ms. gaines-turner. >> thank you, ms. lee, for your comments and thank you for your support constantly and pointing out how difficult it is. i feel like, you know, a lot of people don't know how difficult it is. i don't know one person, maybe in this room, that can juggle the things that me and my husband have to juggle every single day with having three children on medical disability going back and forth back to work, maybe having to take an underthe table job just to bring in extra money. there's not a lazy bone in my body. there are many people who live in the inner city under the poverty level that are not lazy. we want to be a part of the conversation. we want to have full-time jobs and go to school and go to college and things like that. i actually believe that certain people just put that stamp of lazy on us, to put a smokescreen, not really see what's going on, to point the finger at us, to look down at us, to try to humiliate us or twist our words, you know. i feel like we are the most -- every day we wake up and

ms. gaines-turner. >> thank you, ms. lee, for your comments and thank you for your support constantly and pointing out how difficult it is. i feel like, you know, a lot of people don't know how difficult it is. i don't know one person, maybe in this room, that can juggle the things that me and my husband have to juggle every single day with having three children on medical disability going back and forth back to work, maybe having to take an underthe table job just to bring in extra money. there's not a lazy bone in my body. there are many people who live in the inner city under the poverty level that are not lazy. we want to be a part of the conversation. we want to have full-time jobs and go to school and go to college and things like that. i actually believe that certain people just put that stamp of lazy on us, to put a smokescreen, not really see what's going on, to point the finger at us, to look down at us, to try to humiliate us or twist our words, you know. i feel like we are the most -- every day we wake up and

ms. is gaines-turner is here. she is the first of five hearings who herself has experienced the struggles of poverty and the effort to climb out. i think your personal testimony is especially important in that regard. as you state in your testimony, one of the keys there is making sure that work pays. when you have a job, you can lose have a job that supports the family. one of the things would've been trying to do in the house is at least raise the minimum wage from its current $7.25 an hour which is lower purchasing power than when harry truman was president. would like to raise it to $10.10 an hour which does not provide a living away job at least provide greater opportunities for people taking care of themselves and their families. we are still hoping to have a vote on that and many other issues that support work. we are pleased to have all these witnesses today to talk about how we can tackle this important challenge before us. thank you, mr. chairman and look forward to the conversation. >> thank you. to mak

ms. gaines-turner. drawing on the experience of folks who are working and the decisions between caring for a sick child or paying a utility the policy makers in general assume that once you are working, your financial issues and issues with poverty disappear. but that is not an accurate statement. >> thank you so much for your comment, and yes, that is not an accurate statement. just because you have a job and you have two people in a household like me that are working, that doesn't mean that everything is solved. that doesn't mean that you don't still need assistance, whether it be food stamps, medical, section eight housing, which we live in section eight housing, which in philadelphia i was on the waiting list 10 years, homeless twice with my son who is now 10 and my twins. there are so many different things to go along with hunger and poverty. you can't pinpoint one thing and say this isn't working so this is going to work. that is not true. once you get your foot in the door and you continue to wor