[Faith & Hunger] People's State Rally Tues Jan 2 Hope on Welfare Benefits, Health, Jobs, Hunger

[Dunleamark at aol.com]

Hunger Action Network of  NYS 
more info: Mark Dunlea 434-7371, xt  1# 
People's State of the State Rally on Jan.  2nd Urges State Action on Welfare 
Benefits, Hunger,  Wages

The 18th Annual People’s State of the State Rally will  take place at the 
State Capitol (east side steps) in Albany at 11:45  AM on Tuesday Jan. 2nd.

The annual event draws attention to  the problems of hunger, homelessness and 
poverty in New York State and  promotes solutions that the groups hope the 
Governor will include in his  own State of the State address delivered the 
following  day. 
“We started this event during the Cuomo  administration. We were optimistic 
that the issues we talked about in our event  would end up in the Governor’s 
speech the next day, and on a few occasions Cuomo  actually came out to talk us. 
Over the last decade the event has focused more on  protesting the pending 
cuts by Pataki in welfare and Medicaid. This year we  start out again with more 
hope that the needs of low-income New Yorkers will be  addressed, but we also 
know that poor people still don’t have much political  power,” stated Mark 
Dunlea of Hunger Action Network, the main organizer of the  event.  
Speakers and peformers at the event include:  Michael Kink, Housing Works; 
Rev. Ellen Tatreau, Emmanual Baptist Church; Mark  Dunlea, Hunger Action Network 
of New York State; Dr. Andy Coates, Physicians for  a National Health 
Program, Hunger Action Network of NYS; Gene Rodriguez, Capital  District Working 
Center; singer Mary Nell Morgan, and Ron Deutsch of New Yorkers  for Fiscal 
Fairness.  

Key issues in  this year's event include: universal health care; raising the 
welfare grant for  the first time since 1990; universal health care; $32 
million in state  funding for emergency food (Hunger Prevention and Nutrition 
Assistance Program);  expanding access to job training and education as part of 
TANF  implementation; creation of a NYS Food Policy Council to better coordinate  
state efforts to end hunger, improve nutrition and support family farms; and  
progressive revenue solutions to promote tax  fairness. 
The groups also want the new  administration to fulfill the promises made ten 
years ago with respect to  welfare reform, including doing more to make work 
pay, and investing in job  creation and child care. Key proposals to MAKE  
WORK PAY include: 
    *   Restoring the purchasing power of the minimum wage to  1970 levels 
(about $8.50 in January 2007 dollars) and indexing it for  inflation to prevent 
future erosion. 
    *   Strengthening work incentives by improving the earned  income 
disregard for welfare participants with income from  work. 
    *   Establishing a wage subsidy program for low-income  workers and/or a 
state funded food stamp supplement for working  families. 
    *   Reforming the Unemployment Insurance system to increase  the maximum 
benefit, increasing benefits at the bottom of the income  distribution and 
establishing dependent allowances.  

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