Molly Cain Archives - Talk Poverty https://talkpoverty.org/person/molly-cain/ Real People. Real Stories. Real Solutions. Mon, 05 Mar 2018 21:42:12 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://cdn.talkpoverty.org/content/uploads/2016/02/29205224/tp-logo.png Molly Cain Archives - Talk Poverty https://talkpoverty.org/person/molly-cain/ 32 32 Trumpcare Cuts Mental Health Coverage. That’ll Mean More Suicides—Like My Dad’s. https://talkpoverty.org/2017/04/27/trumpcare-cuts-mental-health-coverage-thatll-mean-suicides-like-dads/ Thu, 27 Apr 2017 17:27:29 +0000 https://talkpoverty.org/?p=22967 After he failed to secure enough votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last month, Donald Trump is rushing to push another version of his health care bill through the House of Representatives. Like last month’s bill, this legislation would cause tens of millions to lose their health care coverage. And, in an effort to win the votes of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, the new bill would charge those with pre-existing conditions more for insurance and allow states to opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s essential health benefits requirements. Essential health benefits are a crucial part of the ACA, since they require insurance companies to cover services that they used to skimp on—like emergency services, pregnancy and maternity care, pediatric services, substance use disorder services, and rehabilitative care. Plus one more: mental health care.

Health insurance companies did not have to cover mental health care until the Affordable Care Act made it mandatory. If that requirement is repealed, people will get less treatment. Without treatment, some people will succumb to their illnesses. That means more suicides.

That’s not hyperbole. It’s not hysterics, or fear-mongering.  I’ve seen it happen. My dad killed himself a few weeks after my 12th birthday.

Even 12 years after my dad’s death, I’m haunted by the memories of that night. I can still see my mom crying as she broke the news to her two kids, the shock on my older brother’s ghostly white face, and the red and blue lights of a police car swirling on our living room walls. The sight of police lights still makes my stomach drop.

My father’s suicide has shaped my life. It brought isolating numbness, crushing grief, and  strange looks from the people in my small town who were uncomfortable with its taboo. My family’s income, which was decidedly middle class before my dad’s death, was more than halved by his passing. We made it work because we had Social Security survivors benefits, free and reduced price lunches, and could take out a home equity loan that we still carry today. That made it possible for my mother—an actual, honest-to-God superhero—to keep my brother and I fed and clothed on less than $40,000 a year.

Every year, more than 44,000 Americans die by suicide.

Though Trump and the House Freedom Caucus may treat it as such, mental health is not a fringe issue. Every year, more than 44,000 Americans die by suicide. On average, it affects demographics that voted for Trump the most: 70 percent of suicide victims in 2015 were white men, with the rate of suicide being highest among middle-aged men. Like my dad.

My dad died, at least in part, because he wasn’t in treatment. Under Trumpcare, millions of Americans will find it difficult to seek treatment as well. Trump is gambling with their lives to pass a health care plan that will cut taxes for the wealthy.

If the bill passes, I could struggle to afford the therapy that helps me deal with the grief of losing my father. And there will be more 12-year-olds, like me, who will lose their loved ones. I can picture them now: hugging their knees, and watching the red and blue lights dance on the walls of their house as their world comes crashing down.

I don’t wish that on anyone. I just wish our president felt the same.

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Conservatives Say Raising the Minimum Wage Kills Jobs. New Research Says They’re Wrong. https://talkpoverty.org/2016/10/28/conservatives-say-raising-minimum-wage-kills-jobs-new-research-says-theyre-wrong-2/ Fri, 28 Oct 2016 14:00:56 +0000 https://talkpoverty.org/?p=21586 Raising the minimum wage would help a lot of Americans. It would raise wages for 35 million workers, bring 4.5 million people out of poverty, and reduce the wage gaps that plague women and people of color.   Local movements to raise the minimum wage have started to take hold—30 cities have raised their minimum wages since 2014—but the minimum wage has not been increased at the federal level for seven years.

For decades, the main argument conservative policymakers and business leaders have been making against raising the federal minimum wage is that it will bring about economic doom in the form of massive job losses. In 1980, then-Governor Ronald Reagan declared that “the minimum wage has caused more misery and unemployment than anything since the Great Depression.” Today’s conservatives seem to agree, with Ted Cruz warning that “every time we raise the minimum wage, predictably what happens is a significant number of people lose their jobs.” Speaker Paul Ryan has dared to get specific with his doomsday predictions, saying “when you raise the minimum wage, you’ll lose over a million jobs.”

New analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund shows that this isn’t the case. From 1993 to the second quarter of 2015, cities raised their minimum wage 43 times. In 74% of these occasions, the unemployment rate did not increase a year after the minimum wage hike. Of the 11 cases where the unemployment rate rose a year after the minimum wage increase, six were during the Great Recession when the unemployment rate rose across the United States. Due to data limitations, the analysis was unable to evaluate more recent minimum wage increases that have occurred later in the economic recovery.

By themselves, these findings aren’t enough to prove that the minimum wage does not cause job losses—but when they’re paired with the numerous academic studies that have also found that raising the minimum wage has no discernible effect on unemployment, it does poke holes in conservatives’ reasoning.

The argument in favor of raising the minimum wage is still crystal-clear

As the argument against raising the minimum wage becomes increasingly fuzzy, the argument in favor of raising it stays crystal-clear. The current minimum wage is a poverty wage: a family with one child and a single parent working full-year, full-time for the federal minimum wage would be below the poverty line for a family of two. Raising the minimum wage would help these workers directly, and it would have ripple effects throughout the entire economy—it would reduce inequality, increase the GDP, and even create modest job growth.

It’s clear that conservatives’ claims about the impact of the minimum wage do not square with the evidence. Cities that have raised the minimum wage have not experience massive job losses or economic ruin. And with the minimum wage losing value every year it is not hiked, many cannot afford continued opposition to increasing the federal minimum wage.

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