NOW with Bill Moyers; 111; Living Wage

음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음음 You You're watching now with Bill Moyers with contributions from NPR News this week on now Americans who can't stretch

their paycheck to feed their kids I've had to tell them that they could only have one helping of cereal because I wouldn't wasn't sure if we're gonna have enough to last the whole week a report on hunger in surprising places and award-winning writer Barbara Aaron Reich on how the nickels and dimes of the minimum wage don't add up and I know because I tried it no matter how carefully I pinched pennies I couldn't get my wages to cover basic expenses and a new play opens this week by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Horton foot inspired by his own roots in small town taxes I've been given these people to write about a Bill Moyers interview funding for now has been provided by our sole corporate funder for over 50 years we've put retirement and pension products to work for those in the public service now we're doing the same for the rest of

America mutual of America for all of America the spirit of America and by the Colbert Foundation the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and by contributions to your PBS stations from viewers like you thank you from our studios in New York Bill Moyers welcome to now the people you're about to meet are not statistics in a survey but real people with real names who tell us what it means to be a working American today people like waitress Deette Peck steel worker Pat Martinez and social worker Kathy mounts all the struggling to feed their families what happened to the idea of making a living wage in America to find some answers producer Tom Peshado traveled to his hometown of Portland, Oregon voted one of the best places to live in America Hey Catherine it's Cassandra I was just going to get back to you about Saturday

uh-huh Cassandra Garrison considers herself a warrior in an army fighting poverty I mean these women that we're meeting in these mortals clinically depressive suicidal and can't she get into senior disabled housing she followed between the cracks she so you paid your rent but they gave you an eviction notice anyway and why we were out there we're doing school lunch applications food stamp applications she fights her battles in what might seem an unlikely locale this is Portland, Oregon a city known quite rightly for its environmental consciousness it's outdoor lifestyle and increasingly it's fine restaurants it's never far from the top of the list of America's most livable cities in one of its most livable states but it's a state with a problem in my neighborhood my school for my child the middle school over 80 percent of the families get free and reduced lunches and without the free

breakfast and the free lunch most of those kids wouldn't even have food in their stomachs for the majority of the day Oregonians were shocked three years ago when the U.S. Department of Agriculture ranked the state first in the nation in incidents of outright hunger as well as sixth for what it calls food insecurity we're not talking about babies with distended bellies what we are talking about is what is now called food insecurity which essentially means that you don't know from meal to meal whether you have the resources to acquire food for yourself and your family last year about one in every six people in Oregon and neighboring Clark County Washington received emergency food assistance that's over 650,000 individuals and these weren't all people with no resources in fact 43 percent of the households receiving assistance had at least one adult working three items out of here okay I think I probably spent $20 a month at the

grocery store but then that it's here started coming here regularly one of the reasons why was because I could come on the weekend and I didn't have to tell my boss you know I can't come today to find a food bank because I don't earn enough money as a single parent for children low income people in the state of Oregon on an average pay 60 percent of their income for housing and it can go as high as 70 to 75 percent so you know you just look at that and you realize that that 25 to 30 to 35 percent has to cover transportation of clothing medical expenses and then food and since there's no bill collector for food often what we see is families will cut back on their food expenses to be able to pay the other expenses like rent and electric Cassandra Garrison knows firsthand what it's like to be poor it was when she was

almost on the street that she began to learn the lessons that would inspire her future work I was a welfare mother there was a point in time when I picked up cans I begged on the corner I did everything except sleep with my landlord to stay housed stability is everything for families if you cannot keep families stable they will just disintegrate while on public assistance Garrison pursued an education eventually earning a master's degree in public administration this led to a full-time job as an advocate for the nonprofit Oregon Food Bank now she uses her experience and knowledge to help others navigate the system that got her out of poverty she regularly visits a strip of motels on Portland's 82nd Avenue often the last place hungry people live on their way to homelessness right across the street is a branch of the state adult and family services office this is where a mother and a family someone out of work

single adult could come and get food stamps or information on job resources and referral is it safe to say that if you don't get what you need over here you might end up over here you could get what you need from there and still end up over there as we stood on the corner Garrison was approached by a recently laid-off steel worker he had just emerged from the adult and family services office he wanted some better in the mail saying that our food stamps was going to expire in two weeks to call this number so I called him and I said hey you know I haven't found a good job yet you know can we have some stamps or you have to come back in you know and I feel out this and this now it's a now we for a whole month we had no nothing so now are you getting your kids are you getting with no food in the fridge are you getting like are you getting I'm not getting nothing she immediately began to show him how to cut through the red tape these people can tell you how to get food stamps and get

the Oregon health plan we hired her on at Oregon Food Bank is essentially an outreach worker an advocacy outreach worker somebody that would go out onto the street and actually talk to poor people with an amazing thing you know we're dying we're a family you know I'm healthy I'll take a job in a heartbeat but if I work for ten eleven bucks an hour and I have four kids I'm not gonna make it right a skilled job you know I need something that will actually keep me in the you know especially when you see you got to have insurance on your vehicles right right right now you're on an employment now right I get ninety three dollars a week she was fearless going into those offices calling to see if she could get an application and just discovering red tape galore right right right bring me this information I give you your stamps okay okay so I show up there to give her the information she's not at work okay but you're gonna go in and did you ask for the branch manager no okay you want to go into this branch and you want to see the branch manager the

recent recession hit Oregon hard it's 8% unemployment rate is the nation's highest but the story here isn't simply about people not having jobs remember the state got its number one hunger ranking in 1999 during the economic boom I think those that worked on poverty issues and hunger issues definitely knew during the course of the 90s that there were some people that weren't benefiting from the great gains that were happening to others because we saw food bank numbers continue to go up particularly since welfare reform in 1996 it was 1996 when President Bill Clinton teamed with the Republican controlled Congress to pass the welfare reform bill known as the personal responsibility act from now on our nation's answer to this great social challenge will no longer be an ever-ending cycle of welfare it will be the dignity the power in the ethic of work that same year Oregon passed similar state legislation the goal

was to get people to work as quickly as possible and off off the state coffers the economy was good enough that that actually happened a mixture of of the public agencies really pushing people off the programs and the economy being good enough with a lot of low wage jobs that people did move off and Oregon had probably one of the highest caseload reductions off its public assistance program of any state as well which the state took is a great success nobody asked the question of well what happened to these people they're working but are they out of poverty in the five years following state and federal welfare reform welfare cases in Oregon went down by about 50 percent but during that same period the demand for emergency food went up 50 percent and in 96 I think the message the way that that law was titled personal responsibility act communicated to people that you didn't deserve help from the system you really had to get out there and work and take care of it yourself so people did that and even though they may have been at low-wage jobs and still qualify for

something like the federal food stamp program they didn't go in and get it or they weren't told about it and so they were working in poor but not getting the benefits they were still eligible for so our goal and advocacy has been the stated support in this and the federal government is and we need people to know about all the benefits when they're in trouble and need help okay now these are the rules for the jobs program you have problems getting anything associated with this then you're gonna be calling me another thing is we have made progress you know on food stamp outreach we got the state to commit to start to remove barriers to get people on food stamps we've gone up 41% in two years that all started with Cassandra these people right here are the supervisors of these people back here and tell them what and you're gonna tell me having problems getting your food stamps that you have no food in your house right that you met Cassandra in the lobby of the AFS office this morning and she was suggesting that she that you call and talk to them about getting your food stamps taken care of and to get that employment related day care and

lying for your girlfriend to be able to go out and look for work and then you just want to tell them the entire saga of what you've been dealing okay there's perhaps no greater testament to the dimensions of the state's hunger problem than the dimensions of the Oregon food banks recently built warehouse 94 thousand square feet packed almost to the ceiling with box upon box of food it's donated by government and corporate sources as well as a few surprising local ones we're getting fish that was thrown away up in Alaska coming in and then we're getting maybe deer and bear that are animals that fish and wildlife in Oregon they're those animals are being destroyed because maybe they're causing harm to farmers crops and then they are being shipped to us repackaged the food bank is a nonprofit agency that supplies a web of almost 800

emergency food distribution centers it serves pantries churches and other charitable groups throughout the region what makes the system typical of Oregon is its emphasis on recycling preserving the environment and preventing waste even as it serves hungry people an example can be seen in the area where prisoners unlimited release from a local penitentiary sort through tons of seemingly useless goods that is what we would call salvage it might be that a case has been dropped and so there's damage cans and it's no longer sellable but it's edible and then if it's not edible it gets moved into a tote for a pig farmer who then takes it he'll cook it down feed his pigs recycle all the tin and it's just a complete operation that nothing goes to waste isn't that wonderful it sounds like a well-run business well if you figure 46 million pounds of food 25 million going to this warehouse last year yeah for a dollar let's say

that someone donates us we moved ten dollars worth of food supplies from the food bank are eventually packed into emergency food boxes providing enough to feed a family of three for up to five days but no matter how much food you see in the warehouse no matter how efficient the organization the problem is much too big to be solved by charity alone according to the food banks policy director Kim Thomas they are still really stuck in a very old model you do see the growth of this system and you know it's very effective it's very efficient policy makers like it because we run like a business and it's an easy out for people you know that well we have this system what what more do you need I mean you're talking about one box of food last maybe three to five days and at most people probably can access that once a month we just don't have the resources to go beyond that nor do I think do we want to keep making it more often we really

want the public safety net to work and good family wage jobs to come into communities so people can go to the grocery store and purchase their own food and that's why we work so hard here on the root causes our advocacy work probably 98% of our time is not spent on getting resources into the food bank system it's spent on all those other public policy issues I know if we hadn't been doing that I couldn't stay here and do this job then tomorrow you're gonna call me after you've made all these phone numbers calls that I gave you you're gonna talk to legal aid messages for those two attorneys and let me know what's going on okay I will okay the food banks advocates routinely lobby policy makers on hunger related issues like poverty housing and childcare costs and tax policies in the best of times they fight to increase funding for social services this year they're just trying to hang on to what they've got because Oregon is facing not only the recession it's in the middle of a fiscal

crisis there's an approximately $840 million shortfall in the state operating budget last July our state legislature had planned this two-year budget with a very conservative estimate of what kind of money would come in from income how caseloads would go in certain programs and then the recession hit all of a sudden a big chunk of money wasn't coming in through income taxes and various other forms and caseloads were rising more people lost their job so they were coming to get cash assistance from the state food stamps what are we gonna do about that here's the problem is the food bank season in these tight times social services are more necessary than ever things like food stamp out reach job training and daycare for students but because of the budget shortfall they're on the chopping block under the state constitution Oregon must have a balanced budget any thought of raising income taxes to balance it is practically out of the question local talk show radio hosts help see to that no idea when it will be over but it is fair to say that no man or woman's life

liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session these guys have their following people who listen to them you know day after day after day after day and if they say you know the legislatures considering or the governor has proposed you know raising taxes call your legislator and they'll give them the phone numbers and they do in droves one of the radio shows prime targets is governor john kitt's harbor and we've also issued a personal invitation to king john to come on down and tell us why in the world he wants to raise our taxes you know that yesterday he held a news conference and said now we're another hundred million and all so we've got to raise taxes even more cigarette taxes not 30 cents a pack once push it to 50 cents a pack those of us who who do in fact feel strongly on the other side unless we just wake up in the morning and say by golly I'm going to email my legislators about this I'm in a phone of you know but you have to sort of have the impetus yourself there's nobody whipping you up to do it we've also had wages stagnate so probably the most opposition I get when I say that we need more revenue in the state or

more taxes to fund programs isn't from the rich people up in the West Hills of Portland they're sort of like well yeah go ahead I'll pay a little more taxes to have a better school system provide services to vulnerable people where I get the opposition when I talk about it is middle and lower income people who've really not seen their wages increase do feel a disproportionate tax burden because we don't have an effective progressive tax system here and feel like they can't take any more tax increases and that's where the anti-tax activists have really capitalized on on that group in February the state legislature called a special session to address the budget emergency Cassandra Garrison wanted to be sure the lawmakers saw in person the people who would be affected by cuts in social services so she organized a group to join a bus trip to the capital Salem among those with her was a recently laid off social worker Kathy Mounds what kind of services were you providing for people I helped them with a variety of things really it was keeping them from

falling through the cracks and helping them to access the system so you were helping people from falling through the cracks yes and then you fell through the craft how are you feeding yourself how you feeding your children I have a wonderful support of network of friends and I know that I'm very fortunate and I'm grateful that I have people who are willing to give me ten bucks or willing to bring over some dinner a lot of people say that's exactly the way things should work if someone is in trouble their friend should step in their family should step in their community should step in their church but that they shouldn't there shouldn't be public assistance it shouldn't be coming out of taxpayers it would be wonderful if people had the supportive network of friends and family that so they wouldn't have to rely on state agencies however that's not always possible the reason that I was laid off was because we lost funding and I know that nonprofits will continue to lose funding because it's becoming less important to have those social service agencies funded and as that happens the people that used to help the poor will now be the poor and it

will be an entire different population of people that will be asking for services except they're not going to be there anymore there won't be the services or not to tax broadcasting live from this eight capital in Salem home to this year special legislative session it's the Northwest number one number one local talk show host afternoon seven minutes after 12 noon and we are live in Salem or first of them and Friday it's a very special first of them and Friday what's your name young lady my name is Cassandra Garrison I'm a full-time employee of the Oregon Food Bank and also the program director for the poverty action team why should you be the job of government in poverty when you folks at the food bank do such a good job because the jobs that welfare mothers are getting are seven dollar an hour jobs and if you do the math Lars seven dollars an hour does not equate to eight hundred dollars a month and by the time that you pay for child care and food and transportation and electric and pay for your rent there's no money left so it's the job of government and poverty not the job of business to create jobs I love to see

that but that's not what happened what happened to fidget suit what's happening to Nike here's one of the concerns I have private business when you talk about food jitsu and Nike and all those companies I think that's a healthy thing for companies to do not play off because it's easy well I have employees because here's what no but here's what happened if a company doesn't do that you know what happens to the company it goes out of business and then everybody is out of a job if it stays healthy then it then it manages to continue jobs and in the future grow more see that's what I'd like government to do is when necessary thin down but Lars if you look at the if you look at the graph as we moved women and families off a public assistant right we moved them out into low-wage pink collar jobs they were the last hired they're the first fire they had the least amount of education they have the least amount of training in our typical welfare programs in this state which is a work first state we want women to move off a public assistance into low-wage jobs and they cannot support their families all also what's happened is with the food bank

our numbers have doubled so all we did was move people off of food stamps onto food bank roles Jim I'm reminded today that president Clinton said back in 1996 we're gonna end welfare as we know it well president Clinton may have vowed to end welfare as we know it but he has created poverty as I see it every day every day I see the effects of the changes in those policies in 1996 and now because we've had a national crisis because the economy in Oregon is failing there are no safety nets for these families and when they try to go back in and get public benefits to keep them their families afloat there's nothing there for them and they're ending up homeless colleagues we all know why we're here today Republicans control the legislature they want to balance the budget with spending cuts and one-time revenue sources like tobacco settlement money many Democrats support Governor Kitsobber's plans to raise the cigarette and alcohol tax both parties have proposed borrowing from

school funds to help balance the budget 395 Senate and House to share hearing room people in trouble meanwhile keep calling Cassandra Garrison have you talked to care to share about getting another food box it's irresponsible not to make some reductions in a billion dollar in a billion dollar shortfall to our budget you got to go at it like this Cassandra suggested that I call to see if you knew of any place that may help with my electric bill is it perfect no how could a budget that reduced essential services be perfect the thing is is we got to get your phone because you're not going to be able to get a job if you don't have a telephone this is what we are elected for folks this is who we should be we should be problem solvers not ideologues you just want to say that you'd like to leave a message for governor Kitsobber but unless we move this process forward folks we're wasting taxpayer money and not living up

to our obligations as statesmen and stateswoman the special session ended in a deadlock still on the table are proposed cuts of 67% in student daycare 57% in emergency cash assistance and 30% in food stamp outreach my basic problem with what's happening in Salem and why I struggle so hard to get the voices of low-income families in the legislators site is because we have to get the debate off of a number and start looking at the faces of these women that I see every day and the children that I see every day because we cannot allow a budget figure to determine the need we have a humongous need more need than we have money it's ironic that she's lobbying to protect services in a bureaucracy she believes to be entrenched in red tape but garrison saw the system work for her and she's pressing hard to make it work for others like

one of her protege's deette peck I'm not sure if you're familiar with this book head start put up this book and it's a it's a family resource directory and I was a server a food server and a cocktail server and a bartender you make minimum wage plus tips and some nights you make really good money and other nights you're you're you're walking home with your paycheck and that doesn't even pay rent let alone pay all the other bills that come with it peck who is separated from her husband lives with her two daughters when she lost her job last year she faced a financial crisis I didn't have staples we didn't have you know your normal milk cheese flour so I had to hit a couple food pantries to just help get those thank you I've had to tell them that they could only have one helping of cereal because I wasn't sure if we're gonna have enough to last the whole week and I have to go to goodwill and to other clothing outlets to try to close my daughters I volunteered at the

life center a couple hours to get some clothes from them too because I can't afford to keep them close they grow so fast peck wanted to study nursing because she thought it would pay a living wage but it was impossible to go to school take care of her kids and look for work at the same time I was really frustrated because I went to apply for unemployment and they told me they couldn't give it to me because I wouldn't quit school I have to be available for initiatives and all shifts and yet I'm trying to better myself because the only thing I'm capable of doing is serving food Garrison helped her obtain food stamps subsidized housing and insurance for her daughters with the Oregon Health Plan freeing her to go to school Cassandra Garrison has showed me that FS is not a lifestyle but is a stepping stone to getting my degree I'm gonna get a master's in nursing that's what I want knowing that I'm also gonna have a brand new car payment and a brand new house payment because that's what my degree means to me

we often fear that for everyone that gets to us there's hundreds out there they're just if they get to the front door they're walking away being told there's nothing available and they accept that because they think that's what it is come down to my house on 58 look open up the refrigerator you know these kids are eating peanut butter right now and those little top ramen noodles I mean that's what we've been eating the last four days top ramen noodles you know it's ridiculous I've never lived like this in my life you know I've always lived decent you know and they're still hungry and they're probably gonna be homeless because they're trying to piece together that rent payment and I don't want to be out in the streets here soon you know we have very little family here in Oregon so it's like we could be out in the streets here if I don't get a job soon and that's what we've seen repeatedly and what I think is one of the most scary things because then you have a family in a car on 82nd Street in Portland and how has that benefited the state the amount of help assuming that

they get to help that it's now going to take to dig that family off out of their car off the street probably is a lot more expensive than if we would have paid their rent when they came in and originally asked for help this is the French feast row comfort food meal and it's a delicious one a milieu hard once owned Portland's finest Italian restaurant and she still finds time to teach gourmet cooking classes but 10 years ago she left the restaurant business to devote her time to helping fight hunger with no end to the problem in sight and with the budget debate at an impasse she teams with other local chefs to teach cooking classes to people on public assistance advising them both on nutrition and stretching their scant food budget beans rice pasta that should be the main part of your diet and so sometimes you don't have to have a meat at your meal you can have beans and rice you can have

beans and pasta and you will get a complete meal for your family this is a heavy knife when someone is laid off or when their minimum wage job does not make ends meet the very first place they feel it is in their food budget and there's several reasons one is that they've been depending on convenience foods foods that are already prepared for them and are consequently much more expensive than the raw ingredients would be many of them don't even go that far they go out and eat fast food so they're used to spending a disproportionate amount of their budget okay that's the beautiful thing about greens they're healthy and they're inexpensive we try to teach them how to use their food dollars wisely and how to take products from the Oregon Food Bank and make yummy meals with them okay so we've got a pound of beans 79 cents two bunches of color greens for a dollar we'll say 50 cents then we've got our onion

and our carrot and our garlic let's say that all cost a dollar so now we're two dollars and 30 cents a pound of pasta is 99 cents so we're now at 3.30 and let's all push it to four dollars maximum four dollars total and we have enough food to feed at least four at the very least four people big bowls of food I think that just saying you want family wage jobs is a tall order I mean we are a capitalist country so if you're not going to get that tomorrow what are you gonna do with people who can't make it if it wasn't for public assistance a lot of people would be you know really starving right now really hurting Portland would be really in sad shape if they didn't have help for these people but you'd rather have a job I'd rather have a job in a heartbeat you know I'd rather be holding that camera and for you and then holding this notebook you know definitely I don't want to see people in the corners you know will work for

food I want people to have food and not have to worry when their next meal is gonna be and if they're gonna be warm this winter because they're not sure if they're gonna have a roof over their head do you think you're gonna see that any time soon um honestly no but hopefully yes her phone number is 503-282-2225555 the United Way 1-800-line direct into Salem 503-332-243 we remember to call the poverty action team tomorrow Oregon Advocacy Center every AFS office in the city with everybody's page your number you just want to say that you'd like to leave a message for governor tith's hopper now something new on the story we first reported on a few weeks ago the efforts in Washington to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding the

administration's energy task force that group headed by vice president Cheney seemed to be paying extra attention to the interest of industry here's our update it's been a week of extraordinary revelations about who wrote the Bush administration's energy policy under a threat of court order the energy department has now released 11,000 pages of secret documents revealing how the energy industry used its influence to get what the big corporations wanted lobbyist for the oral industry for example wrote a presidential executive order that president Bush then issued practically verbatim granting the old company's wishes the secret documents also reveal that over a five-month period last year as the energy policy was being drafted officials from energy companies were granted unparalleled access in Ron American co-texico exon mobile in all 109 industry executives trade association leaders and lobbyists met privately with secretary of energy Spencer Abraham Abraham met with no environmental or

consumer groups the people who got into see them are directly it or one in the same the people who contributed to the campaign and helped put the people in those decision making positions Sharon Buccino is senior attorney for the natural resources defense council it was a lawsuit by an RDC that forced the energy department to release the secret documents one reason why the Bush administration has resisted providing this information that we've requested is I think they have to be afraid that it's going to expose the Bush energy plan for what it is and that's special favors for special interests the Bush energy plan would provide the oil and gas industries alone with 21 billion dollars in tax subsidies and give the automotive industry a seven-year holiday from new fuel efficiency standards as a whole the energy industry was among the biggest contributors to the Bush chain campaign and to many members

of Congress during the last election year the government has an obligation to let the people know what is doing behind closed doors Larry claimant shares the conservative public interest law firm Judicial Watch he filed suit to obtain the records of secret meetings of the energy task force chaired by vice president Richard Cheney the Bush administration was elected and president Bush in particular on a promise that he would be more ethical than president Clinton was during his administration he is not fulfilling his promise to the American people to let the American people know what government is doing and when he fails to fulfill that promise it raises an inference that things are being done improperly claimant contends that because public policy is involved the secrecy of those chainy task force meetings was illegal they don't want the American people knowing what they're doing because it raises more and more questions the issue is not whether he can do business that way the issue is whether the law requires him to open it up to the public both Judicial Watch and the NRDC told us this week that of the 26,000 pages of information requested

the energy department has turned over less than half they also said large portions have been deleted from those documents that were released these companies have lined the pockets of both major political parties and consequently the potential for abuse is great not just an executive branch but in the legislative branch of government and throughout the governorship of this country they have bought and paid for energy policy and it really gets back to the basic principles of democracy the public deserves to know has a right to know who is behind government policy. This week the Natural Resources Defense Council and Larry Clayman's Judicial Watch are going back to court to get even more details about those secret meetings. Coming from Texas I know all about carpet baggers that's what we call Yankees who arrived in the south after the Civil War seeking political and financial

gain they're belonging stuffed in carpet bags. There's a new play at Lincoln Center here in New York called the carpet baggers children it's Dara's Gene Stapleton Roberta Maxwell and Halley foot and the moment they open their mouths I heard the voices of people I know from another time in place that's not surprising given that the playwright is a fellow Texan but guess what the New Yorkers in the audience on opening night were as mesmerized by the story as I was it's all about family secrets tribal memories sibling rivalry and how change stalks our lives universal themes whatever the accent that's the kind of stories Horton foot has been telling for over 60 years he's won the Pulitzer Prize and Academy Awards for his screenwriting for such classic movies as to Kill a Mockingbird thank you for being with us today thank you for having me your first play if my information is correct open in New York in 1941 Texas town that's right 61 years ago do you still get butterflies on opening night

terrible awful and I get myself a lecture and now you're a mature man according to some people's estimate and and you really should get over this and nothing you're gonna do about it and you've taken your legs and you didn't you weren't destroyed but I don't know what it is it's just some kind of chemistry begins to work and you get very kind of anxious I guess anxious as the word the reviews are all the I've seen all most of the reviews I think they're all good about the car when did you get them and how did you feel when you saw well you know it used to be that the times we come out around midnight but since they moved their plant to New Jersey nobody knows when they come out there's no point wearing about it but didn't you know I mean I knew the moment it was over that night and the audience started clapping and then rising and then they just kept clapping didn't you know then you had it made you just never

had there's no point really assuming that you know the review despite the audience the review can still kill you oh yes I mean it can be disturbing at least television reviews are the same way I really wasn't sure that the overnight audience of New York would get a play about a family from a small town in Texas and yet they did what is it you think that travels so well across so much time and distance you know Bill I don't know that I really don't know I mean all I I really feel that for good or bad I've been given these people to write about given them yes I didn't choose this you didn't sit down to write about it's a matter of fact I think my life would be much happy if I could write about New York City but it's just it's just been given to me and obsession is the wrong word but I'm you know it's what I interested in me and what I

write about where are they people I mean Cornelia and Grace May and Sissy were they people you knew well there are always people I know but never as I they don't end up in the play as I knew them it's like a collage you know you take a little bit from here and a little bit from now a bit from there and you start out at least I do with a very definite impression and feeling but as you work on in the play finds its life they change because they're things in the play that changes that they haven't experienced a bend through did you spend a lot of time as a kid listening to people like Cornelia oh yes I did I mean I'd rather listen than play baseball tell you the truth and I had a brother two brothers who were very different they did that I was out of my mind to sit around listen all those old people all the time but the past in some ways although I don't always only write about the past but the past in some ways became

as real to me as the present and people in the past I felt I knew them and you know because I've heard so much about them you knew them from the stories at your family told yeah it became very real to me one of the most revealing lines to me and the carpet bagger's children occurred when Cornelia said we were such a happy family yeah yeah yeah that little bit of nostalgia is important in all family mythology whether or not it's true or not that's right there's a wonderful story of cathanaan porters called old mortality which is the theme of that story that the tales that are passed down are not always based on the reality and anyway they don't have to be accurate to be true no but we do don't families do a lot of speculating about the past yes I think they do and I noticed the other night I was out with with three of my children who took me out from my birthday and I felt quite left out because they began talking about remember when we heard the Beatles do this and the Beatles

do that and the one I was there and it has not the same relevance to me that it has to them you know that's their past and I certainly realize every generation has its own past what birthday was this for you never mind doesn't have to be accurate to be true I have a friend I have a friend that they when they ask him what his birthday is that's none of my business all right I'll have to look it up there there was one part of the play however that was unfamiliar to me and that was the hymn that kept floating through like a haunting your frame what tell me what you can about that well that's an old gospel hymn I don't know where I heard it but I've heard it many times your daughter was by this morning she came by and she saying that hymn for us oh the clanging bells of time yeah let me play it for you how well all the clanging bells of time night and day they never cease we are weary with that time for they do not bring us peace and we hope so breath to

hear and we strangle our eyes to see if the shores are drawing me eternity talk to me about that last line well it's it has all the mystery of life to me in it you know what is eternity and what are we going to share of eternity and Ben Bratton is that a rather profound thing at the end of his review the the New York Times because yeah that it that it was not much consolation in this eternity it sounded very lonely hey said as the word is sung again one last time you do not doubt that eternity is a lonely play I

I didn't there again I love having people tell me but my place about I didn't I don't know that I think if eternity is a lonely place I think it's probably a journey we have to take by ourselves Wharton is how far from Houston it's 50 miles southwest of Houston and 30 miles from the Gulf and we call ourselves the heart of the Gulf Coast and you were born there yes it was was it your aunt Lulu who told all the stories yeah she was about what you learned from her well she had a sense of dramatic she also could you exaggerate terribly you know so that everything was I mean she used to say things like I love anybody that has a drop of heart and blood in them and I just thought that was remarkable you know if you can say it oh yeah that's right and then she closed her eyes and she said and after she had her child but she had a hard time in childbirth she'd say doc told me that they could tie him to a

wagon and drag him around the courtyard square before he ever put me through that again I mean that's kind of crazy you just don't buy you know what you learn from it he's learned to listen growing up in in your extended family and living surrounded by such a family what it what insights did you come to about family dynamics well I'm very pro family you know I I'm not sentimental about my family and I'm and I know that there were many faults we had some many terrible things to overcome we had alcoholism we had you know all kinds of but I always felt myself so nurtured by this family and accepted Watson all and you know they they allowed me to leave at 17 during the depression and my father I didn't find this out till later and I tell about this in my book farewell that he he only one piece of property but he'd gotten

when cotton was high on 40 cents a pound one time they thought it was wonderful and he bought this house it's all he had and to get me off to school he sold that house the two days before he sold the house he was approached by a friend of his who said called him sugar he said sugar you know there is a we getting together a little fun for an oil pool and I can't guarantee it's gonna come through but I've got one place left and we want you to come in and he would have taken that money that he was giving me to go to acting school which he didn't know anything about and he decided to give me the money and not do it and the and the all and all wells came in he put his money in you instead of the all he could have been rich yeah so how can I not love a family like that you know I mean I can tell you stories that make your hair stand on the other side but it's all part of being a family such a well you know make my hair

stand well you know I had three uncles that were dissipated and and would have wrecked whatever what money my grandmother had if she hadn't been strong and able to you know to see through that and I had to sleep in my family yeah when did you know you had found your calling I took walks with my father my mother and the after late after them and after the store was slowed me go I mean always passed by a fellow sitting on a porch a very distinguished white-air gentleman and my father would say respectfully as we left that's Mr. So-and-So and he was peach peach preaching in the cotton fields in Mississippi and he got a call to come to take us and breach I was so interested and I kept to say what does it mean to get a call I knew it was a Baptist I said can only Baptist get calls no mother said a Methodist Piscopalians and I puzzled by the long time and then when I was 13 this sounds mystical I guess but I received

recall but I went to act and I hadn't ever seen it two or three tent shows every you know what time they become the town seen a few movies and I had finally later on this wonderful teacher came and put me in place in high school but I just I just that's what I wanted a call and a sense of it just came to me as words as a impulse and to act I want to be an actor so many of us yearned to do what you did to go back to where we started and live probably because we we think we might have we might then have chosen the road not taken yeah but you did it yeah yeah well I you know I really I've never left that I think that's part of and I'm not sentimental about this place you understand I love it and I admire it and there's many strengths that I've of the people that I wish I

had but spiritually I guess if that's not too high-fruiting a word I've just never left it it's interesting about reactions this might ever see the whole town but when I when I got the Academy Awards I was not there I was in but not wearing that was not important right and it's it seemed like that I've been elected president I mean the phones rain and you know and then when I got the Pulitzer Prize I was home and my wife is passed on now so I was by myself and I waited for my phone to ring and some calls came from New York and I thought well I'd just go out and walk and and I went down the street and I met some mind they said how hard and how you doing you've been to New York lately no I haven't I'm home I'm writing now we're good to see you and nobody in town not a soul call me no I they just you know it's just not part of the culture so so movies have become the new form of story the new novel absolutely totally

now with my memoirs I can't they can't get enough they just packed the packed and when I had a book signing you're just at home oh yeah well they want to see if you mention the flip back there but it's very nice I mean it's very pleasant I'll ask are you writing another play now does that just I'm having a play open in California I'm going out leaving um Thursday what's it about well it's about a family another family the same family no of another family another family family life really is your material well I guess so I guess so well thank you very much well thank you for having me and now we look at stories coming up on NPR radio this weekend

hi I'm Scott Simon of NPR News tomorrow and weekend edition Saturday will trace the life in times of Abraham the revered founding father of three great faiths and of course we'll have the latest news from the afflicted holy lands of today we'll speak with jars of clay a Christian rock group was going platinum and we'll look forward to the NCAA final four championships to find your local NPR station find our website NPR dot org hope to see you tomorrow before we leave tonight we want to introduce you to Barbara Anne Wright the writer and social critic who chose to take a personal look at what life on a low wage job is like and wrote a book called nickel and dined what she found is a cautionary tale between 1998 and 2000 I went to three different cities and tried to support myself on the wages I could earn as an entry-level worker I waited tables I cleaned the toilets of the rich I fed Alzheimer's patients in a

nursing home I sorted stock at Walmart all these were difficult exhausting jobs and they really made me understand what a serious mistake our nation made with welfare reform the theory behind welfare reform was that there's something wrong with people on welfare there psychologically damaged lazy demoralized and that they are that way because of welfare that welfare causes poverty some people said never mind that most people in welfare of course were busy raising children and working on and off whenever they could the new law just says everybody has to get off of welfare and into the workforce to sink or swim this hasn't worked out too well the math just doesn't work the average woman coming off of welfare since 1996 earns seven dollars an hour that's $280 a week before taxes and you can't support children on that or even one person I know because I tried it and no

matter how carefully I pinched pennies I couldn't get my wages to cover basic expenses like rent at least five hundred dollars a month plus utilities like transportation to and from work at least sixty dollars a month and then if you're working parent you have hundreds of dollars a month in childcare expenses now if there's one thing it's really demoralizing it's working hard and not making enough to live on here's a simple theory of poverty it's not a psychological condition it is above all a consequence of shamefully low wages and a lack of opportunity for anything else in one poll ninety four percent of Americans said they believe that if we work you should make enough to live on this is a notion that is basic to American values I'd even say it's part of our social contract now we have to make it a reality that's our broadcast this week many of you signed it off after our report on the Israeli Palestinian conflict the website

is still buzzing so let us know now what you think about hunger in America and the energy industry secret access to government I'll read what you write so go to pbs.org and send us a message for now I'm Bill Moyers now with Bill Moyers continues at pbs online learn more about the people and issues from tonight show and join the online discussion at pbs.org to order this episode of now with Bill Moyers on video cassette call pbs home video at one eight hundred play pbs for now has been provided by our sole corporate funder for over fifty years

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