More Than A Magazine, A Movement
A new guaranteed income in Cambridge, Mass., is offering direct cash to low-income households with children. The program could be a model for the rest of the U.S.
As the mayor of Cambridge, I trust each participant to use the money as they see fit without limitations.
The United States has significantly fewer supports for caregivers than our peer countries. We lack paid family leave and public childcare. Our long-term care infrastructure is a mix of private and public, means-tested programs. Persistent low wages across the care industries have ensured that supply is unstable and insufficient.
If the U.S. is serious about bringing women into the workforce permanently, we need a robust suite of care policies—including fully public childcare, reentry programs for women who have taken time out of the workforce for childcare, and more robust long-term care options.
Brigitte Uwababyey transformed her life, and the lives of everyone around her when she first started her chicken farm in rural Rwanda.
Around the globe, women like Brigette already know how to get things done. To stretch resources, to innovate, to adapt. And, when invested in, they know how to thrive.
Medicaid is so much more than the talking points or media coverage on the debt ceiling. Members of Congress know it too—they know that disabled people, older adults, care workers and family caregivers would suffer if Medicaid was cut, or work requirements were enforced.
We need our elected officials to fight for us and support their constituents who rely on Medicaid.
In 1987, Attorney Lynn Paltrow defended Pamela Rae Stewart, a California woman criminally charged for failing to follow medical advice while pregnant. This case was one of the first attempts to criminalize a pregnant person for their actions and argue that fetuses have constitutional rights. In 2000, Paltrow started National Advocates for Pregnant Women, now called Pregnancy Justice, to defend pregnant people against criminalization and other deprivations of their rights.
“With half the population capable of pregnancy, what we have to do is change the conversation so that it is clear we are not just defending abortion, we are defending the personhood of the people who sometimes need abortions, but who always need to be treated as full rights-bearing, constitutional persons.”
In addition to being sentenced to juvenile hall, many young people are ordered by the court to pay money—otherwise known as restitution. Hefty restitution orders are common and saddle young people and their families with crushing debt, while failing to provide the intended relief to survivors. Restitution also makes it harder for overpoliced communities to break free from the carceral system. If a family cannot pay, parents can be subjected to wage garnishment, tax refund interceptions and property liens—threatening the financial stability of the entire family.
California’s youth restitution system is in dire need of re-imagination so that it can be functional and effective. The REPAIR Act, authored by Assemblymember Mia Bonta and backed by Debt Free Justice California, does this by placing crime survivors on a secure pathway to receive accessible and timely funds through a newly formed fund.
“Women’s power as decision makers in the political process does not reflect our numbers or our needs. Who holds legislative or executive office, and whether we do so in critical mass numbers and with agenda-setting authority, obviously matters tremendously to the design, the enactment, the implementation and the enforcement of laws that can help us or harm us. That includes of course the power to select the judges who interpret these laws.”
(This essay is part of Women’s Rights and Backsliding Democracies project—a multimedia project made up of essays, video and podcast programming, presented by Ms., NYU Law’s Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network and Rewire News Group.)
Every year, nearly 300,000 women die because of pregnancy and childbirth—and 95 percent of those deaths are preventable. The biggest health disparity between rich and poor is reflected in how likely a woman is to die while bringing new life into this world.
For every woman who dies, another 20 to 30 suffer from preventable and treatable injuries like obstetric fistula—a childbirth injury that causes urinary and/or fecal incontinence and destroys a woman’s life. Obstetric fistula is just a symptom of a larger problem: the global under-investment in maternal healthcare.
My mom dreamed of getting an education, and becoming the teacher she’d always aspired to be; of being able to take a day off, instead of working seven days straight. But after nearly 25 years of working multiple minimum wage jobs to make ends meet, my mom passed away unexpectedly in 2020.
A lack of policies to help mothers in general means that stories like my mom’s are tragically common. But, we can make better choices as a country—we can allow folks to live healthier, more dignified lives by providing a guaranteed income and expanding the child tax credit.
When it comes to policy decisions that affect low-income families, Congress should listen to those most affected: low-income Black moms, who disproportionately bear the brunt of unemployment, wage gaps and unpaid childcare and domestic labor.
In the Front and Center series, Ms. and Springboard to Opportunities’ Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT) team up to give low-income Black moms in Jackson, Miss., an opportunity to share their story. Each MMT mom receives a guaranteed income payment of $1,000 per month for a year, with no strings attached. Now in its fourth cohort, MMT has changed hundreds of lives and proved that unrestricted monthly payments empower women to do what’s best for their families.
