Campaign News

Por otro lado, el Center for Popular Democracy lanzó un fondo de emergencia para asistir a organizaciones que trabajan con comunidades de bajos ingresos, que son más vulnerables a los daños de María.

Lea el artículo completo aquí.

Senate Republicans tried and failed three times to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  Many Americans who were against the repeal spent time calling and writing to their senators, and even making it to Washington to protest the plans in person. Those advocates say they believe standing up against the repeal efforts made all the difference. Karen Scharff from Citizen Action, Michael Kink from Strong Economy for All, and Jaron Benjamin from Housing Works discuss their fight against the repeal.

Watch the video here.

The state government provides New Yorkers with a multitude of services and benefits necessary for their survival and success: nutritional supports, health benefits, unemployment insurance and driver’s licenses, to name but a few. In order for these services to be equally accessible to all of the diverse residents of the state, it is essential that government agencies be linguistically accessible, providing interpretation and translation services for the over 2 million individuals in New York State who are limited English proficient (LEP). This report assesses the state of language access in New York, particularly access to state benefits that are critically important to low-income New Yorkers, such as public benefits, unemployment, police protection, etc. It examines the degree to which government agencies that administer state benefits programs and services are providing LEP New Yorkers with language assistance services required under a patchwork of federal, state and county-level policies. 

Read the full report here.

The state government provides New Yorkers with a multitude of services and benefits necessary for their survival and success: nutritional supports, health benefits, unemployment insurance and driver’s licenses, to name but a few. In order for these services to be equally accessible to all of the diverse residents of the state, it is essential that government agencies be linguistically accessible, providing interpretation and translation services for the over 2 million individuals in New York State who are limited English proficient (LEP). This report assesses the state of language access in New York, particularly access to state benefits that are critically important to low-income New Yorkers, such as public benefits, unemployment, police protection, etc. It examines the degree to which government agencies that administer state benefits programs and services are providing LEP New Yorkers with language assistance services required under a patchwork of federal, state and county-level policies.

This report is the outgrowth of years of advocacy and months of research and analysis conducted by Make the Road NY (MRNY), the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and three additional partner organizations across the state: the Center for the Elimination of Health Disparities (CEMHD) at SUNY Albany, Multicultural Association of Medical Interpreters (MAMI) in Central New York and the International Institute of Buffalo.

This study also grows from the experiences of the thousands of LEP New Yorkers with whom CPD, MRNY and our partners have worked in recent years.  Their consistent reports concerning the barriers created by the lack of competent, consistent interpretation and translation have informed this research, and their continuing efforts to overcome and eliminate these obstacles have inspired this work.  In recent years, CPD, MRNY and other members of the broader New York State Language Access Coalition have advocated for policy changes that guarantee language assistance for LEP New Yorkers in private and public settings.  At the local level, the Language Access Coalition has successfully advocated for Executive Order 120 in New York City and Executive Order 10 in Suffolk County, which require local agencies to provide language assistance services to the LEP community members they serve.

In 2011, these efforts culminated with Governor Cuomo signing Executive Order 26, a statewide order which requires all state agencies with direct public contact to translate vital documents into the top six languages spoken by LEP individuals in New York State, provide interpretation services for all New Yorkers in their primary language, develop a language access plan and designate a language access coordinator.

With Executive Order 26, the Cuomo administration not only took a tremendously important step towards guaranteeing access to government services for LEP New Yorkers, it also demonstrated national leadership on this issue.  New York State’s language access policy is the first of its kind.  And at a time when other states across the nation were implementing regressive, anti-immigrant measures, New York demonstrated a better way forward.  The administration’s commitment to language access, demonstrated by its consistent engagement with advocates in the years preceding the issuance of the Executive Order and in the months since its enactment, stands as a compelling example of how public policy can support the immigrant communities that have been powerful drivers of local economies across the state and strengthen New York as a whole.

However, the ultimate measure of the success of government and advocacy efforts is whether all LEP New Yorkers who interact with government agencies are provided with the interpretation and translation services to which they are entitled.   Our findings, outlined below, suggest that this is not the case and that there is still much to be done to ensure that such New Yorkers receive competent, consistent language assistance services. In particular, during the course of our research, we have learned that many state benefits programs and services are administered by county- or locally-run entities that may not fall within the ambit of the Governor’s Executive Order 26, and may not be in jurisdictions with a county or local executive order. Access to language services and, thus, to the essential public services and benefits to which they are linked remains patchy and work must continue to be done with all levels of government—state and local—to ensure equity.

The Federal Reserve has received a lot of criticism recently for its lack of diversity. The leaders of the central banking system are almost all white men.

But now that the president of one of the Fed’s 12 regional banks in Atlanta is stepping down, some see an opportunity for change.

Several congressional lawmakers and the activist group Fed Up are calling on the agency to appoint the system’s first black president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

“The fed is the nerve center of our entire economic system, and nobody is suffering from an economic depression as the African-American community,” Congressman David Scott said.

The Georgia Democrat co-wrote a letter, along with Reps. John Lewis, Maxine Waters and John Conyers, to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on the issue.

Black workers still struggle, Scott said, even as the overall economy has recovered. The jobless rate for African Americans, for example, is more than double their white neighbors.

Outside an unemployment office on the west side of Atlanta, Formosa Williams is at her wit’s end.

“At this point, I don’t know what to do,” Williams said.

For years, Williams said she has struggled to find stable work.

“The only jobs that really seem to be hiring are like fast food,” Williams said. “And it’s no way I’m going to go back to that.”

Scott and the activists hope stories of minority workers, like Williams, will take a more prominent place in the central banking system’s discussions once it has a black regional president.

“Unless you have a voice at that table that has gone through the experience of being an African American, you’re missing so much,” said Scott.

The congressman and activists argue the appointment also makes sense, given the region the bank covers -- the South -- and that region’s history with civil rights.

But while many economists might agree that diversity is good, they aren’t all sure how it translates into policy.

“I think you have to start out with the recognition that our Federal Reserve officials have really one tool, and that’s interest rates,” said Tim Duy, an economics professor at the University of Oregon. “That tool is a very blunt instrument.”

That tool affects the broader economy at a macro-level, said Duy, who also authors a blog called Fed Watch. Meanwhile, he said, many of the problems facing African-American workers are at the micro-economic level.

“The Federal Reserve is not going to be a silver bullet to these issues,” Duy said.

The search for the next Atlanta Fed president is being led by a committee of business leaders from around the South.

The chair, Thomas Fanning, who is president of Southern Company, said they’re looking for the best person most of all.

And if he or she happens to make history, as the first African American?

“That would be a great thing,” Fanning said.

By STEPHANNIE STOKES

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