In the News

Advocacy groups across Wisconsin are urging Gov. Scott Walker to seek a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that would keep the state's most vulnerable from losing food benefits. Walker needs to do this.

 

There still are not enough jobs that pay a living wage for everyone who is looking for work. If Walker seeks the waiver, it will keep in place a safety net for thousands of people across Wisconsin.

 

And if the governor applies for a waiver, he will get it, Sherrie Tussler, executive director of the Hunger Task Force told me. "Our state will not be denied," she said.

 

If he doesn't, then he needs to make good on the 250,000 jobs he promised Wisconsinites when he first ran for governor in 2010. We all know that's not going to happen, so it's best for Walker to help the 20 counties and 10 cities that have the highest levels of unemployment.

 

Able-bodied people ages 18-49 without exemptions are required to work to receive FoodShare benefits. If they do not enroll and participate in the mandatory program, they lose food assistance for three years. That's the law in Wisconsin now. Consider how that compares with a person convicted of a third drunken driving conviction; generally, that person wouldn't get three years behind bars.

 

Recent reports have told us what most of us already knew — poverty in Wisconsin is still too high and people are struggling to make ends meet. Poverty is not just an urban problem — some of the people relying on agencies such as Hunger Task Force are coming from the suburbs or rural areas.

 

In a letter addressed to Walker, Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Reps. Gwen Moore, Mark Pocan and Ron Kind, all Democrats, said the goal should be helping people achieve economic security and independence. They also said the state's employment and training programs are not working.

 

Walker is failing the most vulnerable because the FoodShare Employment and Training programs have placed only about 10% of recipients in jobs and kicked more than 30,000 low-income people off food stamps, including 16,560 in Milwaukee County since April 2015, the letter says.

 

If the program is only placing one in 10 people in jobs and kicking people off food stamps at record numbers, then the program is failing those who need work — and it is failing taxpayers.

 

FoodShare is a safety net that helps low-income adults, children and seniors in Wisconsin buy groceries. During the recession, unemployment levels for minorities spiked to record numbers in Milwaukee, and while the economy has bounced back, those who were hit hardest are still trying to get back on their feet. Stripping away food benefits can be devastating.

 

Tussler tracked a 49-year-old black man with a bachelor's degree, who lost his job two years ago when he was making more than $70,000 a year. The man had more than two decades of management experience, but he needed to go through the program to receive food benefits. She said the only jobs he was connected to were low-skilled. One job sent him to a fast-food establishment where he was told if he worked hard he might be able to own his own franchise one day.

 

The average age of a fast-food worker nationally is 29, and Wisconsin's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Even if an employee works 40 hours a week, the employee still qualifies for food stamps and other government assistance, especially if the employee has children. The other jobs offered him were what Tussler called "mandatory volunteering," where he was told that he could clean apartments and sort meat at Feeding America to "build his resume."

 

He was lucky enough to find a job on his own.

 

Who benefits from free labor — that "mandatory volunteering" Tussler talked about? Companies do because they don't have to hire the worker. The worker may be better off holding a "will work for food" sign.

 

Amy Liu, vice president and director of the the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, who was in Milwaukee Monday to talk about job creation, said if job training does not connect a person to a livable wage job at the end of the training, the worker will be frustrated.

 

The best training occurs when employers looking for quality workers team up with technical schools, design the program and hire the student at the end of the training. Apprenticeships are an important part of the equation but that requires investment by the employer on the front end.

 

When you consider all the construction that has started downtown and will take place over the next 10 years, construction jobs could be an important tool to close the unemployment gap.

 

Walker should show he has a heart. He should sign the waiver and evaluate the job training programs to make sure taxpayers are getting what they deserve — a quality workforce.