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Despite Presidential Promises and $787 Billion, Are Green Jobs Withering?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 5, 2010
Contact: Claudia Rowe
Phone: (206) 273-7383
Email: crowe@caseygrants.org
Seattle, WA – Equal Voice: America’s Family Story, a new online publication, sheds light on reasons that President Obama’s promise to use Recovery Act dollars to lift people out of poverty remains unfulfilled. The creation of green jobs, in particular, was central to the president’s plan for a “Pathway Out of Poverty.” Yet his Recovery Act included no method for tracking exactly where stimulus dollars went on the ground – in other words, who got training and found jobs while those hardest hit by the recession have grown increasingly desperate.
Equal Voice, which brings the often-unheard experiences of low-income families into the public discourse, is headed by award-winning social-issues journalist Claudia Rowe. Formerly a contributor to The New York Times and staff reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Rowe takes a national approach to issues, examining themes that connect families in the 12 states where organizations supported by Marguerite Casey Foundation are at work.
Published monthly by the foundation, Equal Voice offers original stories, profiles and photo essays illuminating issues of concern to – and generated by – working people. The goal is to elevate the voices of low-income families on issues such as health care, affordable housing, education access and immigration reform.
The latest edition of Equal Voice examines the Recovery Act in detail – illuminating its promise and problems. It also profiles one stimulus-related effort that has met with heartening success.
Locally, foundation-supported groups grappling with the Recovery Act note:
- In Florida, the Miami Workers Center has produced research showing that minority-owned firms received contracts worth only 12.6 percent of total value awarded by the Recovery Act in-state. Refining this picture to focus on green jobs, a recent report shows that only 1.5 percent of black women were employed in the green economy in 2009. For Latinas, it was 1 percent.
- In Washington state, where community activists successfully pushed laws emphasizing equity in Recovery Act hiring, training programs are badly outstripping available jobs. Yirm Seck, a 28-year-old father is typical: After receiving weatherization training, Seck found brief employment but was laid off after three weeks after the hourly work dried up.
- In Los Angeles, things look brighter. An unlikely coalition of 25 labor, environmental and advocacy groups pushed the City Council to pass an ordinance explicitly linking training programs for low-income workers to real, family-wage jobs.
Through partnerships with the 250 community organizations supported by Marguerite Casey, the national foundation is able to connect media professionals to families, community organizers and local experts living these and similar experiences in 12 states (Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas and Washington) .
For sources in your area, contact Claudia Rowe, Public Information Officer, at (206) 273-7383 or crowe@caseygrants.org.
For information about Marguerite Casey Foundation, contact Kathleen Baca, Director of Communicaitons, at 206-718-0879 or kbaca@caseygrants.org.
You can find Equal Voice: America’s Family Story online: www.equalvoiceforfamilies.org
Marguerite Casey Foundation is a national, independent grant-making foundation dedicated to helping low-income families strengthen their voice and mobilize communities. www.caseygrants.org