Street Roots • July 24-30, 2015
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COURTESY OF WESTERN REGIONAL A D V O C A C Y PROJECT
W o r k in g
BY AM AN DA WALDROUPE
to reducing poverty: create “transitional jobs”
for underemployed and unemployed people;
increasing the federal minimum wage to
educing poverty by 50 percent sounds
$10.10 an hour; expand the earned income
like a bleeding heart liberal’s dream.
tax credit; increase funding for child-care
Saying that people should work more
sounds like the canned response of a free- subsidies; and increase support for people
who are physically or mentally incapable of
market capitalist
working — people with disabilities and
But David Riemer thinks such a dramatic
receiving Social Security and Supplemental
reduction in poverty is possible — with the
Security Income.
help of America’s free-market economy.
The policy proposals developed by
Riemer is a senior fellow at the Community
Advocates Public Policy Institute, a think tank Community Advocates relies on modeling
software developed by the Urban Institute, a
based in Milwaukee
national organization that conducts research
that promotes
on social and economic policy, which is able
policies to reduce
to simulate a household’s eligibility for
poverty. In March,
different assistance programs or tax credits,
Community
depending upon changes in income. The
Advocates released a
result is an empirical analysis of various
report analyzing how
factors that can lead to a reduction in poverty.
poverty can be
“Until this report came out, no one could
reduced from its
say
(how poverty could be reduced) with this
current national rate
level of certainty,” Riemer says.
of 14.5 percent to
Riemer has spent his career in the private
nearly 7 percent
and government sectors implementing ways
The report
to reduce poverty and improve health care
presents a package
and other social services without increasing
of policy proposals
spending. In 2003, he worked as the budget
that would enable
director for Wisconsin’s then-governor, Jim
more than half of
Doyle, and was responsible for balancing a
people living in poverty to earn wages that
state budget with a $3.2 billion deficit without
would lift them above the poverty line.
cutting core services. He has also worked as
The report takes a five-pronged approach
the budget director for the city of Milwaukee
STAFF WRITER
R
David Riemer
to cut poverty in half
D avid Riem er and the
Com m unity Advocates
P ublic Policy Institute
have a plan that would
allow poor Am ericans
to earn wages they need
to get out o f poverty
and has authored numerous articles on
poverty, health care reform and public
administration.
Riemer will speak about the report 10:30
a.m. Thursday, July 30, at Portland State
University’s Smith Memorial Student Union.
His talk, “Working Our Way Out of Poverty,”
is free and open to the public. It is sponsored
by the Oregon Business Council’s poverty
task force.
A m anda W aldroupe: Your report concludes
that work is the primary way out of poverty.
Why is that?
David Riem er: As we talk about poverty
here, we’re talking about a shortage of
income. The point that I was trying to make
is that when you have a shortage of income
when you’re underemployed or unemployed,
it makes it more likely for you to become sick
or ill. It makes it harder for children to learn.
I know there’s often a lot of discussion that
we shouldn’t only think of poverty as being a
matter of money. But it’s hard to measure
some of those other things - whether
people’s emotional state or general well-being
is getting better or staying the same as things
that you would measure and point to to
change public policy. You can measure
whether people’s incomes stay the same or
rise.
See RIEM ER, page 5