http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070605006457&newsLang=enWe can diminish poverty if we approach it in two ways: by taking mutual responsibility for each other as a society, and also by asking for some more individual responsibility to strengthen our families.
If we want to stop the cycle of poverty, then we need to start with our families.
We need to start supporting parents with young children. There is a pioneering Nurse-Family Partnership program right now that offers home visits by trained registered nurses to low-income mothers and mothers-to-be. They learn how to care for themselves before the baby is born and what to do after. It’s common sense to reach out to a young mother. Teach her about changing the baby. Help her understand what all that crying means, and when to get vaccines and check-ups.
This program saves money. It raises healthy babies and creates better parents. It reduced childhood injuries and unintended pregnancies, increased father involvement and women’s employment, reduced use of welfare and food stamps, and increased children’s school readiness. And it produced more than $28,000 in net savings for every high-risk family enrolled in the program.
This works and I will expand the Nurse-Family Partnership to provide at-home nurse visits for up to 570,000 first-time mothers each year. We can do this. Our God is big enough for that.
We need to give our young people some real choices out there so they move away from gangs and violence and connect them with growing job sectors. That is why I am also going to create a 5-E Youth Service Corps. The “E’s” stand for energy efficiency, environmental education and employment. This program would directly engage disconnected and disadvantaged young people in energy efficiency and environmental service opportunities to strengthen their communities while also providing them with practical skills and experience in important and growing career field. We can do this. When it comes to bringing hope and real job opportunities to our young people, we can take the bullet out. Our God is big enough for that.
We know what works. We know that supporting ex-offenders and their families keeps our men out of prison. That makes a difference in our families and can stop the cycle of poverty. That is why I will expand federal programs that help ex-offenders and sign the Second Chance Act into law.
As president, I will do more to strengthen support to state correctional systems so that ex-offenders can meet their parole requirements without worrying about losing their jobs. I will create a prison-to-work incentive program, modeled on the successful Welfare-to-Work program. It would create strong ties with employers, job training agencies and ex-offenders to improve job retention rates. And I will reach out to all the Reverends and engage faith-based organizations to provide support for ex-offenders and their families, both during incarceration and after. We can do that for our families. Our God is a forgiving God. He’s certainly big enough for that.
But we need to do a better job making sure that there are jobs in our communities. We need to provide economic opportunity in every corner of our country if we want to take the bullet out.
We know that we have to invest in transitional jobs too. When there are people who are homeless, veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder from this war in Iraq, and thousands of children aging out of foster care, we can’t expect them to have all the skills they need for work. They may need help with basic skills-how to show up to work on time, wear the right clothes, and act appropriately in an office. We have to help them get there. That’s why I have called for $50 million to begin innovative new job training and workforce development programs.
But what good are these efforts if men and women can’t afford the bus fare or the subway fare or the car insurance to get to the training center or new job. That is why, as president, I will invest in transportation.
We know that three-quarters of welfare recipients live in areas that are poorly served by public transportation and low-income workers spend up to 36% of their incomes on transportation. That is why I will fight to ensure that the federal Jobs Access and Reverse Commute program provides grants to improve low-income access to transportation. And that additional federal public transportation dollars flow to the highest-need communities. No one should be denied work in this country because they can’t find public transportation in their neighborhood.
But we should do just as much if not more to invest in minority-owned businesses in our neighborhoods so people don’t need to travel miles away in the first place. Right now, less than one percent of the $250 billion in venture capital dollars that we invest nationwide each year has been directed to the country's 4.4 million minority business owners. And in recent years, there has been a significant decline in the share of the Small Business Investment Company financings that have gone to minority-owned and women-owned businesses. We are going to change that and strengthen the Small Business Administration to provide more capital minority-owned businesses. We can do that.
And here’s one final idea today that will help break the cycle of poverty - affordable health care for every American. Our God is big enough for that now.
The other day I met a couple who owns a small business in northern Iowa that hundreds of people in their community count on every day to get their internet access. But today they are on the verge of bankruptcy - and it’s all because of their health care costs.
Seventeen years ago the husband had cancer. He’s recovered now, but every year since then, his family’s premiums have gone up, and they can’t find anyone else who will insure them. They now pay forty percent of their income in health care premiums, they haven’t been able to save a dime for their kids’ college education, and they’re having trouble paying for things like clothes and gas.
When the loan officer first uttered the word “bankruptcy,” it was one of the worst days of their life. They said, “We have done everything right. We have done everything we were supposed to do. This is not who we are.” This is not who we are.
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