Cell Phones Seen as Vital to Hispanics for Employment, Health, and Public Safety; Loss Would Hit Hispanics Particularly Hard in New York City, Chicago, Cities Across Texas and Florida, Phoenix, Denver, Washington, D.C.
Millions of Hispanics depend on the federal wireless Lifeline program for employment, health, and public safety reasons and would be unfairly burdened by a rollback of the program, according to a statement that will be delivered Wednesday (August 28, 2013) during a news conference held by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the largest and oldest Hispanic organization in the United States.
LULAC will weigh in on the importance of wireless Lifeline out of a concern that the views of Hispanics about the federal program have not been heard to date. One key concern is that eligible low-income Hispanics are under-enrolled in the federal program and therefore would be doubly disadvantaged if the program is cut back from current levels.
Based on estimates of current Hispanic enrollment in the wireless Lifeline program, cuts or the outright elimination of the program would have a huge impact on the 5,000 or more Hispanics now benefiting from wireless Lifeline in each of the following cities: New York City, Chicago, Houston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Phoenix, Denver, Miami/Ft Lauderdale, Washington, DC., El Paso and Albuquerque, NM. Estimates of current Hispanic enrollees in each market will be provided during the news event.
News event speakers will be:
Brent A Wilkes, executive director, League of United Latin American Citizens; and
Nicholas P. Sullivan fellow, Center for Emerging Market Enterprises, The Fletcher School (Tufts University), and author, “Subsidized Cell Phones Provide Significant Economic Gains for Poor and Near-Poor Americans” (New Millennium Research Council, 2011, http://www.newmillenniumresearch.org/archive/NMRC_Sullivan_report_021011.pdf).
TO PARTICIPATE: You can join this live, phone-based news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 1 p.m. EDT on August 28, 2013 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the “Hispanics and wireless Lifeline” news event.
CAN’T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio replay of this news event will be available by 5 p.m. EDT on August 28, 2013 at www.lulac.org/lifeline.