Last year, Excluded Workers, who are left out of COVID-19 relief and other safety nets, won a one-time payment of about $1,200 each in cash assistance as part of the FY23 budget. Mayor Bowser is attempting to steal that money in her FY23 Supplemental Budget. The DC Council has the power to stop her!

Some Councilmembers are working hard to try and restore the funds to excluded workers, but Chairman Mendelson is not one of them! Frustratingly, Chairman Phil Mendelson has been much more vocal in keeping "promises" to downtown corporate interests and silent about support for DC's most vulnerable and essential workforce. During the May 16th Committee of the Whole meeting, the Chairman vocally opposed extending the Deed Tax for downtown businesses to generate funding for essential social safety net programs, saying, "we send a message to the community, whoever the community is, when we don't honor our promise." Sadly, the "community" the Chairman references is downtown business interests and not Excluded Workers.

Join us in telling Chairman Mendelson to keep his promises to the excluded workers not corporations!

Excluded Workers represent gig workers, undocumented workers, formerly incarcerated workers, restaurant workers, domestic workers, and cash economy workers who were left out of pandemic relief. They are disproportionately impacted by reductions in SNAP benefits, increases in food costs, a looming 8.9% rent increase, and now a loss of anticipated DC Cares funding. In hallmark legislation that set a national standard, the DC City Council collaborated with the DC Excluded Worker Coalition and local area non-profits to establish a 3-year program, DC Cares, which would restore support to workers left out of pandemic relief and traditional unemployment benefits. Little did Excluded Workers know Mayor Bowser would attempt to steal those funds a few years later.

Take one minute to send a letter to Chairman Mendelson and ask him to not exclude excluded workers again.