Week Four: Halfway Point

Amazingly, my experience in the capital is half-way over. The city seemed to operate in half-capacity this week because of the 4th, Congress is out of session, the President is at the G-8, NGO staff are on vacation, and everyone just want to get to the long weekend. WOW is no exception, and the small staff operated with an even small staff this week. I've been assigned to a new project, working on developing an appendix for a report that now is writing for the Ford Foundation. The report is the concluding steps of a 6 month project WOW has been working on, an information-gathering assignment to examine ways that reproductive health organizations and economic services could join services to reach out to low-income women. The concept makes a lot of sense, and I'm excited to see the type of results that can come out of this.

Its also been eye-opening to get a look at the demographics of the women taking advantage of these services, and of their firsthand experiences and opinions about their economic futures. I've always considered myself sympathetic to the plight of low-income women, but I had no idea how common extreme poverty is. And much of the time, it seems that help is available but women don't know how to take advantage of it. All the women in the focus groups were eligible for a variety of government programs, but only a few had figured out the bureaucratic process well enough receive benefits. Low-wage jobs are an especially big problem- many of the women had been employed, but the jobs paid so poorly and offered low hours and no benefits, so they were better off not working at all. More unemployed women had health insurance than employed women. There is clearly an incentive problem in the welfare system. I'm also realizing that poverty and race cannot be separated- it may not be PC, but race-directed poverty policies need to be instated.

I'm really being forced to examine my own views on poverty and the government's role in helping people maintain a certain standard of living. My economics background makes me skeptical of interference, but being human makes me positive that something needs to be done.