i get cheated out of wages. my we just get lowered. i have a lower standard to live in. gretchen at issue is important to raising wages. to not talk about people from the south of the border coming this way and only south of the border. he doesn't refer to white agreement -- white immigrants are can immigrants. he refers to people south of the border. six months from now, the country will suffer the scars from this unless somebody calls them out on it.

>> we are out of time. we need to stay on schedule. announcer: on the next washington journal, a correspondent will discuss the iran nuclear over the deal. michael o'brien talks about the iraq war. and nelson schwartz talks about the august jobs report and a possible hike in interest rates by the federal reserve. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal live at 7 eastern on c-span.e' announcer 2: this year, c-span spoke to entrepreneur's and researchers on the future of research technology. >> what we call the farm data

dashboard. we wanted to create this importanthop that has sources about agriculture and production in the united states. the onlined and ether. we wanted to bring that altogether and make it easy from anybody from an interested engineers and professional developers to access the data and start using them in ways that would be powerful for them. they will be intelligent enough to receive the data we send. if i am stressed out, it can soothe me with heat or vibration. i will turn it on and hopefully it will turn on here. each one of these is a module.

it provides vibration or heat. >> what are we looking at here? what is contained in it? >> these are little microprocessors that sell these actuators to vibrate. >> we actually have some of our suppliers just to give those here a taste of what we do and who we are. one of our suppliers here is a company. they have an interesting story. it came out of new york. he had an idea for a product. he had a product created and now is selling it. it is a success story. you can come to our platform, find manufacturers, get your idea created and eventually become a supplier on the platform and sell your platform back to others. >> i agree there is a long way to go. you hear debates about robots taking over the world and

becoming more intelligent than humans and so on. from scientists perspectives, that is a very optimistic perspective. i wish we were that smart to build robots that smart. we are far away from that, but we are making a lot of headway. in the recent years, there has been a confluence of technology that is enabling us to have robots smarter. smart enough to perform on their own. announcer: watch the communicators monday night on c-span2. next, i look at the implementation of new right to work laws in states like wisconsin and michigan. the heritage foundation hosted this discussion. it is one hour. james: thank you. a hot topic of debate across the country has been right to work laws. these laws prevent workers from being required to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

this is something that wisconsin passed. a few years earlier, michigan, my home state, to the surprise of many, passed a right to work law. there is a lot of controversy of what these do. we have published new research that is out today that i will be discussing, analyzing right to work laws and wages. to discuss this, we also have chris kapenga who is a state senator in the wisconsin legislature. he was formerly with the state assembly and was author of the wisconsin right to work law. we also have vincent vernuccio who is the director of labor policy for the mackinac center in michigan. the three of us will be discussing right to work on wages. i will be presenting research and the senator and mr. vernuccio will be talking about how it has affected the two most recent states that have enacted it. but, on the topic of right to work, this is a very popular position nationwide across all partisan and ideological splits. you can see we have some polling

from the gallup organization. they did this last summer. this is actually fairly consistent with their historical polling. if you go back to the 1950's, numbers are very similar. whether or not you support the national rifle association or the sierra club, americans believe if you want to join the organization, you have that right, but you should not be forced to join it. you would be hard-pressed to find many nra members who believe their fellow gun owners should be forced to join the nra and pay dues, even if the nra is hard at work at defending their second amendment rights. when it comes to unions, most americans agree with this principle. many union advocates and supporters do not. this has had effects on public policy. despite the fact that almost three quarters of americans believe union dues should be voluntary, that americans should not be fired, only about half the country -- 25 states and

some local right to work laws in kentucky -- only half the country has this. the natural question would be why is that? in a democracy, generally speaking, the laws tend to reflect the feelings of the public through their elected representatives. why is it legislatures in half the country are not going along with what their constituents are supporting? this is a debate that wisconsin just had, that the legislature just voted down. in missouri, they will be voting in a few weeks. new mexico -- across the country, we are seeing legislatures. some of them like senator kapenga has supported it but others say it is a bad idea. the core argument is that basically right to work laws lower wages. this is a figure put out by the economic policy institute. it is a left-wing think tank. it is actually a union backed think tank. richard trumpka is the chairman

of the board of directors. the economic policy institute has put out a number of studies showing what this slide shows. in states where union density dropped the most, wage growth was slowest over the past couple of decades. they also put out studies like this where they are quick to acknowledge that you cannot just jump to this conclusion. you cannot just say wages are different in right to work states because other things are different. you have different demographics, different educational makeups and different costs of living. you cannot make this apples and oranges comparison. this is the result of a study where they are doing just that. this is evidence they have submitted before congress. they have submitted it before state legislatures and state legislative testimony. i know senator kapenga heard very similar numbers when he was being asked in wisconsin.

what it shows is you could more or less interpret these numbers as percentage point changes. they are not exactly that, but close enough. what it shows in the first column is don't account for anything, 13% lower wages in right to work states. account for demographic and individual labor market variables like your education, age, things like that -- which we would expect younger workers tend to make less than older workers and more educated workers make more, but the gap falls down to 9%. the third and fourth column are different measures of states' living costs. it seems like even controlling for that, and the unions have made this point time and time again, they claim it is 3% lower in right to work states. this is a persuasive argument. that is why we have got -- a

major reason why we have half the country that has not passed it. generally, we believe in free association. but, unions try to promote higher wages and better work conditions. if we pass right to work, there will be fewer union members and that has economic side effects that affects everyone. therefore, while we normally believe in free association, we put an asterisk next to unions and say we will force you to pay union dues. that is something that i as an economist find very strange. i went to graduate school for economics, had a concentration of labor economics and the way all the papers treat unions is as a labor monopoly. the way unions try to operate is as a monopoly essentially who controls the local labor market. they try to gain control over the supply of labor, get everyone into their union and when they do that, they can control the supply of labor and drive up price. that higher price gets passed on to consumers. the higher wages, other consumers pay for it. because the consumers are paying high prices, the consumers are

worse off and they are selling fewer goods and services. more workers get pushed into the nonunion sector of the economy which is supply and demand. the economic research is fairly conclusive that the overall losses of economy are you might have gains if you are in the inside of the union but overall the economy is worse off. the claim you are lowering average wages is very dissident to my ears as a labor economist. on top of that, union membership has not been doing the best in recent decades. union membership is down fairly consistently, so they don't even have that many labor markets where they have the monopoly. so how in the world do you get this finding the states with the right to work laws and fewer union membership, and generally, states with a decline have lower wages? we have taken a look at this. the next few slides i will credit to another person who posted the slides.

this shows not just a change in membership, but the 1979 union membership and wage growth. it seems like the states that have the largest drop in union memberships are the ones that had the largest union memberships in the 1970's. those are the ones that have the slowest wage growth. that does not quite fit in with the story the economic policy institute is telling. so, why would states with higher union membership have lower wage growth? it turns out they have lower employment growth. the jobs have grown the slowest in those states that have the highest union membership to begin with. the simplistic story of the slide i showed you before turns out to be more nuanced and less favorable to the unions. what about the more rigorous analysis? well, we set out at the heritage foundation to replicate the research. interestingly, surprisingly, i thought professional standards

were you share data with anyone who asks. they would not share their information with me. i could not exactly replicate what they did because they were not willing to share their data. draw whatever inferences you may but i repeatedly e-mailed them. they just stopped responding to me. i wanted to replicate. they did use publicly available data source. i used the same underlying data source. one of the key things you have to take account of is labor iving costs. you can remember from the map pretty much the entire south is right to work. we can debate how to discuss kentucky but the entire south is right to work and the entire northeast is not. it costs a lot more to live in new york city or boston than it does to live in shreveport, louisiana or nashville, tennessee. a dollar will buy you more in a

lot of these right to work states. the gray bar in the middle is average living costs. what we have done is ranked states from lowest living costs to highest living costs. on the other side, you can see which are the right to work and not right to work. there is only one right to work state with living costs above above the national average and that is virginia. all other 24 right to work states are below average living costs. conversely, new york, california, massachusetts, hawaii, the states with above average living costs are the states with forced union dues. one of the findings economists made is wages more or less tracked living costs. once you control for a worker's skills and human capital and abilities and any sort of local amenities like do you have good weather that would cause people to live there? once we account for those things, wages move one for one for living costs. the average new yorker might have 13% higher wages, but they are not actually getting 13% more in goods and services. they are making the same as the average american once you

account that rent in new york city is really high. this turns out to make a major effect on the analysis. i will just summarize these. i will not ask you to strain your eyes. the first four columns are replicating what the economic policy institute did. i've converted them to percentage points so this is straight percentage point answers. we got close to what they did. they would not share their data. using the publicly available data, we got close to their finding. then we -- you would have to look at their appendix. they did not talk about this in the report but it is revealed in their appendix. the cost of living only accounts for three quarters of a difference in living costs. it does not account for the entire difference in living costs. it expects if wages go up 10% -- living costs go up 10%, wages are only 7.5% higher, not the 10% economists have found.

they included this as a control variable. they talked about it, but the mathematical model only explains three quarters of this difference. normally when you have differences in purchasing power either over states or across time, economists will adjust the variables and then run the analysis. usually, you run the analysis on inflation-adjusted dollars rather than dollars over time. that is what we did in the next column. that one change makes their entire results go away. i used the same model they used, exact same control variables. the only thing i did differently was adjusted the wages for differences in living costs. all of a sudden, the results disappeared. so, this claim that right to work laws are these horrible things for workers which you hear constantly from unions and groups like the economic policy institute, you just change the

living cost differences and it goes away. the next two columns several government between private sector and the government. we would expect wages to affect living costs differently. in the government, unions affect wages by electing their political allies and getting favorable contracts. in the private sector, you affect wages by using the union monopoly strength and power. in the private sector, we see nothing. -.1%, totally insignificant. in government, wages are about 5% lower than right to work states. i would argue that is a benefit. we know in almost all states, government employees make more than private sector workers. we should not be raising sales taxes and property taxes to force the average american to provide a higher standard of living for government employees. the fact that you are lowering government wages is a good thing. but, private sector -- there is nothing there.

the final specification is a different measure of wages which includes tips and commissions. there is no afherefect t. all these arguments against right to work lowering wages really evaporate when you take a look under the hood of the studies. what about the benefits of right to work besides the free association benefits? well, what we have here is a nice little national experiment that has been conducted. kentucky has a number of counties passing right to work. how has this affected their job situation? this county right here, warren county, was the first county in kentucky to pass it. they passed this in december 2014. in the next three months, almost 30 different economic development projects representing 3600 jobs contacted them and told them we are interested. you were scratched off our list because you did not have right to work, but now that you do, we are interested.

since then, as of may of this year, i have heard from the bowling green chamber of commerce. that number has gone up to 47 companies representing about 5000 potential jobs. now, bowling green has a total employment of about 50,000 workers so these projects represent a 10% potential increase in their overall employment. projects that they were not eligible for because they did not have right to work. the businesses did not want to deal with that strife. that is an anecdote. unions can rightfully point out it is just one county. maybe there is something in the weather or the water or something. i did the same sort of analysis to the unemployment rates. what it shows is when you don't account for anything, it is a half percent lower than right to work states. when you account for everything, accounting for the age and education and other factors, the unemployment rates are about one percentage point lower. the economic policy institute

did not attempt to replicate this chart so i'm assuming that means they did and found the same things i did and did not want to talk about it. what we see from right to work are these scary stories about wages falling. it is really a lot of smoke and mirrors. they are not fully accounting for living costs, but we do see anecdotally and empirically, very strong evidence on job creation. you also have the free association benefits. why should i be forced to subsidize their operations? with that, i think that is a powerful case for right to work, but i will turn the mic over to two speakers from states that recently passed right to work to talk about their experiences. and, after both the speakers have gone, we will take q&a from the audience. chris: thank you, james. it is a pleasure to be here at the heritage. good grief. we spent a ton of time looking

at the research that these guys do, so thanks for doing what you do. thank you for inviting me to a swamp in the middle of summer. i appreciate that. i went for a run last night and before i even walked through the door, i think i sweat through my jogging outfit. the right to work thing is a big deal. it has been a big deal in wisconsin for a long time and i think what i want to do is take a little bit of time to walk you through a couple of reasons why right to work in wisconsin -- i want to walk you through to what we ran into with objections because i think that plays very well into what james has been working through with his numbers. just really quick on my background, i am a policy type of guy. i'm a cpa by trade. i spent eight years in public accounting. the last several with arthur andersen and then i bought -- i have owned a couple of

companies, i still have that, but i jumped into politics probably about 2009. i started running for office and was elected in 2011 with governor walker. as you have seen in wisconsin, we have had some interesting things going on in the last several years. right to work is something that we actually looked at right away when we came into office back in 2010-2011. really what we are doing is looking at an overall blueprint for how we take wisconsin, which as you know if you look at the history of our state, progressive is -- we brought into existence the state income tax, unemployment insurance, heavy things like that that are very progressive. so we looked at it and have a new crop of citizen legislators who said what we need to do is we slowly need to take away the

concept of government is the provider to government is limited. that is the heritage foundation at its core. that is what you guys are about. we looked at it and right to work was in the recipe for that. as you know, we started out with act 10 which was essentially right to work for the public sector. we fought that battle and i think we have led the charge in the united states for what states are doing now. that was a huge, huge battle for us, but we knew it had to be done. we have done some income tax reform over the last couple of sessions. coming up into this session, we saw right to work was the elephant in the room. we have to deal with it. we started actually before the session even started. ok, what is our message going to be? what things are we going to encounter? we looked at a bunch of stuff james has done.

and, the big driver is, again, back to our blueprint, over 70% of our budget relates to dependency on government versus dependency on the individual. so, we knew that we had to take care of this issue. here are the things we ran into and this is the interesting part about what these gentlemen do -- it is huge for us because we need the numbers, but what we have to do is effectively communicate that to get the message across. we have to take the numbers and translate it into people and we don't have a ton of time. i would've loved to stand up on the floor and gone through this type of thing because the analysis is fascinating. we ran into the same studies. but we had to do is take this and make it real for people.

so, what we did is -- the first issue we ran into was the opposition came at this from a different perspective. we started out by saying this is about workers' freedom. this is very personal to me because when i was 19 years old, i worked for an electrical contractor and i was not aware of right to work. i took my job and the guy said here is your offer and i took it. the first paycheck i got these deductions and i cannot figure out what it was. i went to the payroll person and said i think there is a mistake. the payroll person said no, these are actually your union dues. i said i did not ask to be in the union and she said, well, you have two options. you can take the deduction or find another job because the state law actually says this is the way it is going to be. as a 19-year-old, a very

unpolitical 19-year-old, that always bothered me. when i came into office, my first piece of lit was right in front of that thing. it was a major piece we had to do, but it is about worker freedom. it was interesting to see as we went through this, the first debate i had on npr, and most of us know where they lean, it was not with me, but they actually tried to come at me, the democrat arguing against me, came at me with worker freedom and said you are getting government involved in an employer to employer relationship. i laughed and i said i think that is already in place. i said if we had a true free market here, the employer would have just as much of a right to say no, i am not going to having union in my business as the employees have to unionize, but that does not exist and why is that? that is because government is already involved.

the worker freedom thing -- what it came down to is -- and we used this in debate, too -- it is not a struggle with workers, it is the union bosses. that is what our colleagues on the opposite side were upset about because guess who funds campaigns? we have statistics about our debate opponents if they pulled out that card because we always -- they always pull out the koch brothers, all these foundations that always obviously are from the right. we had it laid out how much of their campaign contributions came from the unions in case we had to pull the card out. i think they found out about it because they never brought it up in the debate. [laughter] chris: that was interesting. the workers' freedom is the angle we came at. workers will make less.

we used your statistics, your statistics. this was an interesting one. to take all these numbers and bring it back to people, here is how we approached it -- they said, you know what, in non-right to work states, people make more money. i said you are absolutely right, they do. they would sit and look at me and ok, good, we agree on something. what i did is i had to bring it again cost of living adjustment. if you start throwing coal at the average person and they fall asleep. i said let's take it. have you ever been to chicago? have you been to a starbucks in chicago? their chai tea latte venti non-fat is way more expensive there than milwaukee or madison and everybody is like totally, i don't go there because it is so expensive.

i said do you think the average worker in chicago makes more money? they said they have to. i said, ok, at the end of the day, you have to have both pieces. you cannot say they make more, you have to look at what their expenses are. i said they may have a bigger paycheck, but right to work states, people have a bigger bank account so that is what we kept coming back to. average family -- $2000, bigger bank account. that is what really helped us. we did not get too much into the details of the stats because we did not have the time, but it was very helpful. of workforce because workers were moved to other states to get paid more. this was interesting because it was a study commissioned by the unions by the local professor of the university and he used this study you referenced as his support. maderead through, he assumptions based on a couple of facts. he did not back up his

assumptions with facts. he just assumed people would buy into his analysis and a lot of the public did. his analysis. a lot of the public did. the media was constantly quoting him saying you've got a smart guy. he thinks this will drive workers out. we said let's look at how many of you have a lawnmower here? what kind of engine? most people know rates in stratton. when the union tried to unionize and won the vote, they packed up their manufacturing and moved to a different state. could find a prominent company we said, here is what happens. .his is not good right to work states gain jobs and we have statistics these guys put together that show that is not the fact. to use thisor tried

assumption that because the wages were going to go down, wages will decrease, you will hurt the worker. we said that is not true. wages increase at a higher rate when you're in a right to work state. into was thing we ran companies want to move to right to work state because they want to pay people less. that was interesting. site selectors, this is one of their standard questions. there is plenty of companies who have moved to states, they have said we are going here because it is a key component. is, we saidid

don't go to write to work states because they want to pay less. companies go to those states flexibility ins the workplace. we brought that back to, the worker is empowered with personal liberty and the ability to make more decisions on their own versus a union contract. that was another interesting argument. right to work states are dangerous. that was the last one. we actually pulled all of the again, iomp data and created the spreadsheet myself and i had a blast doing it. i could not show that to my colleagues. the numbers prove actually there were fewer incidents is an accident. i know you reference that in

what you said. those were the things we ran into. toalways had to bring a back people. what does it mean for the person? we look at the democrats, the democrats are so effective because they take it to people. we wanted to do the same thing. the impact on wisconsin is new. we are able to see some immediate thinks. the day after we passed right to work. from a call from a cfo conglomeration of companies, and he said i want you to know, work,e you past right to we are moving one of our companies from minnesota to. we wanted to make sure you knew that's a you had evidence this is a big deal for companies.

we had another company, we signed the bill with governor walker, he said we were going to look at moving 100 employees to another state because they were a right to work state. we have more flexibility. they looked at expanding. and they can did you went of chris, i'm wondering if you could come to an expansion. hen i knocked on his door, chewed on me for about 45 minutes about how terrible wisconsin was with the business climate and we were listening. give it someick, time. trust me. we've got a different crop of people. instead of moving operation to kentucky, they have grown in the state of wisconsin. i've been to two ribbon cuttings

for expansion. haveestingly, this week i some legislators from missouri whyng to talk to me about we did what we did so they can make an informed decision on what to do with the veto. wisconsin business environment, this is cool. ranked in the middle, lower middle tier or the bottom. that is where we have been the last decade. ceo magazine, we are 14th. the cool one for us is manpower. manpower studies finding a job. we are number four. the fourth best state for finding a job. that is powerful. a jobs issue anymore in the state of wisconsin. we have a worker issue. which is a neat transition from

four or five years ago. everybody was struggling to find jobs. we don't have a jobs issue anymore. we have a worker issue. year, this was powerful, because as you know wisconsin is a heavy manufacturing state. , prettytern wisconsin much the milwaukee region, we were named, we had the highest growth in manufacturing jobs of any metro area in the united states in the last year. we havecause of things been doing. we can attribute that to write to work. that was a piece to the puzzle. very strong evidence from on the ground, people, businesses, people getting jobs. these are good paying jobs.

to work is good for a state. it is good for the nation because it gets back to the individual liberty and freedom of a person to choose if they want to associate or not. that is what i had. we are below the national average. we are doing great. [applause] vince: hi, james, heritage, thank you for the invitation to speak. for everybody else, you've heard from the economist, the cpa, now from the lawyer. i don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. definition of what is right to work? it means a union can't get a

worker fired for not paying them. it does not affect collective-bargaining. wages,can negotiate over hours, conditions. anything they could before. you havely can't say to pay us or you will lose your job. let me tell you what is going on in michigan until 2010. .t was the lost decade we had some of the highest unemployment in the country. 860,000 payroll period.ing that wages were following. michigan fell by almost $2500 a year.

the rest of the country, wages went up by 3000. we were losing population. there was a saying, the last one in michigan turn out the lights. some people took that to heart. 2012 as the unions were putting a ballot measure on the november ballot to amend the uniontution to allow collective bargaining agreements to have a veto over legislation. they were going to give collective-bargaining agreements the power of the constitution. you have an amendment, and then you have a piece of legislation. i was an optimist. i knew michigan would be coming back. moving my was, i'm

soon to be wife here. i'm buying a home. stuff works out. especially with this proposal. it did. it went down by 15 points. they said no. --t led to the convert it the conversation on right to work and michigan, the state with the fifth highest rates, the birthplace long considered a labor stronghold, finally gave workers the freedom to choose. the effect was felt almost immediately. the next month, they were talking about site selection. it was published, they should be they are nobecause longer being eliminated in the early stages of searches. we've heard about population

growth, high population growth, higher wage growth, lower unemployment, more jobs. it is about freedom. when job creators and workers , right to work is a checkbox. if they had a horrible regulatory business climate, if chancese high taxes, are jobs are not going there. a competitive tax climate, competitive regulatory environment, jobs will be attracted. the problem is without that won'tox, most selectors even look past, do you have worker freedom were not? -- or not? down.an unemployment went it led to the nation by almost since june 2009.

we are now at 5.3%. wisconsin is still bleeding us. we have a lot to offer. the next closest was indiana, which had a six-point drop. inmate, michigan added 6000 ing jobs.re 2000 that month. if you contrast that with, i will say the forced unionism lost of illinois, which 2000 and the same month. arehe right to work states gaining jobs. , aold you i was nervous little nervous, about buying a

home, relocating to michigan. .hat gamble paid off michigan home values have grown to the seventh highest in the country in five years. i will tell you my home value has skyrocketed since i bought it in 2012. things are going well in michigan. wages are going up. 2013 when the right to work law took effect until 2015, michigan earnings have gone up by 5.4%. compare that to the national average of 3.7. oklahoma, which passed right to before it was $539 since the average pay per week. by the end of 2002, it went up

to $551. $800 per week. averagena, in 2001, weekly wages were $774. by the end of 2012, average wages were $793. so much for right to work lowering wages. live heard where they got it. center was talking about starbucks. i grew up in new york city. do you know how much rent is in new york city? about $3400 a month. you can get a shoebox apartment, a studio, costs you $2000. get a decent house in alabama, the mortgage, $800 a month.

ofputs things in perspective why those workers in new york are getting paid more. the dollar does not go as far. theirs nemesis release family budget calculator. they went through and according to their calculations, several metropolitan areas, and estimated how much a typical family would need to spend on rent, food, basics. all 10 of their most expensive cities are in forced unionism states. not group says workers are making more in right to work states. the data is showing them when you calculate it correctly, it actually cost more. manufacturing cost of living, making 4%e about

more. the final thing that happens in right to work states, which that the unions pause, is right to work can make unions stronger. right to work means unions can't take their own membership for granted. they can't force them to pay. they actually have to prove their worth. they have to compete. competition can make you stronger. tied for theiana number one state of adding new union members. 50,000 new union members. michigan lost some. unionism states beat the right to work state states. it back a couple of years, goes back and forth. right to work states actually outpaced forced unionism states

as far as new union members. will spout numbers, but i don't want you to take my word for it. i want to read a couple of quotes. this is something i never understood, people think right to work for its unions. to me it helps them. you don't have to belong. an organizing drive, i can tell workers you don't have to belong versus if we get 50%, all of you have to belong. i don't even like the way that sounds. anybody know who said that? secretary-treasurer. in michigan, the afl-cio president said we don't know what to expect. we can explain to our members .hy membership is of value

the same thing, the same sentiment from the membership director of the largest union, the teachers union. we had to increase our efforts on that, communicating with his members about why they should support the union. we are stronger because of it. to say they are taking the sentiments to heart. i think some are. we have run into a few speed bumps in michigan. that the lawh was was passed in december 2012, but did not take effect until march 2013. unions were able to extend contracts up to 10 years, a decade of forced unionism because the law did not affect current contracts. they also established windows, or said windows -- workers could

exercise their rights in certain times of year. for the teachers union, the month of august. and the one that spring up this mind, wet boggles the have the teachers union again used to accept resignations to the general mailbox. in june, they put a disclaimer on the website and said they acceptingnger be resignation to the mailbox where they had thousands of resignations historically and would now on the accept it to a new mailbox. po box 51 at the post office, which you can make allusions to area 50 10 you want . this is what we are seeing. at the end of the day, even as the unions try whatever they can

to get around the right to work law, we are seeing more jobs in michigan, higher home values, more population growth. and i will tell you the attitude in the wolverine state is optimistic. we are optimistic about the future. it is due in large part to worker freedom. thank you very much. [applause] we've got some time for questions. someone with the microphone. the gentleman in the back. if he will stand up and state your name and affiliation. my question is regards to the averages of all of the right to work states. wages change compared to where wages were before the law was passed? could this be controlled? >> it is the kind of thing the

folks on the left and myself on the right basically say we expect the effect to take many years. the way you would expect right to work to affect wages would be on the upside by tracking new businesses send getting more demand for labor. alabama has more on the manufacturing plants. they did not move their as soon as the law was passed. is that yougument are weakening the power of downwardd are putting pressure. this is something that is going to take place over a number of years. i was surprised to see the numbers. a very strong response in the county. it is something you would expect to play itself out. to indianastudies and michigan out of the data set

after the law was passed and said let's wait a few years. five years we will look back and actually get some numbers and take a look. it is not something you would expect to have an effect the next month. i can send you some of the numbers we ran as far as the forigan earnings growth oklahoma and indiana. we have not done wisconsin yet. wages seeing increasing and we have compared that to the national averages and michigan is outpacing the national average or wage growth. so they can go back-and-forth. when you look at it, the tagline is simply making less an true, just by looking at the last several right to work states.

>> i'm an attorney here in town. heard,been stated, or i a lot of large corporations are very lukewarm to right to work laws because they would rather negotiate with one union than with 10,000 employees and they seem right to work laws as disruptive of labor and inrefore are unhelpful getting these laws enacted. is that a correct statement? >> right to work would not have an effect on the number of unions they are negotiating with. size of the bargaining unit, whether you have to bargain, that is a different question. , toay be more of an issue

the extent you are correct, we don't lobby, we put out research, but i'm not active in the lobbying campaign. to the extent you have an it may put pressure on unions to deliver for their members. without right to work, it is a captive audience they can tax. that is something michigan members do. pennsylvania, if you're not willing to switch jobs, they can raise your dues and you have to pay up. they don't have a lot of pressure to deliver. in theory, the officers are elected, but they are heavily slanted toward the incumbent states. , theber of unions presidency is passed from father to son. it is more of a dynasty in a

democratic election. with the option of exit, where the workers can they do not see value, the unions feel more pressure to deliver something to the negotiating table. brought thatg you up. we did not hear that. we had some larger corporations that did come to us and said we have to be careful because we have our workforce. obviously the union workforce is not in favor of right to work because of what they are told from the union bosses. the reality was they said we can't come out publicly to back this, but we think this is going to be a good thing as a company and for our workers. that is what we heard. how does the law

affect government employee since they are a majority of the union membership? >> sure. a typical right to work law, wisconsin was a little bit different. i will let the senator speak to that. a typical right to work law for government employees is the exact same as a typical law for the private sector. it says that a union can't get a worker fired, the union can't say this person has to pay us or lose their job. that is all right to work does in public and private. government workers can negotiate over wages and working

conditions, the same in the private sector. as far as the difference, for a typical right to work law, there is none. there were different effects for the government and private sector. the reason might be the government unions are very political organizations. they can do something the private unions can't, elected their own boss. the private sector, you've got to deal with the manager. so if they can elect a friendly politician, instead of the politicians trying to get a good deal for the taxpayers at a lower cost, the politicians may be interested in paying off a major contributor into their campaign in terms of boots on and getnd and activism out the vote. if you look at the department of abor, they put online

financial disclosure form. the typical union will spend 5% and 15% of their budget on politics and lobbing. if you look at the government arens, a lot of them spending a quarter to a third of their budgets. if you look at the american federation of employees, the international union, the teachers unions, a huge portion of their budget goes to these lobbying expenditures. it gives them something the private sector can't yet. against andotiate get a sweeter contract. aws they reduceot the work the unions have and make it more difficult to put their political allies in office and get the sweetheart contracts. that has an effect on the numbers. about 3% to 5% lower wages in

the government sector. in the private sector, nothing. just nothing. the numbers were -.1% to positive .5%. none of them statistically significant. while the mechanism applies to they have different impacts in those sectors. i think we have time for one more question. thank you for coming. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] coming to thes is u.s. later this month with stops in new york, philadelphia and

washington, d.c.. we get a preview of the visit with archbishop joseph kurtz. he talks about some of the scheduledpope's events including some of his visit before congress. >> my understanding is that john behalf of theon house of representatives and together with senator mitch they agreed to make this open invitation. is they understanding first time our holy father has been invited. we are like at thanksgiving welcoming a special guest into our home and he will be in the public states. eager for him to come. a littleger to hear

bit about the themes you think he will strike and how much of interpretedwill be in light of the political season with a lot of hot issues. this happens as congress returns from a long summer break this month. how much will congress be seen to play into his address? roomthink we have to make to hear the message of our holy father. i don't have a text or anything of what he is going to say, but we can certainly look at other visits where he talked in the public square and that is a good direction to begin with. i believe his primary coming as for the world meeting's families. but this joint meeting of congress, i suspect he will focus on themes of the common good, of what it means to see the dignity of every human

person, the great gift of our home -- the earth and that he will also take up themes of what he calls the throw away temptation. the temptation for us to become so involved in consumerism that we miss the person outside of ourselves. >> you can see the entire .nterview today on c-span cities tour. we are joined by charter communications to learn more about the history of grand junction, colorado. the mining of a certain mineral had a lot of importance. and especially here in grand junction, we are

surrounded by morrison rock. we find a lot of dinosaur bones and fossils. that has intrigued scientists for a long time. the other thing is we find a mineral called carnitite. which isns radium radioactive and was used by marie curie to fight cancer. so in the build up to world war itself, itwo contains -- uranium whichns is one of them best sources for power for atomic weapons. aspinallssman wayne was integral in his fight to preserve the area. to reserve- fought

water for colorado by making sure we got our fair share. he did that, beginning in his state career, then on to his federal career, he climbed up the ladder of seniority, and was able to exercise more power than you might normally have. certainly in the united states congress, where he was able to make sure that colorado and western colorado would be treated fairly. success was the passage of the colorado river storage project in 1956. our entire program today at 2:00 on c-span3. when congress returns from its summer recess one of the issues is reauthorization for child federal nutrition

programs. now we hear from secretary tom ville sack who talks about strengthening school lunch standards. >> good afternoon, everybody. i'm president and ceo of the center for american progress. we are very honored to have secretary tom vilsack join us today. we have what should be one of congress' most important priorities as a returns from recess, reauthorization of child nutrition programs. too many children struggle with hunger in the classroom because their families are having

trouble making ends meet. federal child nutrition programs such as school breakfast, lunch, meals, special supplemental nutrition programs for women, infants, and children, are vital to our children's success and to their families' economic security. congress has the responsibility to preserve these programs, which is why we are joined by the secretary today. before joining the obama administration, secretary vilsack served two terms as governor of iowa and more than six years as secretary of agriculture, he has made tremendous strides in promoting rural economies and strengthening nutrition assistance programs. undersecretary vilsack's leadership, under secretary -- he also helped pass and implement the original healthy

hunger-free kids act, which he will discuss today. i also look forward to sitting down with him after his remarks for a discussion about nutrition programs where we will take your questions. he has brought renewed focus and attention to these critical issues, and it is my complete, great pleasure to welcome him to the stage today. [applause] mr. vilsack: thank you very, very much. it is an honor to be back here to talk about something that i think it is extraordinarily important. in fact, on the way over here, i told my staff i was going to say something provocative at the beginning of this, so here goes -- i think i can make the case that what we are discussing today is significant in relationship to national security, and it's not the iranian nuclear deal. i think i can make the case that it is central to the economic competitiveness of the united states in the future, particularly against and

involving our asian competitors, and it's not the transpacific partnership. discussions that will take place in congress this month. i think i can make the case that this is a way in which we can significantly reduce expenditures on health care, and it's not protecting the importance efforts of the affordable care act from any budget gimmicks that may take place. this is important work. would i say it is as important to national security and health care expense simply for this reason -- 76% of america's teachers report that children come to school hungry. i don't know about the folks here in this audience or those watching this, but i know i don't perform as well when i'm hungry, and the reality is neither do children. if we are going to expect them to be at their best in terms of

educational achievement, we want to make sure that they are well fed at schools. i think i can make the case that this is about national security because retired admirals and generals for mission readiness have suggested the concern about if we will have sufficient numbers of young people physically fit to do military service to support an all volunteer military. in fact, only today, one out of four young people ages 19 to 24 are fit for military service. when you're dealing with a situation where 15.8 million of our children are living in food-insecure homes and nearly 30% are obese or at risk of being obese, you can also make the case that health care costs may go up or down depending on how well we deal with child nutrition. why? we currently spend tens of billions of dollars on preventative conditions linked to obesity and health-care costs today. so this is an important subject. five years ago, we treated the subject with the importance it

deserved through the passage of the healthy hunger-free kids act. we reached out to experts and said tell us what we need to do, particularly as it relates to those meals where some youngsters in america received a third or half the calories they taken during the school year. experts came back and said that school lunches and school snacks have too much sugar, too much sodium, too much fat. need to promote more fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grains. you need to have a consistent message in the school snack program with what we're doing in school meals. you need to expand access to school breakfast, and we need to make it a little bit easier in those school districts where there is a significantly high number of free and reduced lunch kids for everyone to have access to a good meal. congress passed with bipartisan support the healthy hunger-free kids act.

we have seen, i think, significant acceptance of these standards. 95% of schools certified under the new standards, and it's not just school districts certified. it's also an acceptance in the general public. based on recent surveys, 90% of american public believes it is appropriate to have standards, federal standards, national standards for our schools and school meals. it is embraced by parents of school-age children. it is resulting in more fruits and vegetables being consumed according to cdc and according to a harvard public health school study, and its resulting in less plate waste according to a connecticut study. bottom line is that standards

are being embraced. they are making a difference, and if given an opportunity to do over a long time, it will result in healthier youngsters, better achievement at school, a stronger economy, and more young people to draw from in terms of public service, military, and other opportunities that national service can provide. that is why it is important for congress to get back to work as youngsters are getting back to school and reauthorize our nutrition programs. it is important for congress not to take a step back. it's important for congress to continue the forward movement. we understand and appreciate there may be from time to time a

school district that has a challenge meeting the standards. it may be related to the standards. it may be related to the circumstances of an individual school. despite the fact that over 450 additional million dollars has been put into the system as a result of reimbursement increases, we understand and appreciate at usta that there are still some schools that are struggling. that's why we established a grant program, to assist those schools in making the transition to being able to produce food on site. it's why we encourage states to continue to utilize the implementation money that came with the passage of the healthy hunger-free kids act. it's incredible to note today that $22 million is unspent by states from the resources that were provided when the law was initially passed. that's 28.2 million opportunities to provide assistance and help to struggling schools. it's why we have focused our efforts in creating flexibility in the system, to give the food processing industry time to adjust and adapt, and it's why most recently, we've established a program is an opportunity for us to take struggling schools and link them with succeeding schools so they can learn the

procurement strategies, the menu strategies, the farm to school opportunities that exist that can create easier compliance with the new standards. as congress returns to work, it is important that we not only reinforced the standards but that we continue to provide opportunities to strengthen them with additional resources for our student grant program, with acknowledgment for the success programs, and institutionalizing that effort, we can continue to whittle down and reduce the number of schools that struggle with the new standards. and it is not just school lunches. it's also about expanding breakfast opportunities. one of the highlights of this effort has been the fact that we've seen, as a result of a lot of outside help, a real promotion of school breakfast, reducing the stigma associated with school breakfast. 380,000 more school breakfasts being served on daily basis as a result of this new focus.

folks, this is particularly important in the rural concept and the rural areas of this country. one out of four youngsters who live in rural america are living in a food-and secure home erie the percentages of persistent poverty in rural areas is actually much higher than you would anticipate. over 90% of the county's in this country would -- with persistently high poverty rates in excess of 25 percent to 30% are rural in nature, not urban. so these programs are significantly important, particularly for the rural areas of this country, which is why usda is putting a lot of time and effort on child poverty and incorporating our new assistance programs in that effort. it is also about making sure that we eliminate the hassles associated with compliance with any federal program.

that's why an important component of the healthy hunger-free kids act was the concept of community eligibility. we know there are school districts across the united states were 75%, 80%, 90% of the students are free or reduced lunch kids. there's no reason why we are requiring them, their parents, and their school district to go through the process of making applications and making sure the paperwork gets back from the third-grader to mom and dad and back to the third grade teacher and incorporated into the school system's records. that's why community eligibility provides for the opportunity to eliminate that expense and allow for all of the students in that particular school to have access to a meal. if it's improving the standards, making it easier, or even also focusing on making sure that the programs are done in a way that reinforces the integrity of the programs, it is important for congress to focus on that portion of the law. it is also important for congress to understand the significance of what occurs

between the months of june and september when youngsters are not in school, when they do not have access to a school breakfast and school lunch and maybe even an afterschool snack or dinner. we focused on efforts in which we can expand in those time periods when youngsters may not have access to school meals. we've asked the university of kentucky to take a look at rural child poverty and nutrition issues to figure out if there are pilot that could potentially be funded that will expand access to food across the school day and across the school year and across the calendar year. we have looked for creative ways to develop potentially here in the d.c. area and the state of virginia and the state of virginia an opportunity to look

at what would happen if all three meals were available for young people. just recognizing the reality of what we face today. one of the components that we need help and assistance on and more additional resources from congress is in our summer feeding program. despite the extraordinary efforts of usda and partners across the united states where we've seen increased sponsorships, an increase insights, and 23 million more meals being served in summer months than in 2009, we still face a significant delta between the number of students who are free and reduced lunch and the number of kids who benefit from a summer feeding program. around 20 million young people participate in free and reduced lunch. about 3.5 million kids get benefited from summer feeding programs, and there are many reasons, not the least of which is that sometimes it difficult to get kids to a fixed location in order to take an vantage a meal that might be available. it may be that people are not simply aware of the summer

feeding site. it may be that we need additional resources to encourage more partners and sponsorships on more sites. it may be that we need mobile and flexibility in terms of how meals get to kids, but the bottom line is as a country, if we want to be successful economically, if we want to reduce health care costs, if we want to ensure national security, we have to see child nutrition in the same way we see so many other issues involving economic security and health care security. it is a critically important part. let me finish with this -- this is personal to the people who work at usda. we go to schools. we sit down with kids. we talked to them, and it's personal to me, and i think everyone who works with me understands that. as some of you may know, i started out life in a rather modest way in a catholic orphanage. i was adopted into a family where my mom and dad struggled,

and because of those struggles, i think i probably looked to food as a way of dealing with the challenges of substance abuse and addiction in my home. when i did, i was obviously a bit overweight. i remember, as i stand here today very graphically and very specifically in fourth grade, being at the black not being able to do a math problem and being accused of not being able to do that math problem because i was fat. i know what it feels like to have your self-image questions. i know how it takes you off your game academically. i don't want that for any child. and i don't think most americans do, either. that's why this is a personal issue for me, and i suspect the people who work at usda have

similar stories in their own lives or their families' or friends' lives. we want to expand, solidify, institutionalize, and strengthen the work that was done in 2010. i'm here today to encourage congress to get to work, to get back to work as our youngsters are getting back to school. don't take a step back. let's take steps forward. that's what we did in 2010, and that's what we should do in 2015. thank you. [applause] passed the first test. i got up here without stumbling. that's good. >> thank you so much for your remarks on child nutrition assistance programs. i really appreciate your personal remarks. we really try to demonstrate the impact of these programs on people.

one thing we are facing as we go forward is issues around sequestration, so i would love for you to talk a little bit about what sequestration itself has meant in real people's lives and what do we think we can do about something like sequestration and can we get a message to congress on that. mr. vilsack: first of all, sequestration as a budget policy is ill advised because it basically treats in many cases everything alike, and that is simply not the case. there are things that are more important and less important. it does impact the ability of usda and its staff to be able to meet the needs and demands of programs. if you have a reduction in half as we have suffered at usda, you're not in a position to do all the work that you need to do or in a position to provide the information you need to provide to a sponsor that might be interested in setting up a summer feeding program.

you are limited in the capacity that you have to provide service, so one drawback of sequestration and one drawback of this whole focus on budget is that you have fewer people. we have tried to do with this in the right way by not impacting policies and people. we try to figure out ways in which we can be more effective with the dollars we have, by leveraging our resources and getting more partnerships focused. many folks in the field may not have seen a significant drop-off in our productivity, but we are asking a lot of the folks who work in federal government. and if we continue to expect them to do more and more with less and less -- that's number one. two, i think it is important as

we look at the cost of food, as we look at inflation rates, the reimbursement rate was effective and helpful, no question. the fact that we had $28.2 million left on the table is a little troublesome to me, so we've been asking governors to focus on this, and for whatever reason, they refuse to do so or are unable to do so, but there is a need for us to have additional resources. when you talk about sequestration and turn around and say you need to support summer feeding programs effectively and put together more resources for our project that gives folks a card that allows them to access more food during the summer, it makes it harder to make that case. >> i also wanted to touch upon your personal story. we recently launched a campaign asking people across the country who have benefited from these campaigns to share their stories. mary likened the wic program to a life raft in a stormy sea.

for so many people like her, these programs have become an oasis in stormy times. as you know, they play an important role in economic security and in really stabilizing families. how do you see these programs work together in addressing the needs of families? our story bank is focusing on this. people think of these programs as serving other people. i grew up in tough circumstances, too. my family relied on food stamps. got us through a very difficult time. millions of people experience it, and yet, people think it is something helping other people. how do we break through that? mr. vilsack: let's talk about the wic program. over 50% of america's children ages zero to five are impacted at some point in time by the program. let's talk about the impact it has on getting youngsters to

appreciate from an early age the opportunities that nutritious snacks create. i was talking to a mother of a young child earlier today, as she was talking about how her toddler was embracing roots and vegetables because she had access to fruits and vegetables. the wic program creates that the wic program creates that access to things that may not be traditionally purchased by a family because it was too expensive, or they did not know how to prepare it, but now, they have access to those fruits and vegetables they might not otherwise buy. their youngsters acquire a taste for it, and that creates a much more positive beginning to life. the school lunch and school breakfast programs -- it's fairly obvious. with as many food insecure kids as we have, as many kids coming from families struggling

financially, they may get a third to half of their calories at school, so, obviously, parents are benefiting from this, and the fact that we are seeing increased numbers of free and reduced lunch kids is a result of greater outreach. back to your sequester question, you cannot do that outreach unless you get people to do it. but the ability for us to deal with that afterschool effort, the ability for us to do with weekends and summer is directly related to creating a continuum of support, and that summer feeding program is extraordinarily important, particularly in rural areas where it is sometimes hard to know precisely where that meal site might be. in a city, you might have 20 or 30 different options, and in a rural area, you might have one option with transportation being a problem. the ability for us to have a

continuum of support, enough flexibility to deal with the changing circumstances of a family is helpful. the reality is that the characteristics of snap have changed. people might not think of senior citizens as beneficiaries of snap, but they are. hopefully increasing numbers of seniors who are living on a very small social security check and are reluctant to take snap because they see it as something other than what it is, which is nutrition assistance, and they do not understand that it is in our collective best interest for that senior to be fed because they will not have the health issues associated with malnutrition. it is also important to note that 42% of recipients are children or working moms and dads. the senior citizens, the children, the working moms and dads and folks with disabilities who would love to be able to work but cannot, you have almost 80% of the snap population.

i say to folks, which of those groups do you not want to help, and which of those groups does not represent your friends and neighbors down the street? for the 20% that are able-bodied and potentially capable of working, we are trying to create opportunities for states to do a better job of using the resources we provide to link up. those folks may have challenges with transportation or child care or a whole series of things that make it difficult for them to access the work face. let's figure out what those barriers are and use the resources we have to reduce those barriers. >> thank you. you touched briefly on rural issues and talked about them in your speech. children in rural areas has been something you have focused on throughout your career. i wanted to ask you about the statistics you laid out about

kids in rural areas needing nutrition assistance. what forces are driving that? it seems like you are taking particular steps to address it. mr. vilsack: i think there are a number of reasons. you have to look at the economy of rural america. we thought it was linked solely on the basis of agriculture. that is a critical component, but because we've seen larger and larger farming operations, we have fewer and fewer farmers. what we see in rural areas is in many cases in aging and declining population, which makes it hard to attract economic opportunity, so the folks who are still there have limited economic opportunity. often this administration are

trying to create a rural economy, trying to support a foundation that takes advantage of the national resources in a more sensible way to create more economic opportunity. part of it is lack of understanding and appreciation for what programs there are. it is important for us to focus on ways in which we can educate people about what programs exist and where they might be able to access those programs. the rural council, which the president established, which i chair, has been tasked with the focus on trying to figure out how we get all the programs out there -- how we make sure everyone knows about them and can access them. what we know through our strikeforce initiative is if we educate the community leaders of the existence of the programs, they can take advantage of them, and we've seen over $16 billion invested in very poor counties. these programs can all be accessed in these communities with a greater awareness and reducing the difficulty of understanding how to apply for all of this. they need help. finally, it's really about figuring out the best ways to use those programs. if we do something for mom and

dad over here but do something for children over here and they are not connected, we might have some benefit, but what if we decided to do everything we could do for the family? what if we took a two-generation approach? could we move the dial. could we make a greater impact on those families? i suspect we can, and were going to try to test market that concept through the rural council, coordinating all of our various programs and see if we can really make a difference. what if we took a two generation approach. i suspect we can, we're going to try and test market that approach. coordinating various programs and see if we can really, really make a difference. if we can, that will tell us how to more effectively and efficiently use resources that we have. >> that the thing other agencies can learn from. i'm going to ask a few more questions, and we want to open it up to the audience. you mentioned the hunger free

kids act, you played a crucial role in that. commercial feature is important, absent of nutrition standards have been some controversy around those issues. truthfully, more schools are adapting them. as a mom with kids in school, i like the nutrition, correctly count on that. count on what my kids are eating in the school. how can we strengthen that program? what are your views going forward? mr. vilsack: we have to trust the experts that tell us we are on the right track. we have to trust the experts and

stay on that track. we can't create a step back, we can relax the standards. we can't remove the standards. we are able and willing to provide flexibility where it is warranted. taking a step back would be a mistake. secondly, it's important to look for ways in which we can streamline the processes by which young people can apply and participate in the programs. we are doing this internally at usda, in the application process, to the extent we can continue to press community eligibility, and not take a step back in terms of that opportunity for school districts that have high poverty rates, high free and reduced lunch rates, allow them to save it it is important for us to focus time and resources on the time when kids aren't in school. -- allow them to save the

administrative expense and treat all kids in the same way. it is important for us to focus time and resources on the time when kids aren't in school. there's an opportunity for us to strengthen our breakfast efforts as well. i think, frankly, we also have to look at the integrity side. what we don't want is an easy opportunity for critics to say, because there's error rate of acts, or a mistaken rate of why, we shouldn't promote the the program. we see this was snapped, people say there's a lot of fraud, waste, abuse. it's at near historic lows at 1.3%. most other programs are not at the level. the combined rates are less than they have ever been. and we are going to work on those issues. we don't want to necessarily use that as an excuse for not supporting the program. there's an opportunity for us, i think, to create more support and assistance, technical assistance for school districts. to team up for success, which started as a regional effort in the southern part of the country. mississippi state has a wonderful nutrition center, they were willing to do a day and a half conference. we found mentoring schools willing to spend time with struggling schools. what we're finding is people are really interested in learning about procurement and farm to school opportunities.

they are learning about the farm-to-school grant program. they are learning about resources available for schools. there are ways in which we can strengthen all of those efforts. and incorporate that in a commitment to tell the nutrition across the board. >> one last question. and then i will tee it up for the audience. you mentioned this before. we are seeing across the country efforts to politicize snap, the urge to demonize snap, people trying to restrict access. putting limits on snap that are really unrelated to the program. what can you suggest as to how

we can make clear to folks what snap is really about, and how can people fight back against these efforts? mr. vilsack: is make you sure people understand who is receiving the benefits from snap, it's the supplemental nutrition assistance program. no one is surviving on snap benefits alone. that is a fiction out there that we need to basically attack, if you will. i think it's important to note, as i said before, 80% or more of beneficiaries or children, people with disabilities, working men and women. the folks who are able-bodied and able to work, we're working on getting to states to do a better job with the hundreds of millions of dollars we provide the states to find work and link those people who are on snap. we have 10 pilots that were part

of the farm bill that will glean best practices and perhaps encourage that. this is also -- the snap expansion that occurred in the recession was a result of the recession. when i beginning to see what the economy improving, fewer people need this. we are seeing numbers come down. it's a very effective tool. the other thing i would suggest is that it also helps to mitigate the impact of poverty. we know for a fact that millions are taken out of the status of poverty by virtue of the support programs, it allows people the dignity of knowing that. hundreds of thousands, millions

of kids are taken out of poverty as a result. i think, if people fully understood who is getting it, the important work that's being done on fraud, waste and abuse to reduce that, the work we're doing the states to give economic opportunity to folks who are looking for a, wanted, i would love to work if they could find work, sometimes at the person in a rural area would love to work, but they can't get to the jobless 45 miles away because they don't have a decent car or mass transportation. they would love to work but they have a three-year-old child care access. what do you do with that? there are ways in which we can provide help and assistance -- help and assistance. >> questions? >> you talked about integrity. there was a study by the school nutrition association and 2013 -- 2014 that 81.2% of schools reported more food waste in the school programs. i wondered what you are addressing in this issue. mr. vilsack: that was a relatively small sampling of schools.

there are number of other competing studies that suggest that food waste is not as prevalent as that study would suggest. having said that, food waste is an issue not just in schools, but throughout the united states. 30% of all food in this country is wasted. it is a clarion call for us to focus on food waste across the board. that's why we established with the epa a food waste challenge at usda. we now have over 4000 partners, food companies, restaurants, associations representing companies, all designed to figure out ways in which we can reduce the amount of plate waste to begin with. that we can reuse food that is capable of being reused, series of opportunities with food apps that tell you where charitable organizations are that will be willing to receive tomatoes that may not make the grave for the restaurant, but are fine for the central kitchen. and also the ability to recycle. usda's headquarters in washington, d.c., we recycle over one ton of food a week. that's significantly increased as a result of this effort. if you take a look at usda.gov, food waste challenge, you can find a lot of information a lot of steps we're taking to try and

reduce food waste. >> thanks for being here, mr. secretary. i'm lydia wheeler, a reporter with the hill. you mentioned there 28.2 million available for schools. can you talk little bit about how schools can access that money and take advantage of it? how is it available? mr. vilsack: i will pick one state. i know several months ago, the state of louisiana, for example, had not used to dime for the money that was available. not a dime. several million dollars. if i were superintendent of a school that was struggling and looking for ways in which i might be able to provide and get some help with all of this, i would pick up the phone and call the governor's office, i would call the department of education, call human services and say hey, is there any money left over, for helping kids that we could use in our school in a creative way? there have to be many states where there is money left over.

to give you a sense, there was $90 million that was originally appropriated. five years later, $28.2 million is still in use. when you hear that and ask yourself, before people start criticizing this are saying they don't have the resources, we ought to at least have the resources that are available, and be fully utilizing those resources. >> someone over there. >> i'm kate hagman, i believe my question segues into what you just said. my question was specifically about governors. you made a reference earlier to how governors work or do not work with this. i was wondering if it was resistance, or any other factors involved in deploying the dollars for hunger program. >> i served as governor for iowa for eight years. i'm not sure why my former

colleagues in the governor's offices aren't taking full advantage of this. one of the reasons may be that they just aren't aware. governors deal with a lot of issues. this may not bubble up to the governor's office and awareness of the governor. it's one of the reasons why we took the liberty of communicating with states to let them know that you have this money on the table and to encourage them. we began this effort we had about $45 million, $47 million spent, now we are down to $28 million. part of it may be this is not awareness.

and in part it may be some kind of reluctance on the part of some governors, because they don't believe in the program, or they are part of the 10% of america that doesn't believe we should have standards for nutrition for kids. it's hard for me to understand why folks don't understand the significance and importance of this when youngsters receive one third to one half the calories at school. among african-americans, 36% tile food insecurity rate, amongst hispanic kids, 28 percent or 29%. with families with a single parent single -- female-headed household, 35%. why we wouldn't be concerned about that, where would be trying to help those families across the board do a better job of doing what they want to do, which is to take care of their children and make sure their kids have a healthy, strong, good start to life. >> other questions? >> research institute for independent living. this is a question about bringing programs together. there's a provision in one of the nutrition programs where each community that participates in the program has to have a health plan for the community. where they do indeed bring the resources of the community

together. my question is, what is the status of the results that come from that program? mr. vilsack: that's a question i will have to get back to you on, i don't know the specific answer. i do know there are a series of efforts at state and local levels trying to develop health plans, because there's a keen desire to reduce the overall cost associated with chronic diseases. it's one of the reasons why am so interested in both the obesity among children, and making sure that snap programs are available to senior citizens. it's basically to wages of the same sword, if you will. the obesity rate, we know the kids will take into adult life chronic diseases. we know they are very expensive, diabetes, heart disease. totally preventable, potentially, with the right beginning to life. on the other hand, we have senior citizens were living on very, very small fixed incomes. they have to choose,

unfortunately, between rent and prescription drugs and food. they skimp on the food, they don't get the nutrition they need, and the end up having problems and convocations that could potentially be avoided. if we are interested in reducing health care costs and transitioning to a wellness system is that of a sick care system, we should be all about nutrition standards, all about making sure the kids get access to good, healthy food and snacks in school. and all about making sure that senior citizens the need the help get the help. >> up here? come up here. >> if the child nutrition act passes with the 2010 nutrition standards in it, it would be a fantastic development. there are groups in the room like the national women's law center that are trying to make important improvements in the adult food care program, also

feeding america, and try to do some improvement in summer food. do you see any prospect for the old phrase, "new entitlement money"? mr. vilsack: i think there is a possibility for this, if we can make the case that in the long run, is cost-effective to do precisely what you have outlined. i'm trying to make the case today. if you spend one dollar today in nutrition standards for children, and you prevent obesity among youngsters, you reduce the obesity rate in risk of obesity from 30% to 25% to 20% to 15%, there is no question that at the end of the day, we're going to save money. we, the collectively. if we make sure that senior citizens get appropriate nutrition, there's no question at the end of the day we are going to save a few bucks in terms of health care costs. we know for senior citizens those health care costs are directly related to government spending. i think we have to take the long

view here. i think we have to take the long view here. that's what's really important -- one of the underlying message issues on this particular issue nutrition is a transition on the policymakers from short-term thinking to long-term thinking. long-term strength, long-term stability, long-term educational achievements, long-term health care cost reduction. at the end of the day, that's the best utilization of limited resources. i think you can make the case. there will always be the issue of what's the offset, and how do you pay for it? there are ways to pay for it if it's a priority. we never seem in this congress to have a problem figuring out ways to pay for say more military weapons. because it's a priority for them. fair enough. you fund your priorities. you find the resources for your priorities. i'm here to make the case that it's equally important to the security of this country long-term to invest in our kids. invest in their health and their

nutrition. i think it's equally important. i think in the long run, we will be better off as a nation if we do. if everyone sees it the way i see it, we will find the resources. because you always fun to your priorities. >> we will take both of these. >> thank you. i work with the interfaith cooperative in marina county. we work with the farmers come organic farmers. and we work with the churches in the mosques and synagogues together to bring organic food available to the general public. the cost of organic foods, especially fruits and vegetables are really high. is not accessible by those people who are really on the bottom, and they don't qualify for wic programs are snap.

how can we reduce the cost, farmers receive a lot of grants. they receive a lot of help and support. how can we change that? mr. vilsack: we got 10 minutes left, we're not going to get your question that will dig me -- we're not going to get your question because it will take me 10 minutes to answer this one. seriously. first of all, there is a lot of support now going into in this administration, and all forms of agriculture. hundreds of millions of dollars of help and assistance is going into organic research coming to organic support, into crop insurance products, into loans, microloans, storage loans, technical resistance to organic producers. the reality with organic as it represents about 1% of the landmass of the u.s. dedicated, roughly 4% to 5% of sales. it's a relatively small amount of agriculture. it's going to take a while to get up to scale, to get the kind of efficiencies perhaps in terms of costs you see in other forms

of agriculture. the challenge is not to pit forms of agriculture against each other. the challenge is to figure out ways in which folks can have access and make a choice. one thing we have done is we've taken the ebt card, the electronic benefit transfer card for snap, the food stamp card, and we said it shouldn't just be redeemable in grocery stores. or convenience stores. it ought to be redeemable at farmers markets. i'm proud of the fact that this administration, over 6000 of the 8500 farmers markets now take ebt cards. that provides access to fruits and vegetables. we also have teamed up with a

number of foundations to create incentives to stretch that snap dollar, the double block programs, where you get five dollars or $10 of additional support if you buy fruits and vegetables a farmers market. it's one of the fair food network initiatives. other enterprises are being encouraged to participate. we are looking for ways we can use farm bill programs to incentivize that. i was announcing a multimillion dollar award for the fort organic alliance to allow them to make organic fruits and vegetables more accessible to floridians who are receiving snap benefits as part of the food insecurity initiative. the last thing i would say is i don't want to buy into the notion that fruits and vegetables are always more expensive. they aren't necessarily, depends on how you measure the expense. if you measure it based on portion size, or the number of calories. for example, today come historically we've said what is 100 calories of potato chips, the cost of that versus 100 calories of broccoli? 100 calories of potatoes would fill my hand, 100 calories of broccoli would fill half this room. when it are calories going to be

more expensive broccoli side. if you ask about portion size, i.e. more than one handful of potato chips or a potato chips. if you look at portion side, fruits and vegetables are necessarily more expensive. we need to educate people, particularly snap beneficiaries and families, doesn't necessarily have to be more expensive to do fruits and vegetables. it may be a candy fruit or frozen fruit, it may be fresh fruit. but he doesn't necessarily have to be more expensive. i think there's a lot of space in that question for education and awareness that things are getting better. i think over time they will continue to get better. >> last question. >> i have a naive question, don't have children in school. is there any evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that these programs are having a spillover effect for children who are not participating? when i was going to school, we

used to ridicule the children who were eating school lunches because the food was terrible. compared to what everybody else had. i wonder if things might be pushing in the other direction, where children eating more fruits and vegetables, more whole grains, are having a positive influence, or is it still being stigmatized? mr. vilsack: we try to reduce the stigmatization of all of these programs. by the way they are calculate it, the way kids go to the line, a are no longer segregated they do school breakfast or breakfast in the classroom. we try to figure out ways to be creative about reducing the ability to say you are free and reduced lunch kid, i'm not. secondly, the standards apy to the meals that are being sold and the a la carte items and snacks. any student who is eating in the cafeteria is going to have the choices and access to relatively

the same foods. there is a spillover effect. there are several studies, and mention the university of connecticut, that suggest there are more fruits and vegetables being eaten. more entrees are being consumed. that reflects greater acceptance on the part of students. the harvard public health study that suggests that indeed, there is less, or certainly not more food waste. there's a cdc study that came out that indicates that young people are consuming more fruits and vegetables. i think it's going to take a while for that to show itself in terms of reduced rates of obesity, reduced rates of food insecurity. we have seen a reduction in food insecurity among kids, that may be a result of what we are doing. it also may be a result of an improved economy. we are also seeing plateauing obesity rates with young children, which may be the effort of wick beginning to pay off. i think there are positive signs. i would caution anybody that we are not going to see an overnight transformation of this. this is slow and steady change.

remember, the school lunch program started in 1946 because harry truman thought we didn't have enough people physically fit and strong enough and consuming enough calories to defend the country. now we have retired admirals and generals saying we have the opposite, kids are not physically fit enough to defend the country. it's going to take time. that's why it's important for congress to stay the course. it's important for congress to look for ways to improve the program, not to take a step back. >> that is a great ending to this. thank you for being here and for all you do. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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funding. this is just under two hours. >> thank you. good afternoon. this hearing will come to order. let me thank everyone for gathering earlier than we had anticipated due to votes being scheduled on the senate floor. we wanted to make sure that our young people here today did not have to sit for a long time. while members of this