Edittorial
poor, The working
STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Executive Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Associate Editor: Dana Donnelly Production Editor: Tiina Aleman Senior...
...Few people, least of all welfare weal, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 405, New York, NY 10115...
...Peri- ernment can do for the less well-off...
...Dionne, Jr., Sidney he United States has enjoyed eight years of unparalleled economic Callahan, William Pfaff, Daniel Callahan, Jo McGowan expansion...
...p. 3, place...
...Commonweal articles also are available at many theme of his campaign...
...Shockingly, only 40 percent of families eligible for food stamps are curBaloo, Rothco...
...p. 18, ties to the government agencies responsible for administering food stamps and Joan Marcus...
...So- The hope incarnated in poetry took on new force this cial, moral, and religious efforts to discourage the spring when Michael Wall of Derrymore, Ireland, plucked a bottle out of the ocean and found a letter inside dated September 2, 1979 asking the recipient to please write back...
...columnist portraits, Elaine Mills...
...It was not until recently, however, that the new prosperiIntern: Christopher Ruddy ty reached the nation's poor...
...Getting more money into the pockets of the working bring results...
...Americans, by and large, want to help those trapped in Low wages, however, remain the bane of the American poverty...
...Credit (EITC...
...405, New York, The reasons for the persistence of such high levels of poverty in the United NY 10115...
...current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Texas Governor George W. Bush, the Republican party's presumptive presiArbor, MI 48106 and on Microfiche from dential nominee, has made helping the poor and the disadvantaged a central Bell & Howell, Wooster, OH 44691...
...No single approach or program will be suf- "its secret addressee...
...Dionne, "Keeping Promises," http://www.commonwealmagazine.org May 19...
...All public confidence in the competence of government...
...p. 30, Karsh...
...We gible for the EITC is a good way to expand the effects of the apologize for the error...
...1, 1924, to remains an elusive goal for most of the working poor...
...6, rently receiving them...
...Medicaid...
...bank...
...Unemployment is near a thirty-year low, Circulation Manager: Sandra Smith long-stagnant wages have begun to rise, and welfare rolls have been Staff: Quanda Williams cut in half...
...Because it is tied to work, there Judge John Noonan's relationship with the Institute for Adis broad, bipartisan support for the EITC...
...But despite this good news, the U.S...
...poverty rate is higher than it was Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor in the 1970s and the disparity between the rich and the poor has caused some to Publisher Emeritus: Edward S. Skillin call the so-called "information" economy a new Gilded Age...
...ended the federal entitlement and put in place work requirements and time limFax: (212) 662-4183...
...Judge Noonan is not inof money the working poor can earn while remaining eli- volved in any way with IACS fundraising activities...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 0010-3330...
...These astounding oversights can be explained in part by the sharp reron, Rothco...
...He met the bottle's advent with an understated awe-"a long journey, you know...
...Copyright © 2000 Commonweal Foundation...
...In keeping with Commonweal's usual schedule, only one issue is published each month during July and August...
...Whatever one thinks of Bush's "compassionate conserlibraries and research facilities on CD- vatism," " at least in tone it reflects a shift in the national mood concerning what govROM and in electronic data bases...
...Currently, the nation's most extensive and way to begin to include the poor in the prosperity enjoyed by successful antipoverty program is the Earned Income Tax the majority of their fellow citizens...
...Raising the amount vanced Catholic Studies (IACS...
...Special two-year rate: U.S...
...taxes...
...Osip ing subsidies are also essential...
...Unionizing workers is, of Mandelstam likened the poet to "the shipwrecked sailor course, the surest way to raise wages...
...Wall lives in the same town, works in the same mill, and fishes the same shore he did as a young man in the summer of 1979, the Boston Globe (May 12) reported...
...Advocates of the 1996 welfare reform, which http: / /www.commonwealmagazine.org...
...Lowering the income-tax rate for the poor who THE EDITORS earn too much to qualify for EITC would alleviate the perverse incentive not to seek better-paying jobs for those just beginning to climb the economic ladder...
...A concerted effort by community groups, churches, government agencies, Commonweal 5 June 16, 2000 and politicians should help to dismantle these barriers as proliferation of single-parent families will also be high on the well as reconnect needy families with the government as- list of realistic antipoverty initiatives...
...Portland, ME independence provided by employment would solve the problem of poverty...
...The suburban poor need not always strong-hope that it may somehow wash up better public transit as well...
...and monthly July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, American children is twice as high as it is for their peers in Europe...
...foreign, $50...
...Here is an instance of the world's grace, a happy confluence of human attention and natural caprice, and a reminder of the beauty and pleasure which may come into being when we act and write toward a future unknown to us...
...Much can be done to aid the poor by better administering programs already in Illustrations: Cover design: Christopher Young, cover art: David Carle...
...In other instances, states have erected unnecessary and sometimes illegal barriers for eligible recipients to overcome (see, E.J...
...Theirs was the work of a perfect summer day, spontaneously undertaken and skillfully executed...
...Commonweal 6 June 16, 2000...
...04106 (207) 799-4387, classified advertising correspondence to 475 Riverside Dr...
...In short, after a period when the idea that government could help the poor Canada, $47...
...p. 10, duction in the welfare rolls...
...Only a third of children entitled to Medicaid coverage are 19, 26, 28, Ross, Rothco...
...475 Riverside Drive, Rm...
...Nonetheless, most of the jobs available to low-skilled workers remain low to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodi- paying...
...Several recent polls have indicated that odicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., Americans think government action on problems such as education, health care, and at additional offices...
...p. 7, Schwad- getting it...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...p. 3, Ivan Kyncl...
...Ironically, it Annual rates for air-mail delivery outside seems that ending "welfare as we know it" may have contributed to renewed U.S.: Western Hemisphere, $84...
...foreign, $87...
...other parts of the world, $99...
...was loudly derided, the tenor of the political debate has shifted...
...The longparted women have had peripatetic adulthoods...
...STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Executive Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Associate Editor: Dana Donnelly Production Editor: Tiina Aleman Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt Editorial Assistant: Maurice Timothy Reidy Copy Editor: Susanne Washburn Business Manager: Gregory Wilpert The working poor Poetry: Rosemary Deen Stage/Media: Celia Wren Columnists: John Garvey, E.J...
...Single Copy, and poverty is more important than paying down the national debt or cutting $2.50...
...To require the poor to work is not morally problematic if work is recal Index, Index of American Periodical warded by a living wage...
...The trio plans to meet soon...
...They confessed to a rush of longing for things past...
...p. 8, Ray, Rothco...
...Display advertising correspondence should be sent to Ruth E. its for welfare benefits, argued that work was available and that the dignity and Taylor, 11 Graffam Rd., So...
...Affordable housing and hous- somewhere, perhaps on the shoreline of the heart...
...eosT- Thanks to a booming economy and the incentives for work built into the reform, MASTER: send address changes to Common- many former welfare recipients have found jobs...
...One in eight AmerCommonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review icans still lives in poverty...
...Europe, $89...
...ficient...
...Finally, better schools who throws a sealed bottle into the sea at a critical moment," and access to health care are key to lifting the next generation and a poem to a "testament of the deceased" that will find out of poverty...
...Having left welfare, many poor families severed their David Carle...
...16, 23, Valerry...
...The next issue will be dated July 14...
...program...
...clients, dispute the value of work or the benefits of not relying on a government Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide handout...
...A pair of teenage girls had dropped the bottle off a Nantucket (Massachusetts) ferry twenty-one years and three-thousand miles ago...
...There is much more that can and should be done to help America's working poor...
...Web: States are, of course, hotly disputed...
...Building on what already works is the best poor is crucial...
...Both public and private initiatives are essential...
...Telephone: (212) 662-4200...
...Feeling good about their Canadian and foreign subscriptions must own economic prospects and having regained a measure of faith in government, be paid in U.S...
...Email: commonweal@msn.com...
...The efficacy of EITC is so widely ac- CORRECTION The editorial "Something New," which knowledged that some states add to the federal refund with appeared in Commonweal's June 2 issue, mischaracterized EITC programs of their own...
...Poverty among Christmas/New Year's...
...sistance to which they are entitled...
...Canada, $81...
...Better public transportation is Message in a bottle L Paul Celan once described a needed to get the urban poor to the suburbs, where the real poem as "a letter in a bottle thrown to sea with the-surely growth in new jobs is taking place...
...dollars by International Money Order or by check on a U.S...
...But, as the poverty statistics demonstrate, a living wage Verse, Book Review Digest, and Book Review Index...
...This program now puts about $25 billion annually, or up to $3,800 in tax rebates per worker, into the hands of the poor...
...the public now appears more willing to consider society's obligations to the poor...
...But Americans are, by and large, a pragmatic peoeconomy and the greatest disincentive for the poor seeking ple, and they will support only government programs that work...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S., $44...
...For children, the situation is even worse-one in five chilof Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly except dren, including 40 percent of all minority children, is poor...
Vol. 127 • June 2000 • No. 12
