RFK adviser still fighting poverty

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BY DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star

Thirty-nine years ago, Peter Edelman was in Nebraska assisting Sen. Robert F. Kennedy as he won this state’s Democratic presidential primary election.

Edelman will return to the state this week to address an unresolved national challenge that served as a focal point of Kennedy’s 1968 campaign.

Progress in addressing poverty has been “kind of mixed overall and, to be honest, disappointing,” Edelman said Monday in a telephone interview from his Georgetown University office in Washington, D.C.

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Peter Edelman

Peter Edelman

“But I’m always optimistic,” he said.

Edelman recently co-chaired a Center for American Progress task force that designed a new anti-poverty agenda for the next president and Congress.

On Wednesday, he’ll be featured speaker at the Nebraska Appleseed Center’s awards dinner at the Ironwood Country Club in Omaha.

“There’s way too much low-wage work in our country,” Edelman said, and far too many children living in poverty.

If that’s the bad news, the good is that the number of elderly poor has declined, he said, largely because of improvements in Social Security and Medicare.

The growing number of poor children reflects “an increase in the number of single-parent households headed by females” employed in relatively low-wage jobs, Edelman said.

“We need to tackle the issue of low-wage work so people can get an adequate income from a combination of wages and public policy additions,” he said.

The nation also needs to increase its effort to assure a quality education for every child to break the cycle of poverty, he said.

The growing gap between the wealthy and the poor is beginning to demand attention, Edelman said.

“I think people now are becoming more concerned about the growing inequality that has occurred over the past six years,” he said.

“There is growing concern about the amount of money going into the pockets of the very wealthiest people, who are not paying their fair share of the costs of a good society.”

The Bush administration has instituted “some economic and fiscal policy that has been very damaging,” Edelman said, “putting our children in the position of holding the bag for paying off huge debt down the road.”

Edelman, who teaches law at Georgetown with an emphasis on poverty and encouraging students to become public interest lawyers, doesn’t remember much about Nebraska in 1968 except the victory.

It was “very important” for Kennedy in the opening weeks of his presidential bid, Edelman said, propelling him on to California.

Three weeks after his Nebraska victory, Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles.

In 2001, Edelman authored a book titled: “Searching for America’s Heart: RFK and the Renewal of Hope.”

Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.