier report just showed us. In fact, the vast majority of people who are poor in this country are in fact working. We're seeing the beginning of terms like extreme poverty, the working poor, or even the working homeless. Because the fact of the matter is, is it's almost impossible for a family to survive on a minimum-wage job.</s>KINKADE: It really is. And I just want to highlight some of those key findings from this report which point out that more than 40 million people in America are in poverty, more than 5 million in absolute poverty that is third world conditions. Child poverty rates are the highest in the developed world at 21 percent. Incarceration rates are the highest in the world with 2.2 million Americans behind bars. Child mortality rate is highest in the developed world, 50 percent higher than they always see the average of this 35 most developed countries. Should this report is like be a wake-up call to the U.S.?</s>NADASEN: Yes. It should absolutely be a wake-up call. It is -- it is unconscionable that we live in the richest country in the world. We have the highest child poverty rate. It's unconscionable that the -- that the Trump administration and administration's before him to be fair have consistently and systematically cut welfare as -- have cut welfare and assistance for the poor. There is a tremendous amount of contempt for the poor and especially for individuals who receive assistance in this country. And that has to do with a very long history of the way in which welfare, in particular, has been racialized. Since the 1960s, welfare assistance has been most closely associated with African Americans and African American women in particular. The stereotype of the welfare queen has powerful residents in our public discourse. Despite the fact that, that is the stereotype, most people who receive assistance are actually white, they're not people of color. And so, I think the long-term impact of this is that the vast majority of Americans who benefit from some kind of government assistance are losing out.</s>KINKADE: Yes, they certainly are. And you mentioned that kind of tipping system that does go back to slavery. It has its historic roots there, and we know as I mentioned in my report, the current tipped wage, minimum tip wage is $2.13 an hour, and that hasn't changed in 30 years, but it's not just hospitality workers that are impacted. We know from reports that some of America's biggest companies, including companies like Wal-Mart, which is the biggest employer of Americans, has high-percentage, thousands of workers on food stamps.</s>NADASEN: How does it look?</s>KINKADE: Is the culture needs to change?</s>NADASEN: It absolutely needs to change. The federal minimum wage right now is $7.25 an hour. That is below the poverty threshold for a family of two. So, I think we really have to ask if our belief is, and our hope is that people will be able to find a job in order to achieve independence which is the rhetoric of the Trump administration. I think they have to face up to the fact that actually, working a minimum- wage job does not lift a family out of poverty. I think, one of the things that the administration has done through the stiffening of work requirements is to sort of fuel this rhetoric in this debate and this divide between individuals who are working and individuals who are poor. In fact, that's an artificial divide since many of the poor are indeed working.</s>KINKADE: Premilla Nadasen, really great to get your perspective. Thanks so much for your time today.</s>NADASEN: Thank you, Lynda.</s>KINKADE: But still ahead, take a listen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Muhammad, the messenger of God? Who gave him this authority?</s>KINKADE: A film about the origin of Islam. Once deemed too controversial in the Middle East has just made history in Saudi Arabia.