Mayor Is Heading Panel on Poverty
WASHINGTON — Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa convened a national task force on poverty Wednesday, telling mayors from around the country that a new strategy is needed to recognize the economic dangers facing the working poor.
Villaraigosa said during a session of the United States Conference of Mayors that the old way of thinking -- that people in poverty are victims of their own lack of direction or apathy -- must be replaced by concern for families who are poor despite being employed.
"We know that most poor people in America today work, and we know that a growing number of working Americans who we don't technically define as poor are dancing on the razor's edge of subsistence," Villaraigosa said.
The task force, he said, will address "the gulf between those at the very top of the economic ladder, who are earning more and doing better than they ever have, and the growing number of Americans who are working harder and slipping back."
By focusing on the working poor, government leaders must grapple with issues such as making housing affordable, increasing the minimum wage and improving schools so children have a chance to escape poverty, Villaraigosa told an audience of more than 1,000 mayors, government officials and business leaders.
The working poor are "losing ground to the escalating cost of energy, tuition, medical care and child care," the mayor said.
Much of the conference was spent discussing how Gulf Coast cities were devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and how local officials felt let down by the federal and state responses to the disaster.
"As mayors, I think we can all agree that we saw reflections of all our cities in the faces of the people stranded on the rooftops of the Lower 9th Ward," Villaraigosa said.
As head of the task force, Villaraigosa gains a national leadership role on a major issue, other mayors said, adding that they have been impressed so far with what they have seen from the mayor of the nation's second-largest city.
And on Tuesday, Villaraigosa will deliver the Democrats' Spanish-language response to the president's State of the Union address. The mayor's comments will be carried on Spanish-language television networks. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will deliver the Democratic response in English.
The task force on poverty, said New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, is "a wonderful idea."
