Whirlpool (the appliance manufacturer) donated washers and driers to schools and increased attendance.
According to Whirlpool's research, one in five school children report difficulty finding clean clothes to wear to school. It turns out that offering free in-school laundry services to kids with attendance problems increases their attendance.
When compared to factors like economic opportunity, unemployment, and institutional racism, laundry seems pretty inconsequential in the fight to keep kids in school. But while that might be the case for their parents, for a ten-year-old who already has the odds stacked against them, having nothing clean to wear to school could be the deciding factor in whether or not they want to face their classmates that day.
I can remember my grandmother telling me that she thought lunches in schools were a wonderful innovation, because they didn't have anything like that when she was a girl, and many children couldn't come because they wouldn't have lunch. I'm sure back then nobody thought of lunch as something school should provide. Now apparently laundry is the next big innovation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @12:44AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill [wikipedia.org]
Fuck, let just change the value of pi while we're at it and "vote" instantaneous world peace.
We can then disband the government since all the work is done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @01:21AM
Did I forget to mention Kshama Sawant? [google.com]
That professor of Economics and member of the Socialist Alternative Party got herself elected to the Seattle City Council and, within a year, got a $15 minimum wage enacted there, as had been the main plank of her platform.
Cities across the nation are following suit.
It won't be long until there is a nationwide $15 minimum wage.
(I expect Trump to cost the Republicans a bunch of seats this time around.)
...and, if wages had kept up with productivity or inflation, the minimum wage would be over $22.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:56AM
You forgot to mention that Seattle is now in the top ten for highest cost of living.