Photo via Big Grey Mare — Out On Pasture.

I do not envy Hilda Solis’ task at the Department of Labor.  Reversing the last 8 years of not-so-worker-friendly Elaine Chao-isms is not going to be an easy task.  Especially where there are these types of concerns:

In one case, the division failed to investigate a complaint that under-age children in Modesto, Calif., were working during school hours at a meatpacking plant with dangerous machinery, the G.A.O., the nonpartisan auditing arm of Congress, found.

When an undercover agent posing as a dishwasher called four times to complain about not being paid overtime for 19 weeks, the division’s office in Miami failed to return his calls for four months, and when it did, the report said, an official told him it would take 8 to 10 months to begin investigating his case.

This is not the first time problems have been reported with child labor law enforcement particularly, something that is supposed to be a sacrosanct enforcement priority at Labor. Via Jamie Parks at AFL-CIO:

On a typical day, more than 400 workers younger than 18 are hurt on the job in the United States and one is killed every 10 days. At the same time, the number of federal child labor investigations has declined by half since the Bush administration took office eight years ago….

The U.S. Labor Department has 750 investigators who look into both child labor and wage and hour complaints, 20 percent fewer than in 2001, according to Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Education and Labor subcommittee on Workforce Protections. Woolsey, who conducted hearings last September on child labor, has vowed to work with the incoming Obama administration to strengthen child labor laws and increase the number of inspectors. The current laws have been loosely enforced at best, the Observer found. Under federal law, the maximum penalty for most child labor violations is $11,000, but in 2006 the average penalty was less than $1,000.

The Charlotte Observer series that Jamie references is wrenching, intersecting poverty, despair and dangerous conditions for the kids working at a poultry plant that actively recruited underage workers because they were more "compliant." (Full series here. Part I and Part II on child labor.)

That drop in child labor enforcement and reduction of staffing didn’t happen by accident, now did it? Is it what happens when you put people who loathe government and labor organizations in charge of the Department of Labor?

Do workers’ interests get a fairer shake in a Democratic administration? I certainly hope so, and will be watching. (more…)

Yesterday, the National Center on Family Homelessness released a report on the extent of homelessness among America’s children.  The results were stunning: 1 out of every 50 children — around 1.5 million total children — will go to sleep this evening without a home. 

These tough economic times have been rough on families.  But this is a systemic problem not just due to economic collapse, but also a lack of a comprehensive strategy for children and family programs nationwide.

We have a tear in the nation’s social contract, and these children are falling through it. In increasing numbers, too, since the last survey ten years ago showed fewer homeless children.  

A school official in Nevada asked ABC’s Brian Ross why so much bailout money was going to banks, but what was being done for families across America?  Isn’t it time we all started asking?

Via the Sacramento Bee:

Homelessness is "very, very difficult on children," said Burke. "They have lost their whole known world. They no longer have their neighborhood friends. They may have left a pet behind. Their parents are very stressed. They’re in a new school. It’s overwhelming for them."… 

The national report…calls for programs that would give needy people better access to affordable housing, increases in nutrition programs for homeless youngsters, expanded health services for needy families, and improved access to early childhood education for homeless youngsters.

And Sacramento is not alone. You see similar issues in Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Texas and Nevada — and everywhere in between:

Families with children comprise roughly one-third of the nation’s homeless population. Poverty continues to be a core reason for the crisis, though the aftermath of Hurrican[e] Katrina combined to swell the numbers in Louisiana, Texas and Georgia. Since the 1980s, single mothers have accounted for an increasing share of the homeless population, partly because of increased divorced rates, gender and wage disparities, and the shrinking supply of affordable housing. Officials believe that the current home foreclosure crisis will be adding a new demographic to these statistics: middle-class blacks and Latinos. "It’s families that were living pretty independently, doing pretty well. And, through just one event, it was, like, a domino effect — if one part of the puzzle breaks off, then everything breaks off," says Michael Levine, who coordinates social work programs for Hillsborough, Fla.’s 206,000-student school system.

We are mortgaging the nation’s future by failing to plan and failing to care for the most vulnerable among us. When will we realize that early investment in children and families social programs has a long-term yield for us all? (more…)

Researching children’s issues and the stimulus bill yesterday, one thing stuck out loud and clear: economic decisions are made in the abstract.

But the results?  Fall disproportionately. Especially on kids who are already trying to survive on the margins as it is.

From kids in Northern Virginia and Cincinnati and Las Vegas to all over California, hard luck stories are cropping up. But this time, they have an added edge of governmental failures from the past few years:

Barbara Duffield of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth says a homeless liaison in a large metropolitan area told her of about 20 homeless high school students who had been denied enrollment. Administrators at the schools were worried that those students would drag down test scores and make it harder for the school to avoid sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law.

…many districts have reported [homeless student] increases of 10 percent — some as high as 40 percent over the past year. Some of the increases may be due to better reporting, she says….

"School becomes the most stable part of their day," she says. "You want them to be able to go into the same classroom, sit in the same seat, see the same teacher, because that’s normal for them when everything else around them isn’t normal."

So, which bi-partisan special Senator wants to step up to the plate and tell these kids that they aren’t worth our effort? That education and at risk child funding was cut when they need it most desperately because their underage voices weren’t loud enough to get attention in pay-to-play lobbying world?

I’m all for fiscal responsibility and real world analysis of economic indicators, but let’s make one thing clear: those kids you are throwing away as if they don’t matter? That’s your future you just tossed in the dumpster.

And worse? It was also theirs.

(more…)

The stimulus kabuki continues. Will children be the losers in this publicly played out farce? Via CQ: The single biggest spending cut to the original Senate plan comes out of a $79 billion state fiscal stabilization allocation that would help states avoid tax increases and cutbacks in education and other high priority services.