Resource Guide Resources for Raising Hope: the Equal Voice Story
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Resource Guide Resources for Raising Hope: The Equal Voice Story TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 Introduction About Raising Hope: The Equal Voice Story About the Raising Hope Community Engagement Campaign How To Use This Resource Guide At A Community Event 4 Myths and Facts About Low-Income Working Families 5 Discussion Questions 7 The Faces of America’s Working Families Living Wages & Job Access Immigration Access to Quality Education Health Care 14 Make Your Voice Heard 15 Join the Movement for America’s Working Families Voting and Civic Engagement 16 Raising Hope Community Engagement Campaign Partners Resources for Raising Hope: The Equal Voice Story 3 Introduction AbouT Raising Hope: THe equal Voice StoRy Raising Hope: The Equal Voice Story is an intimate portrait of inequality in the United States and tells the inspiring story of Equal Voice for America’s Families, a family-led campaign to raise awareness of the issues affecting poor and working families across the country. Beginning with the stories of five households striving to lift themselves out of poverty, the film shows how over 30,000 low-income families came together in their cities and towns to create a national platform of policy solutions for America’s families. Raising Hope shows how working families are uniting to take control over their futures and challenge America to live up to its promises of equality and opportunity for all. Raising Hope will air AbouT the Raising Hope Community on public television ENgAgement CampaigN throughout 2010. Check your local Led by Latino Public Broadcasting and the Marguerite Casey Foundation and in partnership listings for more with public television stations and community-based organizations around the country, the information. Raising Hope Community Engagement Campaign will include public television broadcasts, social media platforms and community screenings designed to highlight issues of local concern and engage new partners in the fight for fairness for America’s working families. The Campaign is bringing this powerful documentary film to communities across the country to shed light on this historic family-led movement and inspire working families across the nation to get involved. As the economic crisis continues to threaten the stability of families struggling to make ends meet, the Campaign is using the film to raise awareness of the National Family Platform developed through the Equal Voice campaign and build the movement by helping families view themselves as guardians of their own future capable of influencing, contributing to and making a difference in public policy. How TO Use This Resource guide AT A Community Event This guide is designed to support discussions and community screenings of Raising Hope: Learn more and get the The Equal Voice Story. The following pages focus on a few of the most important themes– latest updates about the immigration, living wages and job access, access to quality education and health care–and Campaign at http://www. are designed to provide viewers with basic facts to put the issues in the film in context and equalvoiceforfamilies.org/. encourage audiences to get involved. The policies highlighted on these pages represent just a few of the pieces of the National Family Platform developed by over 30,000 families over the course of the Equal Voice for America’s Families campaign–you can view the full platform and connect to other working families across the country online at the Equal Voice website. Sections of this guide can be printed as stand-alone fact sheets, and whether you are hosting a community screening or just watching the film with a few friends, we encourage you to choose the themes that are most relevant to you and to tailor your discussion to meet your group’s objectives, needs and interests. 4 Resources for Raising Hope: The Equal Voice Story Myths and Facts About Low-Income Working Families Low-income people across the country are working hard to provide for themselves and their families, hoping that they will have a chance to realize the American dream. But all too often, some of the most difficult work is also the least rewarded, and the children of low-income parents find themselves trapped in poverty because they have never been granted the opportunities they need to get ahead. The economic crisis has made it even more difficult for working families to get by, pushing many more people into financial instability or outright poverty. On top of this, as the recent health care debates have shown, many people are reluctant to extend government benefits to those most in need because working families are frequently caricatured as freeloaders, unfairly dismissed for relying on social services without 1. “Myths and Facts” from Brandon making adequate contributions to society. Here are a few fast facts about working families to Roberts and Deborah Povich, Still counter these misperceptions:1 Working Hard, Still Falling Short: New Findings on the Challenges Confronting America’s Working Families, Working Poor Families MYTH FACT Project, October 2008. Low-income families do not work. 72% of low-income families work. Low-income families do not work hard. The average annual work effort for low-income working families is 2,552 hours, roughly one and one-quarter full-time jobs. Low-income working families are 52% of low-income working families are headed headed by single parents. by married couples. Low-income working families are 69% of low-income working families have only headed by immigrants. American-born parents. Low-income working families have 89% of low-income working families have a parent very young parents. between the ages of 25 and 54. Low-income working families are 43% of low-income working families have white, overwhelmingly minority. non-Hispanic parents. Low-income working families are 25% of low-income working families receive food dependent on public assistance. stamp assistance. “ I started working at my job seven years ago. I started out at 10 dollars an hour. And I still feel like I’m making 10 dollars an hour… because the cost of living has gone so high… I work as hard as I can, and it just feels like I’m not going anywhere.” - Single mom Charmaine Parker, Fresno, CA Resources for Raising Hope: The Equal Voice Story 5 Discussion Questions • Share a moment in the film that struck you as surprising, true or untrue. • Of the five families featured, which one did you relate to the most and why? • Charmaine Parker shares that every 50-cent raise she receives barely keeps her family afloat due to rising costs of living. Do you think that economic mobility is more attainable to some but not others? If so, why? • Leticia Treviño, mother of six and an undocumented immigrant, shared her hard work at home and in the workplace. Leticia says at one point, “You could say the government depends on me.” What do you think about that statement? Does the United States depend on immigrants both legal and undocumented? If so, how? • Brandon Mitchell, single father of four from New Orleans, compares the state of New Orleans after natural disaster to the state of America. Do you agree that there is a similarity between post-katrina New Orleans and the well-being of America’s families? If so, how? If not, why not? • How do you think the media covers issues affecting poor families? • Share an experience where you have been able to shape public policy that benefited you and your community. • Do you feel like government listens to the voices of families when crafting policy? What is needed to ensure that policymakers consult families when shaping public policy that affects their lives? • This documentary was filmed in 2008. What do you think has changed for America’s families since then? 6 Resources for Raising Hope: The Equal Voice Story The Faces of America’s Working Families: Living Wages & Job Access 1. Marguerite Casey Foundation. Fast Facts 2. Ibid. 1 3. “The Employment Situation – May • 46% of the Equal Voice participants made less than $25,000 annually. 2010.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, • In the past year, 75% of Equal Voice participants reported that their families’ economic June 4, 2010. Online at http://www.bls. 2 gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm. situation either had not changed, had gotten worse or had gotten much worse. 4. Rivers, kerri L. “Conditions of Low- • As of May 2010, the unemployment rate in the U.S. was about 9.7%. Of the Income Working Families.” Working unemployed, almost half had been out of work for more than six months. And this Poor Families Project, 2009. Online at doesn’t include over one million people who wanted and were looking for work in the http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/ indicators.html last year, but who have given up because they feel that no jobs are available.3 5. Ibid. • The problem isn’t just a lack of jobs – many working families are not making enough to 6. Ibid. meet their families’ basic needs. In 2007, almost half of families living in poverty were 7. “Poverty: 2007 and 2008 American working.4 Almost one-quarter of adult workers were in low-wage jobs,5 and nearly one- Community Surveys,” p.2. U.S. Bureau third of Hispanic workers and workers of color were in such jobs.6 of the Census, September 2009. Online at http://www.census.gov. • In 2008, an estimated 13.2% of the U.S. population had income below the poverty 8. “The Worst of Times: Children in threshold,7 and about 5.7 million children lived in extreme poverty.8 The recent Extreme Poverty in the South and Na- recession has expanded the number of extremely poor children nationwide by an tion.” Southern Education Foundation, June 15, 2010.