Proposed California Budget Cuts Target Poor Children - Mothers Protest

On Monday January 12, 2004 welfare mothers from all over the state gathered on the steps of the state capital to protest the proposed budget cuts that target poor children. Member mothers of LIFETIME, a state wide non-profit organization serving low-income families and welfare recipients staged "The Shirts Off Our Backs" Action Event. Yours truly was there representing low-income single mothers.


Executive Director Diana Spatz and members offered Schwarzenegger all that was left after welfare cuts, the shirts off their backs. The shirts hanging on the tenement style clothes lines included the stories of all the families that receive welfare and are impacted by pending cuts.

Schwarzenegger's budget includes cutting welfare recipient's grants by 5% and further cutting the grants of children whose parents have reached their five year life time limit by 25%. For the latter group, this would reduce average payments to poor families from approximately $400 to $300. Who could raise a child on $400 let alone $300? The figures are already over fifty percent below the poverty line.

The consequences of further eroding poverty relief will create more poverty. I'm wondering if the Governor want's to bring back tenement housing for these people.