[Company Logo Image] 

Linking up the struggles!

Home Contact Us Site Map Search

Home
 

[Under Construction]

Home
About
Welfare Rights Chapters
Links
News
Get Involved

Our Mission

Welcome to the NWRU web site! The National Welfare Rights Union is an organization of, by, and for the poor in the United States and beyond. We are building a social movement committed to ending poverty and ensuring a better world for our children and ourselves. We are dedicated to unity among low-income, public assistance recipients, and the unemployed.

From the Co-President's Desk...

by Marian Kramer, Detroit, MI

In Michigan, Governor Jennifer Granholm recently proposed in her 2008-2009 State Budget a $3.00 per person increase in the FIP (welfare assistance) grant.  She also proposed restoring the child school clothing allowance back to $75.00 per child.  FIP recipients only receive this clothing allowance once each September.  The clothing allowance was reduced last year to $43.00 per child.  Both proposals, if passed, are scheduled to go in effect in October 2008. Read more.

 

What We're Doing

Water Affordability in Michigan: Marian Kramer wins Purpose Prize award for her work in implementing a water affordability plan to prevent shut-offs in Detroit.

What is the Purpose Prize? Purpose Prize awardees in the news.

(click image to view video)

 

Welfare Reform

Across the country, thousands of poor and low-income people are suffering from the effects of reform legislation. The implementation of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act ended the entitlement to welfare that had in been in place for over 65 years. Residents of the U.S. are no longer guaranteed the right to feed, to clothe, or to house themselves and their children in this, the richest country in the world. In a time of high and rising unemployment, the government tells its people to "just get a job" without guaranteeing them the right to a job at a livable wage, or a guaranteed adequate annual income if no work can be found. However, we will not die! We will survive by any means necessary and we will fight to ensure that other poor people survive and build a movement in this country that is linked to ending poverty in the world.

 

If this country truly wants to respond to the needs of its impoverished it must listen to the impoverished who currently suffer under the existing inhumane systems, and who best know what policies must restore our lives. The NWRU will take our movement into the streets of this nation--from the farms of rural America to the tenements of the inner city, from the homeless ghettos to the college campuses, and from the halls of Congress to the hearing rooms of our state houses. We are building a movement that cannot be stopped. We will win--our children's survival and well-being demand no less!

 

Photos courtesy of Kensington Welfare Rights Union

 

[ Home ] About ] Welfare Rights Chapters ] Links ] News ] Get Involved ]

Last modified: 04/17/08