 I've just got work, I will definitely believe you early for votes. Maybe just to ask you something else. You know what I'm going to say, if you've got something to do with it, you can stay around for it, you know, if you believe in it and have it. Except something like that, you know, like, you know, it's possible to fight for anything that's going to be found, or seen or found inside, you know, right now. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get the word as soon as it gets here. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your prompt arrival this morning. We'll be getting started in just a few moments. Sir, I know I'm Walsh. Nice to meet you. I was there. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, good morning, everyone. We are going to get started in just about two minutes. We're still waiting for Keith Ellison, a congressman from Minnesota to arrive. He is our first speaker, but we are going to go ahead and start the program in just another minute. So again, thank you for your patience. Steve, well, good morning, everybody. I'm Andrew Yarrow with Foxdown America. I'm pleased to have everybody here, and I'm very grateful to the Economic Policy Institute for hosting us and working with us on this program. Oxfam, as many of you know, may be best known for its international economic development and relief work over the last 70 years. In more recent years, we've become involved with projects here in the United States like low-wage poverty, growing inequality, and low-wage work with projects in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, projects with farm workers. And as hopefully all of you got coming into the room, we've released a new survey, a national survey of low-wage workers, which we defined as workers earning less than $14 an hour and in households with less than 200% of the poverty in terms of less than 200% of the poverty level. Guy Malinu from Heart Research, who conducted the poll, will run through the data for you in a few minutes. First off, as all of you know, inequality and low-wage work are growing problems in the United States. The U.S. has become the most unequal rich country in the world. And also, according to the OECD, has more low-wage, a larger percentage of its workforce in low-wage occupations. And as you'll hear from Heidi Shearholz from the Economic Policy Institute as well, we'll put some meat on that data of how low-wage work in the U.S. has grown, is growing, is accounting for most of the growth in jobs since the official end of the recession, and B.L.S. projections are for some of the fastest-growing occupations in the years ahead are low-wage jobs. I will not go into too much detail about who low-wage workers are at this point because we have some great speakers here this morning. And first off, we are very pleased to have two member of Congress and a former member of Congress to my far-right representative, Keith Ellison, who will speak first, who represents Minnesota's fifth congressional district in the House of Representatives. His priorities in Congress are building prosperity for working families, promoting peace, pursuing environmental sustainability, and advancing civil and human rights. Representative Ellison is also chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and serves on the House Financial Services Committee and the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. So thank you, Representative Ellison, for being here. And Representative Ellison will speak first. He will be followed by Representative James Walsh, to my immediate right, who represented what's now New York's 24th congressional district in the House of Representatives for 20 years, from 1989 to 2009. He was a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership and Republicans for Environmental Protection, and in 2006 led 65 Republican members of the House in supporting an increase in the minimum wage. He also served in the Peace Corps, was a business executive, and a member of the Syracuse New York Common Council. And he is currently the Government Affairs Council with the D.C. Office of K&L Gates. And before we get started with the speakers, just a little bit about the format. We have a kind of two-part program here this morning. We have our two distinguished speakers who will be speaking first. We'll then have a short period of Q&A for the speakers. Then we will move into presentations by Heidi Schierholz and Guy Malinu showing the data from our survey. And we have a working American, let's see, Naya Pods. Are you in the room? Yes, Naya will come and join us at that point as well to discuss some of the issues facing low wage workers. So at this point, I'd like to turn to Congressman Allison. Thank you. Thank you. You can do the podium or whatever your preference. I guess I think they're on my feet. Well, first off, votes might be called as early as 10. So as the Congressman is well aware, I may have to make a mad dash, but I'm going to hang in there as long as we can, and I'm really honored to be here with you today. Thanks to EPI that we saw of you. Thank you for our esteemed guests. I want to just pose you a question. If you were going to pick one word to describe America, what would that word be? Think of your word. Think of your word. I bet your word is something close to opportunity, possibility, coming up as two. Your word has something to do with the idea that your fate is somewhat in your hands, and that if you work hard, you'll be able to do better. We're not talking about American fantasy, where you're going to hit the lottery and all that kind of stuff, but every American has, I believe, the right to dream that they can improve their circumstances, can perhaps own a home if they want to, can have enough money to pay their bills, can retire one day, and can hope to support their child seek higher education. These dreams are within the grasp of this economy if the distribution of wealth is fair. But it's not within our grasp right now for literally millions of Americans who put their shoulder to the wheel every single day. This is a moral outrage, and the conditions and the policy choices that we have made over the last 30 years are creating an America in which that American dream is slipping out of the grasp. Quite frankly, the policies we have been pursuing, and I'm going to talk about a few of them, represent an existential threat to the American middle class, and we better do something about it because there are rich countries with poor people, and there are poor countries with fabulously rich people. Some of you who had the chance to travel know, you go to Mexico or Brazil or Pakistan, and they got people there richer than your imagination. Fabulously wealthy, servants everywhere, sprawling in states, but that's a tiny percentage of the population. Most people are struggling, scraping them to survive. Our country has avoided that fate because bold, brave, courageous men and women insisted that we have an economy that's fair where everybody can make it based on specific concrete policy choices. They fought against some of the arguments that are being made today. The startling thing about the arguments that are being made today is they've been being made for 100 years, and I mean that. So what are some of these choices? We could start anywhere. Let's start with taxes. We were told that if you wanted a strong, robust economy, what you needed to do is take money from the middle and the lower end of our economic system and give it to the rich people because then they would take the money and put it into plant equipment and they would take care of us. They would make sure, they would plow that money back into the economy and we would be better off for it. And we remember the Laffer curve and we remember the Milton Freeneys economic philosophy and Greenspan and all the rest. The reality is that history has proven that it has failed. When our economy was really running, well, in the 50s and 60s, we had tax rates of 90% in some cases. Now we have some of the lowest tax rates we've ever had and we have an economy that's not really producing jobs enough to meet the demands of a growing population. When someone like Mitt Romney paid $20 million and paid 13.9% in taxes, can exist and someone making 70 grand, busting it out, both members of the both red winners in the family working full-time are paying 35% or something in that neighborhood. That's a scandal. The only reason we tolerate it is because we have been given to the false notion that poor people have too much money and rich people don't have enough money and if we just give them more, then they will hire us and they'll plan equipment to make us all better off. It's not true. Or maybe we could even talk about not taxation policy but trade policy. My own state of Minnesota has been a tremendous job net loser because of NAFTA. Now they want us to, they told us we passed South Korea, we're going to do better off. This country has lost about 40,000 dollars because of it. We passed Columbia Free Trade Agreement that's not working out for Colombians or Americans and now we're staring at the Trans-Pacific Partnership which involves more countries than NAFTA in more areas of our economy than NAFTA and half the countries in the agreement we already have trade deficit with them and we're told we should do this because we've got a flank of China so we should give up the economic interest of the American middle class to a bad trade deal to compete internationally with China. I think there's better ways to compete with about investing in our people and our infrastructure like they are. Or we can move on to even education. Education. I think there's about, what I read and I'd love to be corrected if I'm wrong, about 586 billion dollars is spent directly on K-12 education throughout the United States. If somebody has a better number, please give it to me. I hate to labor in ignorance. But it looks to me over the last 10, 12, 15 years that somebody rung a dinner bell on American K-12 education and is working night and day to figure out how to siphon off a profit center from it as we look at online, we look at for-profit charter schools which is making, I mean, when hedge fund managers are trying to figure out how to get a slice of the education pie, you know there's a profit. The results of these for-profit charters and these online charters and these, and all this excessive testing, people make money on those tests. That's a for-profit business to excessively test our children. And at the end of the day, we're cutting teachers but we're putting more money into these alternative measures when really our educational system is supposed to be trained to work for us for tomorrow. I've talked about education, taxation, trade. I could keep going. Let's just talk about an invinerated institution like the Post Office. We literally are ruining the Post Office. The Post Office hired Americans on a non-racial basis after the Civil War. The Post Office hires more pensions than nearly anyone else. It always has. In fact, Congress required that they pay pensions forward to the degree that even postal workers who haven't been born yet have got to have their pension covered now and it has created an inordinate burden on this institution which has made them run deficits even though if they didn't have this congressional mandate they'd probably be doing just fine even given the recession. And yet we hear calls based on that deficit to privatize the Post Office every day because of course some industry wants to pluck off pieces of it so they can change change. I'm offering a quick survey about just a few key policy decisions that we have been making that are not in the interest of the American people that don't have any merit when it comes to the public interest and just a few of these things that we've got to reverse and we can be on a sustainable path to the American dream. But we've got to understand what's happened and we've got to understand that there are people who have decided that this drive toward privatization is drive toward saying government doesn't work government can't work government's always wrong they have ulterior motives and they're not dealing straight up with UNI the fact is there are people clicking their champagne glasses when the sequester went into effect they were so happy about it they're not sad about it they don't want to lift it President Obama working hard to try to lift it members of Congress doing the same thing they like it because they know that if you shrink government to the size where you can drown it in the bathtub that people who want to pollute people who want to externalize their costs of their industry won't have anyone to hold them accountable it's as simple as that so I guess what I want to tell you is that there is good news there really is because I can even feel how much of a down round sound like right now but there is good news and the good news is that Americans all over this country are really beginning to take their economic destiny into their own hands as members of the Progressive Caucus we were honored to be able to partner with workers who work for low-age industries that are fabulously wealthy by the way and highly profitable but the workers are making $7.25 an hour one of the groups that the Progressive Caucus partnered with were workers who work for federal contractors and according to another great thing known as Demos the federal government funds more low-age jobs than Walmart or McDonald's combined these are both wildly profitable companies and yet the people who fry the chicken and make the hamburgers get next to nothing but this is taking place not only in D.C. but it's taking place but it is taking place in D.C. too and it's taking place at the Ann Space Museum at the Ronald Reagan building it's taking place at the Union Station but it's taking also place in Milwaukee and in New York and in Minneapolis and in Duluth, Minnesota and all over this country low-age workers saying we've had enough and we're not going to take it anymore as members of Congress and even the president are calling to increase the minimum wage and we're stuck in a political environment where it's very difficult to do that low-age workers are saying we're striking good luck with that we hope you win but if you do or if you don't we're going to use our ability to withhold our labor to demand that we get a better slice of the profits of this company after all, if we don't make the chicken and we don't clean up these restaurants and we don't secure them and we don't serve these people you don't make any money so do right by the people who do right by you every day also as calls for fixing the debt are heard around the Congress and we're told that the only way to fix that debt is to cut Social Security and other key programs Americans, seniors but not just seniors disabled veterans and people all over this country now we need to say no chain CPI is a cut I was standing with workers yesterday seniors and others yesterday and further by now where they were saying you're not going to balance the budget on our shoulders we're in this situation because of two unpaid full wars unpaid for Medicare Part B unpaid for tax cuts not because of Social Security and you're not going to re-empower seniors in this generation to solve the problem Americans are saying no and all over this country people are doing this and Congress has got to catch that catch that win and I believe that more and more you will find people demanding that this economy which is a built created social institution not an active nature you understand the economy is not like a storm the economy is like a train we built it we can slow it down we can speed it up we can put more seats in it but we've got to be willing to do that and I just want to wrap up by saying this I love this country and I know you do too and it shames me a little when I read that there are other countries in this world that have greater economic mobility than in the United States America should have and you know sorry for sounding a little patriotic but America should have the most the strongest economic mobility in the world it should not have the greatest inequality in the world America should have an economy that works for everybody and we need to put labor policies trade, taxation healthcare policies in place to make it so we can do this it is within our ability to do but we've got to do it now and we're not lacking for great policy ideas what we're lacking for is organization and grit and willingness to stand up do I have even a minute left I'm done, okay I'm done alright thank you all very much thank you Representative Allison you guys give me a time thing gentlemen's time has expired but that I understand good morning thank you for inviting me I would like to thank EPI and Oxfam for giving you this opportunity to be here with you today louder not you okay okay so and I apologize right at the outset because I'm gonna have to read a lot of this because I wrote it last night I don't have speech writers anymore and I don't have the technology that I used to have so bear with me but I do consider it a real honor to be here I was asked to try to explain to you how best to work with Republicans in the Congress and I suspect I'm one of the few Republicans here I am a Republican some would consider me a conservative some would consider me modern some people may even consider me a liberal and some things but I am a Republican and I think like one and so what I'd like to do is sort of talk about some of the values that I think Republicans have and then talk about the government's role and how to get partnerships and bipartisan opportunities with with the Congressman's colleagues my former colleagues in the Congress in my 60 years plus, 60 plus years of life and much of that in public life 31 years in public life I was a city councilman city council president, member of Congress my dad was a mayor and member of Congress I had never seen a situation where a job was advertised and somebody didn't show up we'd advertise five fireman positions 250 applications we advertise 50 summer jobs for parks, for kids we get a thousand applications so if people want to work they want to work there's no question about that they want to take control of their own destiny they want a better life for their kids than they had for themselves rich or poor, that's what people want Americans or Nepalis where I worked in a Peace Corps they want the same things it's universal there are some slackers we all know some slackers but by and large people want to work and they want to work hard and they want to control their own destiny I worked after Peace Corps I came back they slowed AFC cases they used before the mess there were women with depended children I know that the people that I worked with on public systems did not want to be there they did not they don't want to hand out they have pride they want to earn their way they want to have good things in life we need to have that opportunity society that Congressman Ellison mentioned I think opportunities that's the word that jumped in my mind for sure we need to have a hopeful society our nation can only maintain its greatness if people believe that they have a shot at success at financial independence at a bright future otherwise there is no hope how do we give people a sense of hope in every corner of our nation people in rural America people in inner cities it won't be easy because based on the poll that's recently been provided to all of us people don't believe that there's equal opportunity anymore that the systems rig that it's easier to fall back than it is to go forward first let me say in kind of a mention to dream there was another great American who talked about a dream Dr. Martin Luther King you can't just have a dream you have to work it and remember Dr. Martin Luther King was a PhD he spent his life working hard to get that degree he lived his example every day was working toward that dream and in spite of all the trouble the arrests, the insults, the frustration we continue to work toward that dream and while he died tragically that incredible sacrifice helped to enable that dream so hard work is still a very important entity no matter how frustrated no matter how underemployed, no matter how unappreciated or how poorly compensated people are hard work is a value one of my sons qualifies is an under working poor and he's working his butt off I know he is and he wants to get ahead but he will, I hope he will but for some it just doesn't come as easy as it does for others education is perhaps the most important ingredient as an individual that's our first most important responsibility as a parent getting our kids focused and disciplined to study and learn and love to learn I think that's a parent's most important job loving them is teaching making good decisions good choices in life is critical keeps us from getting boxed in later in life keeping our options open avoiding trouble and playing by the rules is one of the best ways to ensure good work opportunities some of us some of our kids learn the hard way but hard work education, good choices work for most if we do all these things and still society won't give us a break then the government has some responsibilities job training community colleges student aid, student loans these are the things the government should do to support your initiatives Medicaid Social Security Disability community health centers programs, public assistance these are for when you fall backward when you're trying to get ahead and you stumble and your dream doesn't immediately come into focus, government has a responsibility to provide that support Medicare Social Security this is a return on your investment for hard work throughout your life as a public member of congress I supported all these programs as did the vast majority of my colleagues both parties I believe that is still the case in both parties no one wants to suffer no one wants people to suffer most people contribute to charity whether they're conservatives or they're progressives we all want the world to be a better place yes there is a small majority who think that people on welfare are just slackers obviously they've never met or spoken with or received public assistance because it's just not the case but I think that most conservatives indeed most people they don't want waste, fraud and abuse, they want their tax dollars properly spent and well spent and beneficially and efficiently spent so what about Washington today I think what happens is complex issues are reduced to sound bites lines drawn in the sand on the right you get quotes like 50% of the people are takers on the left you say you hear conservatives are heartless haters who want to take food from the mouths of babies both are wrong both statements are absolutely wrong but those are the lines that get drawn in the sand and as you know there are interest groups on both sides progressive side, conservative side who are out there fighting for their ideas and members of Congress sometimes get caught in between but so much of what's going on today in Washington is reduced to sound bites members of Congress by and large are good decent honest, hard working people just as much as the country at large is described the same people in this room are described the same Congress really does indeed reflect the nation you'll never read in the paper that members of Congress are good honest, decent, just kind, hard working people but the press doesn't get your attention by praising Congress part of the problem on Capitol Hill I think is the country is hurting it's tough the economy is poor revenues aren't coming to the country just as in your home if you have a good year and you have money in the bank and bills are paid life is a lot easier same with the government when revenues are coming in when the economy is good when unemployment is down when people are in control of their own destiny governments a lot easier it's a lot tougher to govern and part of the problem now is that both parties have ideas about how to fix it but there are different ideas and unless you live in a dictatorship the only way to get anything done is compromise if you have a dictatorship, the dictator says this is what we're going to do, whether you like it or not in this country the only way things get done is through compromise and there are some in my party who just don't like government but the absence of government is anarchy and we just had a little taste of that a few weeks ago and I think some of those folks who didn't like government so much are now thinking maybe just maybe government does have a role to play and so something else to keep in mind is 45% of the House representatives has two terms experienced or less we don't really even know what regular order is 45% of the county, hundreds of members of county have been there for three years or less so they're learning and part of your job is to help teach them and as I said the key to any solution is bipartisanship nothing good ever happens in Washington without some component of bipartisanship and I think that's maybe almost even a fact I know it's an observation but it's pretty close to fact it does exist today but the problems are big I know members of Congress who get together talk about issues talk about solutions try to find common ground there's a lot of show horses in Congress that you see on TV on talk shows and then there are a lot of work horses that you don't necessarily see on TV every day but they are trying the problem is compromised right now seems to be a dirty word your charge I guess is based on these problems and let members know that people are working as hard as they can and just can't get ahead that the economy needs to grow to create more demand for workers to put more people on that economic train that the congressman talked about that job training has to be supported by the government so that people who lose jobs or are underemployed can get the next better job the social safety network of food, housing and health care is essential when people have a crisis lose their job or have a serious illness part of the problem is that the government doesn't do all things well some programs are poorly run and poorly managed as you know these get the headlines and wind up as red meat in politician's speeches we need to be thoughtful persistent and mother would say polite patient persistence may be the most important quality of all I found in my career once nine years to get a bill passed nine years that kind of mitigates against term limits but persistence is really important in politics and policy development point out to your representatives that they have thousands of people living in their constituencies who are having a hard time making them and they're working as hard as they can and they don't have the opportunities to move up that everybody in this country should have present them with the facts take them to food banks shelters job training programs colleges, community health centers and and when they go show them the faces and the lives and the frustrations and the challenges of the working poor offer bipartisan solutions elicit and develop heroes champions in both parties don't suggest that only government holds the key to solving these problems but has to play its part along with individuals the private sector churches and educational institutions be creative show them that one dollar federal money can often leverage ten dollars in the private sector whether it's ten dollars investment in education or it's job training or it's transitional living services and find advocates and partners in the private sector who will work with you to help spread that federal money farther don't be afraid to support changes in existing government programs to improve them John Boehner, the speaker at one time was the chairman of the education workforce committee he's a strong proponent of job training programs and his watch much of the duplication and redundancy in our occupational training programs was eliminated programs were improved and connected so that there were clear goals clear oversight and results oriented many of the progressive community attacked him as a slash and burn conservative but in hindsight many of these reforms did indeed work and improve those programs find people you can work with as a former Peace Corps volunteer myself in a food production program in the third world and a member of the agriculture committee and later the appropriations committee I was a natural advocate for nutrition programs so I was sought out by groups like Red for the World Results, Frac and others and we worked together we identified other Republicans and Democrats who were like-minded or at least inclined to help and try to get them involved there are still members of Congress with whom you can work in both parties remember the persistence part stay away from dogma don't assume the worst in people assume the best usually that's what you'll get help create bipartisan working groups thank people publicly results, the results group was great at that if I did something that they liked you'd think I'd walk down water afterwards and sometimes you're asking people in public life to take a risk to support a program so thank them make sure that they know it's appreciated do support blogs and letters to the editor talk shows or show up at the town hall meeting in pressure case and thank them for listening let me just say it's part of the game here in Washington but I hated it and that's questioning people's motivation there are people of good and good faith in both parties some people are people religious who care very much about their fellow human beings they just command it from a different point of view question their votes question the results of their ideas but try not to question people's motivation that only gets you in a negative circle so my wife said not to be too preachy I hope I wasn't but if I was let me know thank you both Congressman Allison and Congressman Walsh what the feedback is here we have a pretty full program here today and we're running a little bit behind but I think we're very privileged to have a thoughtful Democrat and a thoughtful Republican on the same stage addressing an issue that is clearly of enormous importance to the future of the country we can't have a country where more than a third of workers are earning low wages 26 million less than 10 dollars an hour and 33 million between 10 and 14 dollars an hour to turn to Heidi and Guy for further piece of the program I'd like to open this up to the audience for just a couple minutes of questions for both members of congress yes you both talked about the issue of leverage and privatization of government services and government resources to sides really sustaining polling privatization it seems is an inefficient way to go about using the private public dollars because why in the world would a private entity want to perform a public good unless there was something really in it for them so my question is why does government so often just seek to privatize services as opposed to really using public dollars to leverage the private sector to actually perform public good it seems that if you just dump it off you're just simply giving up on the opportunity of providing a public good and allowing the company to reap all the financial resources but if you use leverage on the other hand you actually can accomplish both things at once I think since Republicans are probably more likely to support that approach I probably ought to respond first there are certain things that government can do private sector can't do I always kind of laugh at chuckle about people who come into government and say we're going to make government run like a business it can't can't because it has different motivation but in the private sector it's the profit motive I don't see anything wrong with profit I think that's what really creates our economy makes things work if it's not regulated properly the profit is a good motive for things but whether it's private sector or government sector I think the idea I think what Republicans think is that the private sector can run things better is more efficient better managed and so on and in many cases that's true but there are aspects of government that cannot be run like a business should not be run like a business and shouldn't be determined their success based on someone else's profit so I think we have to be open we've seen private sector Congress has mentioned charter schools I think the jury is still out on charter schools I was actually chairman of the House of Representatives DC subcommittee on house appropriations when I first got on the appropriations committee that was when we set up the financial control board and boy did I get crucified for that every morning in the Washington Post and the radio stations what I really thought we should try to do is make improvements in the school district because at the time there weren't enough books for kids the bathrooms were locked because they were broken and they were flooded and staircases were blocked off because they weren't making repairs and the stairs were dangerous and so I think the motivation was right and I think the result for the city of Washington was good I think the city has benefited since then but and the charter schools came in at that time and people more and more are opting for them so it's a choice because the public schools were failing clearly failing in the district of Columbia and people were ready for another option and this was seen as an option now you know when hedge funds start investing in charter schools I agree with you I mean what's going on here hedge funds only want 40% profit they don't want 10% profit they want 40 so I'm not sure that's the right place but I do think that charter schools if they perform well and people get a bang for the buck and their kids get a better education why not you know Christian the question you asked I think is really important and we need to spend more time thinking about it how do the public and the private sector interact in a mutually beneficial way for the ultimate benefit of the public this is a very good question just the naked privatization move has been a failure and we should call it an experiment that didn't work out and so I actually agree with Congressman Walsh's point when he says that it's the profit motive and I agree I'm a small business owner I don't have any problem with profit either I just think that when you have environmental factors to consider and you reject all them only for a pursuit of profit then you run into problems but I think that you're right there is a way for the public and the private sector to work together but we have not figured out exactly the best way for that to happen when it comes to say like education there may be a role I actually don't have a problem with charters per se I have a problem with for profit charters I have a problem with K-12 online charters because when I was in high school man you tell me I don't have to go to school all of them now oh and by the way they want the same amount of money even though they don't have they don't have buildings to clean they don't have teachers to really they have some teachers to pay not fewer they don't have athletic teams they don't have bands and yet they want the same money and they're wildly profitable and so I think we've got to figure out how we do it but a charter even an online K-12 charter for kids with disabilities might work but you've got to do it thinking about what you're trying to do and the public good has got to always be that star you're aiming for so I think it makes sense to really drill down on how we do that I've got a bill called the national infrastructure bank bill and this is a bill where the government would put some capital C money down capitalize the bank and then would float bonds from it which would be coming from the private sector and then use the money to do regionally critical infrastructure investment now that may be that might work but like look at the military just want to say Hal Burton you guys do it it didn't work privatizing our military didn't work right oh in prisons you are begging for trouble when the public interest is not the sole and only function of the prison because if you build them they will come and we've had scandals where even judges have been corrupted into sending people to incarceration just because the because they had to fill that place because it was a profit making agency so I don't want to go on too long I just think you ask an intriguing question and it calls for a whole lot more thought than we've given so far thank you I guess one very quick question before we move on to from Heidi and Guy and from Naya Potts to hearing about the experiences of low wage workers but if there's a quick question with quick answers and I hope both of our members can stay for Heidi's and Guy's and Naya's presentations with a very quick question thank you for this one or Debbie I don't know how quick this is Debbie wants to hand coalition on human needs I'll start with following Representative Wallace's advice and thank you for your work as an appropriator over the years because we always found that even though we didn't always agree we could talk and your staff was interested in learning about what we tried to bring in that context we've got a situation where there's been an 18% cut in domestic appropriations since 2010 in the context of today's meeting not enough jobs people not trained for what jobs there are how can we break through to the people in congress who are at least open as you were to learning and acting on that so that we can go back to investing and not only thinking about how much more we can cut this deficit is really it's driving a lot of this Republicans are conservative primarily financially I think some are very social conservatives too I really think that when the stimulus bill President Obama introduced when he first became president if that had been an infrastructure bill building American roads, bridges, infrastructure, water, conveyances dams, airports ports he would have got a lot of Republican support for that if I was there I would have voted for it and I know a lot of other members who would have I think he probably could have got 40-50 votes for that this is its old history but I think that got off on the wrong foot and so now you've got the debt seems to be the annual deficits are going down the debt continues to rise of course the annual deficits are going down which is a good thing what we've got to do is get this economy growing we can't cut ourselves into prosperity we just can't bipartisan this is where it may end but the discretionary budget has been cut too much but the entitlement programs are not efficient they are not Congress has no control over the entitlement programs they run on autopilot so when my dad was here back in the 70s more than 50% of the budget was discretionary so Congress could control that and the appropriations committee under every president, Republican or Democrat has delivered a budget that costs less than what the president wanted it's not an easy answer but you've got to get people especially members of Congress out to meet people to see their districts to understand what's happening and the only people who can do that are the people who live in those districts and you've got to prevail upon that to represent everybody well Congressman Wells this will be familiar to you I was just told by my staff that we're on the votes on so I've got to get the door what I'd like to say is that I actually don't have a problem with finding efficiencies in social care, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs but I do have a problem when we are in a retirement crisis cutting benefits to seniors particularly when people's savings are down because of flat wages particularly because they recently got a bump but they've been in the toilet for a while and so I really got an issue with that we got a $6.6 trillion gap between what people need for retirement and what people have and boy this is going to be an issue we've got to deal with so I think and then the other thing is social security I mean we often say social security has not caused the deficit while that is 99.99% true there is some wonky people who could say well if you think about this and that okay fine but you can't ever claim that social security has caused this massive debt this long term debt that is caused by these tax cuts which and again I'm not even against tax cuts I'm against tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in a way that creates structural deficits but you know if you have a middle class tax cut they might boost demand here and there I'm open to the conversation but I'm not open to the conversation of somebody paying 15% on all their money when regular working people are paying 35 and 39% it's just wrong so with that I want to say please continue this conversation I love EPI and you guys are the best and it's been an honor to be with you today my pleasure sir thank you very much I wish I could give the rest to people now we're going to turn to Heidi Schierholz Heidi is an economist with EPI on issues of the economy economic policy affecting low wage workers as written a great deal appeared in the media testified before congress so presentation by Heidi I'm going to keep this quick to turn this over to guys as soon as possible who has this great survey to cover but what I'm going to do quickly is give me the economic context where is this survey taking place what's sort of the larger picture in 2008 and 2009 this economy lost 8.7 million jobs in the worst recession that we had seen in 70 years but we started adding jobs in March of 2010 we've been adding jobs for more than three and a half years are we back are things fine now unfortunately not even close this is where I'm going to be even more pessimistic than Keith this is this line shows the total number of jobs in the economy you can see us falling off a cliff we are still 1.5 million jobs below where we were when the recession officially started in December 2007 but that really understates how deep the hole is because the population is growing all the time we actually need to add jobs every single month to hold steady just to keep up with the growth and the potential labor force we should have added 6.5 million jobs over the last six years so we are 8 million jobs in the hole we need 8 million jobs to get back to the previous session unemployment but how does this that shows we're still in this huge hole job with skipping that one this this is the unemployment rate over time and it shows that we have actually made the potential improvement in the unemployment rate since the worst of it so a couple of things about this clock this is the current unemployment rate 7.3% it's still even this unemployment rate is still far higher than it was during the worst of the early 2000s recession so here 6.3% was the worst the unemployment rate ever got in the early 2000s down here but it's made a lot of improvement the unemployment rate was 10% in the fall of 2009 now it's 7.3% so does that at least this mean that we're in a robust jobs recovery again the answer is a resounding no most of that improvement was not for good reasons most of that improvement was not happening because unemployment refining work most of it was happening because of discouragement you have to be actively looking for work to be counted as unemployed there are around 5 or 6 million workers who have dropped out of or never entered the labor force because job opportunities are so weak this plot shows so the light blue line the one below that's the unemployment rate for a shorter time frame it's exactly the one on the previous slide the taller line is what the unemployment rate would be if those missing workers were in the labor force looking for work the unemployment rate would be over 10% right now just because we might get questions on this that little blip up in the very last month is probably an anomaly there was weird data things related to how furlough government workers were counted during the October survey so I don't think it's as high as 10.8% but if you just look at September numbers it's 10.2% so there's just if we count those missing workers we still have a ton of we've seen very little improvement since the worst of the downturn I'm gonna oh, I'll talk about this one another, I'll skip that one one way to really dig in to a couple of issues that come up around this is to look at the number of job openings BLS calculates the number of job openings every month and you can look at them by industry those dark blue lines show the number of job openings we have in this economy by industry those dark blue lines show the number of unemployed workers by industry so there's two points I think this chart makes one unemployed workers vastly outnumber job openings there are going to be millions of unemployed workers out there no matter what they do no matter how great their resume are no matter how skilled they are because the job openings just aren't there and then the other thing this underscores is our high unemployment today our unemployment skills unemployed workers outnumber job openings in every single industry there's no industry where workers could go where jobs are plentiful so what we see is that the high unemployment that we see today is just to a broad base weak demand for work to be done it's not because workers don't have the right skills for the sectors where the jobs are available and then quickly to move to what is more related to what Guy is going to be talking about this persistent high unemployment this weak labor market puts huge downward pressure on wage growth there's a very tight relationship between high unemployment and low wage growth and you do not have to be an economist to understand the intuition it's exactly what you would think in a period of high unemployment employers do not have to pay big wage increases to get and keep the workers they need workers don't have outside options it just shifts the bargaining power away from workers and we see that actually across the wage distribution even high wage workers see lower wage growth when unemployment is high but the effect is way worse for middle wage workers and even worse for low wage workers so low wage workers have been hit really hard by this downturn have seen their wages really crushed so what I'm going to show you now is that stagnant wages for people at the middle of the distribution and on down is not a new phenomenon in the Great Recession and its aftermath it's been going on since the 70s and this is my last slide before I turn it over to Guy this shows just real hourly wages so adjusted for inflation for 10th percentile workers and 50th percentile workers by gender workers like this all day every day let me just briefly explain what a percentile is percentile is when you line everyone up what their wages are lowest to highest the 10th percentile person is the person who makes more than 10% of people and less than 90% of people so their low wage workers the 50th percentile that's the median that's the typical person more than half of workers than half and lower wages than the other half so what we see the backdrop of this thing is massively rising productivity over this period productivity rose 75% over this period so the economy was getting richer we were growing growing growing what you see here is that those riches that economic growth was not reaching middle or low income people over this period at all their wages are totally stagnant if you put up the wage growth of people higher up the income distribution I didn't include them on here because it stretches out the y-axis so much you can't even see what's going on because their wages are so high and growing so fast but the the point is that the huge economic growth we saw over these 35 years was just not reaching down the income distribution or the wage distribution was being captured by a small sliver at the top and to just focus quickly in on 10th percentile workers the low wage workers 10th percentile men despite huge economic growth over this period make 10% less now than they did in 1979 10th percentile women make 4% less now than they did in 1979 and I will now turn it over to Doug or to Guy to talk about what this means to the living standards of these workers thank you Heidi and thank you representative Walsh for being here today I'd also like to ask two of our workers here in the audience to come up Naya Pax and Tiffany Broad if they could Guy Malinu is a partner with hard research associates he's researched and spoken widely on for done research and focus group research for nonprofits, government agencies political campaigns he was polling director for CNN we at Oxfam America commissioned hard research to look at the experiences attitudes beliefs, desires of low wage workers so turn it over to Guy great thank you Andrew so what we have done for Oxfam is conduct a telephone survey with a sample of national sample of 804 low wage workers across America the criteria for inclusion to survey where you had to make less than $14 an hour to be employed in addition the vast majority of these respondents live in households with incomes below $40,000 a year and the large majority of them have incomes that would be below 200% of the poverty level for their household the large majority were employed full time or part time there is about 10% of our respondents were unemployed but reported to us that the last job they had they made less than $14 an hour until we considered them to be part of the low wage workforce since their most recent job was a low wage position and they were looking for work again right now margin of error for the results plus or minus 3.7% let me just start by talking about the financial economic situation low wage workers face and then talk a little bit about their low wage work and then a little bit at the end about what kinds of policy responses might make a difference in the lives of these low wage workers not surprisingly low wage workers give us a reasonably bleak portrait of their financial situation today about 6 in 10 tell us that they and their family are either just meeting their expenses day to day or not even able to meet their expenses only 14% feel they are living comfortably these are somewhat subjective measures that is they describe their situation as comfortable just to give you a sense of how that compares to the country as a whole the Pew organization asked the same question back in December 35% felt they were just meeting their expenses or not even doing that economically so you can see the gap here and really this gap almost certainly understates the actual difference in financial experiences because as I said people are using their own standards to answer it so when they say I'm just meeting basic expenses the word basic is somewhat dependent on how each person answers it and to give you a sense in the same survey we asked low wage workers how much money they thought it took for a family to get by and meet basic needs today their answer was $37,000 for a family of four but if you ask the American public that same question the answer is $50,000 so low wage workers actually sort of set the bar of what they need quite a bit lower than a middle class respondent would in the survey so these results probably understate the real difference in financial experience between the two groups the earlier speakers talked a lot particularly represented Ellison about the idea of America as a place where one can rise up and has an opportunity to succeed, to do better than your parents to improve one's financial situation what low wage workers describe is a very different reality today we asked them which do you think happens more often today so they're talking about their own personal experience but also about the communities they live in is it more common today for someone from a low income background to rise into America's middle class or is it more common for a middle class person to fall out of the middle class these results were really staggering to me by a ratio of about 6 to 1 people said 76% said it's more common now for people to fall out of the middle class into a low income situation as opposed to rise up and improve their situation today we also see in the survey that many of our respondents are themselves in a sense of downward removal in addition to 10% who don't have a job today another 52% are employed but tell us that their current wage is less than they have made in a job in the past so our earning less today than they themselves have made in a prior job so to give you a sense of people really moving downward rather than upward in their lives another thing that the survey paints a clear picture of is that being a low wage worker today means never being able to escape the worry about their financial future these bars on this slide are the percentage of low wage workers who tell us that they worry either frequently or sometimes about each of these following economic hazards or problems that are mentioned here the single most common concern was they will not have enough money to be able to retire someday with any kind of security 88% worry that they will not have retirement security 82% worry about having health care expenses that they and their family can't afford 80% worry about job loss nearly the same percentage about not being able to pay for their children's education this response from people who have children a big concern of low wage workers or parents is the economic future for their children is an even more powerful concern I think than the concern they have for themselves 57% of the low wage workers for example think and say it's important that they would like to someday get a college degree but 81% say it's an important goal that their child be able to get a college degree someday and 89% feel it's important that their children be better off financially than they are so a lot of focus on their children's economic situation in terms of their ambitions and goals and a lot of concern about what the opportunities will be for their children many have already had to make personal sacrifices in order to get by economically and many have also had to rely on public services and public assistance of various kinds 37% say they have had to postpone education or training because they could not afford it terrible paradox right for low wage workers who are striving to improve their situation who see education and training as an important step in doing that and yet cannot find financially a way to acquire that additional training or education a third have had to sell or pawn personal possessions just to meet their bills and to make ends meet 29% have received food stamps in the past two years a quarter financial support from families or friends in the provision of health care overall 52% of the majority of our respondents had relied on some kind of public assistance in the previous two years and that number was considerably higher for those earning particularly low wages one I think of the myths held by many people about low wage people with low wages and low incomes is that they are unwilling to work hard enough to change their situation the survey reveals a very powerful work ethic among low wage workers we asked them to rate a number of different life goals eight different goals I've referred to a couple of them in terms of for example having your child be able to get a college education someday the single highest rated one was performing my job well that is the single highest ambition low wage workers so just to give you a sense of their dedication to performing their job well 64% work 40 hours a week or more 30% of those who have a job are working more than 40 hours a week and about 1 in 6 are working more than one job looking at their job situation more specifically we've looked at their family financial situation if we look at their work situation we asked them about whether there are certain kind of problems that workers sometimes encounter apply to them or problems for them low wages not surprisingly given the selection criteria for being a low wage worker low wages is the single biggest problem they identify 39% say that low wages is a serious problem in their job today but also about half tell us that stress on the job from their work demands is a problem we talk about not having promotion opportunities so again this desire to move up to improve one situation being thwarted 42% don't have promotion opportunities a third cite a lack of opportunities for education or training that might qualify them for either a promotion where they work or a new position from another employer someday so you can see the barriers that are in the way for many of these workers many not able to get as many hours of work as they want among low wage women a lot of concern they cannot get time off to care for a family member and also meet their job responsibilities but perhaps the greatest shortcoming in these jobs lies in the area of benefits not only are we talking about people trying to get by on 9, 10, 11, 12 dollars an hour in wages these jobs in many cases also don't have the benefits that most middle class Americans take for granted as part of your package as an employee these are the percentages who say they do not get each of these benefits at work a majority say they do not get any paid sick leave a majority do not have a retirement plan either at all or at least not one that their employer contributes to so they are totally on their own to try to save for retirement which on these wages if you can imagine is a difficult to impossible task 44% get no paid vacation 41% no health insurance and 3 in 10 get none of these benefits no benefits of any kind to go with their low wage just to you can imagine the challenges that pose the pose to those kind of workers and you can see that here on this next slide where we have divided our survey sample in to the low wage workers who receive none of those 4 core job benefits and the 70% who at least get one or more of those benefits how often do you worry about having health expenses you can't afford three quarters if you're in one of these no benefit jobs relying on public assistance look at this huge gap 63% of those who are in the no wage I'm sorry the no benefit jobs compared to 38% of those who have at least some benefits what you can see there dramatically is how some of these low wage jobs are really being subsidized by tax payers essentially providing no benefits and public assistance has to try to fill some of that gap the worries about debt not having time for your family all of them greatly exacerbated if you're in one of these jobs that don't provide benefits all of the low wage workers we've interviewed here face what certainly most Americans would call very serious financial challenges but certain groups face distinct difficulties low wage workers who are relatively older 50 and over is the group we've looked at they are really a group that's really downwardly mobile in a very serious way in many cases 57% say they've earned more at a prior job they're much more likely than the younger workers say that their family is worse off than it was five years ago 55% of them say that and they worry frequently about retirement because obviously it's not that far away or at least I should say the goal of retiring is not far away in years the reality may be that they cannot retire and they've lost the optimism that younger people have even those who make very low wages we see young people still have a fair amount of optimism that their economic future will be better but these low wage workers over 50 don't really see much reason for optimism they are more worried and concerned about achieving their life goals than younger workers and it's affected their view of America they are much less likely to believe that hard work can get you can lead you to succeed in this country today than younger workers are debt is a particular challenge for low wage workers 48% of our respondents told us that they've had to borrow wanting to get by financially in recent times 58% of all low wage workers are worried about having more debt than they can handle so about 6 out of 10 there and that number if you're in this 48% who's borrowed money then that number who worry rises all the way to 73% and they also see the debt not just something that's a source of anxiety and stress but an obstacle to them moving ahead this was interesting to me I talked earlier about how the myth that low income people aren't willing to work hard is rebutted by the survey another myth that's addressed here is the idea that low income people are in some ways fiscally irresponsible or part of their reason they find themselves in this situation perhaps and they don't know how to manage money well we asked a very interesting question we said what would you do if we could wave a magic wand and raise your wages by $2 an hour tomorrow what would you do with that extra income well mainly the thing they told us they would do is they would pay down debt not that they'd go take a vacation not even improve food for their family which in many cases would hardly be a luxury but would just be a matter of providing better nutrition not buying a new car but trying to pay down debt so these are people who are desperately working hard they're desperately trying to be responsible about their financial situation keep themselves out of debt or minimize it if they're in debt the second item would save for retirement these are very challenging things to achieve managing and bringing down debt we also see another important group is working mothers who face some distinct challenges particularly in terms of trying to take the steps that would allow them to improve their situation and allow them to provide in a better way for their children 51% of working mothers tell us that they have had to postpone education or training because they couldn't afford it 40% say that lack of opportunities for education and training is a problem for them and that the difficulty of a 40 mat is an obstacle in reaching their goals 47% of working moms say that compared to 35% of all low wage workers so here's a group that is particularly trying to improve their situation not only for themselves obviously but also for their children but who face some very serious hurdles in trying to do that getting to the end of the survey what are some things that could be done in terms of public policy that would make a difference to you and the people in the community where you live education and training we've seen that the inability to access that is a huge barrier steps to make that more affordable and more available is hugely important to low wage workers the single highest rated item was the idea of partnerships between schools and employers to try to help young people find work when they graduate a lot of interest in seeing public investment in jobs that could be infrastructure or economic development 80%, 75% and about 8-10 say raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour would be a very important step in helping their community and just to illustrate that last point finally I wanted to show you some interesting difference between workers in our survey who make $10 an hour or more and those who earn less than 10 now we are not in any way shape just the people who make between $10 and $14 an hour are well paid or adequately paid workers but still the differences between being at that $10 an hour level or higher versus below are enormous if you're below $10 an hour two-thirds have relied on public assistance in the past two years the number is only about two-thirds as high if you earn $10 or over dissatisfaction with personal financial situation much higher half of your income on housing 14 points higher if you're below the $10 an hour number more likely to have to sell off upon your personal possessions just to survive economically so I think this is a result we just showed as members of Congress yesterday and I would hope every member of Congress would have a chance to see to give you a sense of what a difference it could be to bring all of the low wage workers up to at least that $10 an hour level so that's just a few pieces of data a few rich survey Oxan has produced a very substantial report I don't know if that's available on the table it is going through a lot more of the data here but these are a few of the highlights that we thought were particularly significant thank you Guy it's a wonderful survey great data sobering data about huge numbers of Americans who aren't doing well Americans from all backgrounds as Guy mentioned report Oxan's report hard work hard lives is available if you haven't picked it up but now I'd like to turn to Naya Potts and Tiffany Broy who are very pleased to have here today Naya works at the area pizzeria and bar which is a federal government contractor and has been mentioned earlier today federal government contractors are the largest employer of low wage workers in the US 2 million low wage workers working for government contractors larger than the Walmart larger than the McDonald's she works at the Ronald Reagan building here in DC lives in Clinton, Maryland and Tiffany Broy works at the Walmart in Laurel, Maryland and understand was on CNN just earlier this week so I would love to hear from both of you if some of the experiences, the problems the issues described in our survey speak to your lives and other issues sure I thank you all for having me here today my name is Naya Potts and I have been working as a server at ARIA pizzeria which is connected to the Reagan building so I'm what's called a federally subcontracted worker so I got involved in this campaign because I was going re-entering the workforce as a new mom I have a one year old son at home and I am newly separated so I'm a single mom I actually completed four years of college but I needed one more semester to finish the ARIA to leave school due to financial reasons to go into the workforce so as you know 2007 at that point you know that was right at the time when our economy was tanking so I was sort of walking right into that and initially was able to get jobs within my field just in teaching through therapy but as the economic crisis got worse those jobs disappeared for people like me who didn't have a diploma and I had to attend a college so that's where I got into having more menial jobs like which job that I have now as a server so re-entering the workforce as a mom my first goal and intention was I'm going to pay my back balance to school so that I can get myself back through school and in a better position to provide for myself and my son which is now all on me so I'm thinking this will work out great I'm working as a server so there's this expectation that servers are going to make a lot of money on tips and everything so I'm thinking I'm going to be okay and I walk into this situation that's not like that at all for myself and most of the workers that I know especially at my job it costs about $8 a day to get to and from work on the Metro and then if you have to pay for childcare it's about anywhere if you have family help and you $20 a day and that sort of brings so you're paying to go to work well if you go to work and you don't make a whole lot of tips say for instance at my job make an average about $40 a day to $80 anywhere in that range that means that there are some days that I come home like literally $10 that I've made that I've netted after I paid for childcare and things like that and I was just really feeling like well I'm really sinking into a really big hole here in absolutely no way that I'm going to be able to save to pay this back to get back to school but more importantly how do I get out of the situation as a whole how do I provide for my son to go to school or to be in the kind of schools that I would want to be in through elementary and high school not to mention him being able to go to college so really I just started to have I mean I would have night tears about this at one point that my child was not going to be able to go to college I myself am a third generation college student so that to me is just it was never something I thought about never even crossed my mind that my child wouldn't be going to college let alone me myself not be able to afford to go back so just this growing frustration with the situation is what brought me into the campaign finally meeting people like Good Jobs Nation who really heard that and understood that at my job there are 12 servers and one of 12 so 12 of us all together 9 of us are bilingual including myself which means that our ability to sell goods and make money for the restaurant is obviously increased exponentially by our ability to speak with people who come in and don't speak in English maybe they only speak Spanish maybe they don't speak them hard and because we are there the company is totally grossing on that profiting on that but we are not being paid for it all of us are paid $350 an hour and to go through periods like we just went through the government shutdown for 2 weeks straight we came into work and made nothing we came into work and were basically being told you are worth $350 an hour you are an American citizen yes but you are worth $350 an hour and it would just make me sick to my stomach every day thinking that someone in this building right now that we are working in is making exponentially more than what we are and the value that they are placing on us is $350 an hour this is nuts and it can't continue so just as I got involved with the campaign more and learned more about the issues I have heard a lot of people say make arguments on the other side for not raising minimum wage say things like well it's not going to help the economy it's worse it will make things worse for you and whether or not I certainly don't advocate raising the minimum wage you know it's this magic wand that's going to fix the economy and everything will be great again for everyone but I think we need to look at raising the minimum wage as an issue that is separate from the economy what we are talking about here is a human rights issue it is inhumane to ask someone to come into work in this country for $350 an hour it is inhumane to ask someone to serve food to people when they made the decision that day not to eat so they can get on the metro and make it all the way home for me and myself and my co-workers this is a daily reality it's something that it's been drilled so drilled into us and ingrained into us we don't even notice anymore like 4 o'clock rolls around you go I didn't eat today for most people especially on Capitol Hill would be a catastrophic crisis when you add into that our daily lives this is everything that I'm saying to you now this is just assuming that everything is going perfectly you have your health your car is doing great but as you know especially making less or so little money things like your kids getting sick are much more likely to happen if you don't have health care I have health care through Medicaid I was you know forced into that situation because I have a one year old and it would be irresponsible of me as a parent to not make sure I did everything possible to get into health care so we have Medicaid thank God but you know things like your child getting sick and not having sick days and vacation days and health benefits really puts a tremendous amount of stress on people and I would say to those people on Capitol Hill who argue against this and argue against raising minimum wage and having benefits but you know let's trade paychecks for a month and you just see what you would do with what I have it's cold outside would you be able to close my son and beat him would you be able to make sure that he had everything that he needed with what I need because that ensure you know with having your health care totally taken care of and knowing what your salary is going to be every single day there's just a level of stress that these people are not living with that's not real to them that is a daily reality for us and we're saying no more we live in America I believe in America I love the country that I live in I love the fact that my grandparents were able to work to put themselves through college and make it but I don't have that opportunity now that dream is way out of my grasp now unless somebody does something immediately to stop it to make the game fair again thank you guys so much good morning my name is Tiffany Burrod I'm 29 years old I'm married I'm from Louisiana and I moved to Laura Maryland about two and a half years ago I'm employed by Walmart as a customer service manager I made $12,000 last year and I know you guys are wondering how did I do that I made $10 and 70 cents an hour some hours sometimes I average 12 to 19 to 25 hours a week that's at a full time status I wear many titles as a customer service manager for Walmart I cashier I cart push I run the front end I have a big title I have huge responsibilities awful low pay not only is my pay low but me, myself and other associates we experience disrespect from market managers, store managers our salary paid managers they walk over us tell us to do our tasks they don't greet us they never acknowledge our presence they don't even simply recognize how our day is going when I was seven months pregnant with the little one back there today is her first birthday by the way when I was seven months pregnant my doctor suggested that I do light duty and Walmart told me they didn't have any light duty work for me to do on my pay scale so they forced me to take an unpaid leave and it's kind of fun because that's when I started organizing and I found out about the organization United for Respect known as our Walmart and through that I stumbled over another group of pregnant workers working for Walmart that was experiencing the same discrimination that I was we also have really poor working conditions in Walmart and it's sad because they're one of the largest retailers in a multi-billion dollar company some of the things that we use on a daily basis are not in working condition and it puts us at risk and harms weight Walmart also bully us as associates being paid low wages and I like to use the term bully because people often think of bullies happening to school aged kids well I'm here today testifying that Walmart do bully us as associates they add in certain lying quotes into their policies and it would draw important information from us in their policies that benefits them and work against us for instance if I need the time off I need to put in my request three weeks in advance because policy states that the schedule puts out is put out every three weeks here we are a week and a half to two weeks that things are given and yet we have no schedule this show not only shows how Walmart is bullying us as low wages associates but it also shows a lack of consideration that it has for myself and associates and their families across this country Walmart also intimidate us intimidate us from organizing and standing up and speaking out Walmart also has retaliated against some of the people that stood up utilizing their federal rights that's the question I often get from a lot of people is am I scared of retaliation yes I'm scared of retaliation and then the following question they ask me is well why are you doing this Tiffany it's funny because I tell them I said I'm tired I can't take no more and I'm fed up and I'm just going to stand here and let my voice be the voice of every associate across this country that's employed for Walmart and let you know that the commercials you see on TV is not the real Walmart that associates that are sleeping in their cars and homeless and living out of hotels with their families that are relying on government assistance and going to food banks for their next meals for their family is the real Walmart we suffer from stress and depression of the lack of respect and low wages the inconsideration discrimination retaliation it's hard working at Walmart as a low pay worker for a multi-million dollar company and one of the largest retailers and I was asked to come today to let you guys know what it's like working for Walmart well that's what it's like working for Walmart it's not only my behalf but every associate across this country and I talk to many of them and they all feel the same way I do some are experiencing these things some are not, some have other issues but all these issues are related and that's why I decided to stand up and speak as one of the low wage associates because Walmart said they paid the 25,000 a year which they did not I'm a customer service manager making ten dollars and seventy cents an hour and they cut my hours so low per week and they grossed $12,000 last year and also I ask that you guys as a community stand with us as you know we're doing an upcoming strike just to stand with us in support if you guys can do that for us we'd be very grateful thank you thank you Naya, thank you Tiffany in addition to being so articulate you are both very courageous and before turning this over to the audience for a few minutes of questions you know I'd like to ask you how does one go about organizing people who are in jobs such as yours one of the issues that has caused rising inequality in America the spread of low wage has been the decline of labor unions at the end of the 1950s about a third of America's workforce was in labor union members and those contractual wages spilled over to the rest of the economy today just 9% of the private sector workforce are in unions there have been efforts to organize workers such as you but it's very difficult how can workers whether at Walmart whether in a government contractor or other low wage industries organize and also sort of win the public support of the union and turn the views of our legislators it takes one courageous person to stand up and say they had enough and to start organizing and then they'll bring more people on but everyone is scared to organize even now at Walmart we have more supporters in our stores than we have organizing but as well as gaining the community and support just going out and telling our stories and testifying what we're experiencing at Walmart and just taking that extra step and just getting over the fear of retaliation because I mean enough is enough when you work in and they treat us like that they know that we can't afford to lose a job because we have bills I mean my rent is $1,300 you know if I start working then I don't have a place to stay for me and my two daughters because I have two so that means I have to organize at work when I try to organize with them there's some that's not open that's some that said here's my number I have people come up and just say here's my number can you give me a call and I call them and it's about organizing it's very hard but it can be done it just takes that one person to stand up and say hey I've had enough it's something we have to be very very cautious about because your job is on the line in this climate today people are very scared of just the word union when I was being introduced to this campaign I heard the word union backed up myself with that no no I don't want anything to do with that because union can get people fired so really just educating people letting them know these are our rights as workers it's our right to strike if they do retaliate against us because we are striking and organizing that's against the law it's immensely helpful to have campaigns behind us like good jobs nation who have lawyers and things like that you know somebody to fall back on and say okay they're trying to back us into a corner here can you help us out and make sure that you sort of go hands off for a while but you also have to be very careful if you're the kind of person that comes into work late and things like that a lot of times when you that'll be fine for a while you can be working your job for months like that but the minute you start organizing suddenly you're getting written up left and right because of these parties or whatever this campaign is going to hold and organizing in that way as far as reaching leaders I think really just what we're doing today putting a human base on it and really just dispelling all these myths about us all being teenage workers we're just trying to make money to get the new Jordans that came out or something and they're trying to provide for our children thank you I'd like to open the questions up to the audience for Tiffany, for Guy, for Heidi we've got maybe about 10 minutes for questions question for Naya Naya as an employee who relies in large part on tips what do you think of our system in America of tipping where it's not just a symbolic gesture made by the customer but something that is your bread and butter I think that there's definitely a lot of room for change one thing too is that culturally even within this country people tip differently based on their economic status based on their ethnicity based on where they're from the Ronald Reagan building especially we have most of our customers I guess from other countries and things like that they're just visiting and they don't know what our customs are here where our custom might be standard and then 20% or more the service is really good or you can be serving someone from Europe and giving them the best service ever and they can tell that they're really appreciative of it it's very nice but when they leave the change from the dollar to sort of round out the dollar it's a thinking feeling obviously we don't want to be handing them any literature on the proper way that Tiffany should ask when they come in because they have a whole other connotation to their meal and everything but something needs to be done about that and I've talked with a few other people about just raising the hourly wage for tips workers because really it shouldn't be that way it shouldn't be on the American people to pay for my work the company that I work for should pay for the hours that I'm working in and if you make tips because you are a great employee and you're going above and beyond that's how it should be you know, what you're dependent on that's a bad thing yes thank you I want to know what can you do to support the service for how can we organize it just coming out to some of the events and actions that we have you can help support us we are having a strike I have two organizers here with me I think one is on the front one is outside with my daughter and you guys will definitely come out and show your support as community support is with us great organizer here having the infrastructure right here in the room other questions yes first of all you're both very great certainly what you do and I just appreciate that I'm sure it takes incredible courage and interest to do that so thank you I've worked with non-profit world could do to support what you guys need while waiting for change to come on the other end really the more groups like yours that come together and stand with us the better like we've worked with Walmart before when they have events and things like that because really it's about numbers and the impact that we can make and it's about getting the rest of the country to look and pay attention to this particular issue at this time when there's so much going on so exactly what Tiffany was saying Tiffany was saying before about just standing with us when we have events and things like that the bigger that we can make them using your networks and things like that people that you all know that maybe we're not in touch with makes a huge impact on the kind of difference that we can make and really highlighting these issues and making it top priority in Washington I pretty much agree with her what she's saying and also it's just spreading spreading the message and our name and our word and just letting them know what we stand for would be a great support as well just telling them that our Walmart is an organization united for respect Other questions? For the NIA I guess so what are some of the policy changes that can help out federally self-conflict Well as far as federal subcontractors there's actually a bill right now an executive order that could be signed right now by President Obama basically it used to be that federally subcontracted workers were paid a lot more in federal buildings because as you would think the government should be the leader and training workers fairly and then some time around the Reagan's time period in office was taken away so now you know you have people working in the Reagan building in some cases we're working below the federal minimum wage tipped workers or not so having that executive order being signed again which would significantly raise the hourly rate for federally subcontracted workers would be amazing that's a quick fix right now for a small group of people well not even two million workers as far as the nation is concerned it's a small piece of the pie and then you know that would be a huge win for us as far as the overall minimum wage raising push for us to have that victory would be a huge example to the rest of the country and privately owned companies like those Walmart things like that who also need to work with what they deserve we have your respect put it in the check so oh yes I didn't know that the federal government was the largest important why I don't know but in addition to what you're suggesting as far as the legislation is there any way that you can also petition the government to provide you with assistance and get training, upgrade training so that you not only realize a better wage in the way you're working but you're also having an opportunity to get assistance and get training or education that will help you improve your skills and therefore qualify for the secure jobs pain of these things particularly those that are very related I worked with data for the workforce development program very long time ago but one of the things that I'm always doing is yes, get a person in the job regardless of the wages and entry level jobs but also put that person in the position where after they get the work experience they're also getting an opportunity to get educated and trained so that they can move into jobs being a high wage and I really think that the federal government is subsidized paying your salary at that and we try and prepare you of the jobs paying recently just a quick point of correction it's not the federal government the contractors to the federal government indirectly absolutely absolutely as Naya mentioned and the executive order and having the government require that those contractors that they deal with because they can take a choose that can be something that's on the table before they even receive the money to be able to be in these federal buildings you're not going to treat your workers well you don't have a plan for how to train them or to have a higher level of worker within your company there then we're not going to give you this contract I mean that's the obvious answer I guess to the government to be more comfortable about who they are allowing to have these contracts and treating their workers I guess we have time for one last question so logically to get the policies that you want you have to elect the people that agree with those policies what are the what are you guys doing in terms of your organization efforts to get people that currently aren't voting especially people that would benefit by voting a certain way so essentially they're voting for their own interests you know there's a lot of voter advocacy out there that seems like a huge opportunity so how are you guys navigating I guess voting with your organization people like Keith I was saying it's been amazing amazing help to our campaign really sort of show you this dark difference between people who are on this issue and who really care about it and we do a lot of lobbying like we're with Lobby Days a Little Go and to the Senate and to Congress that by people's offices this is where we are on this issue we'd like you to get on board with us as well and you know you get to kind of feel people out usually going into it what side of the issue is based on voting records and things like that but when you're talking about the community when we come out of these Lobby Days and bring that information to the community of what we've learned and things like that that's where it gets really important where you're able to show people the differences between different candidates different parties and things like that where you want to keep it bipartisan as possible and there certainly are people on the right who do support what we're doing like you saw today it's important for people to know especially here in this area who's who and what's what so we try to keep current I guess with that and who's really helping us out put a name and a faith we see councilwoman Eleanor and I can't remember her last name Eleanor Holmes Norton Eleanor Holmes Norton is somebody who's still up on our behalf several times so we know exactly where she stands on that issue because she's in our corner fighting for us so really right now it's kind of put up her shut up as far as our message to our representatives right now kind of like what she said just put up her shut up it's kind of funny because we have a lot of people that come out to our actions and speak and I'll just tell that their point of view and we just kind of just go from there what we feel it's right to vote for well thank you I want to thank all of our wonderful panelists Naya, Tiffany, Di, Heidi our members of congress in absentia EPI for hosting us Christian Dorsey in particular for this event possible and for all of you to come out today and I hope you follow all of our work going forward Oxfam, CPI and the work of the organizations of these two courageous women thank you