has it worked? no. reporter: we first met ann valdez four years ago. she was living with her children in this apartment complex. poverty is very demoralizing. reporter: welfare and food stamps got her by, barely, as she looked for work. we came back a year later to see how ann was doing. has the situation gotten better for you? reporter: no, it hasn t changed much. her son said this is what he wanted to see. senator, congressman, even the mayor to come down here, see what is going on. see how destroyed these neighborhoods are. the spirits of these people. they are completely gone. reporter: a long struggle with skoelly yoes sis means she
i want opportunity and people s wages to go up. yeah, i know. we all do. but most republicans, by the way excuse me. people s wages have gone down 8% in seven years. not just stayed the same. wolf, may i go ahead. respond to most republicans believe in abolishing the concept of the minimum wage so that employers in america can pay workers 3 or $4 an hour. you know, all of this is i don t know that it s most. in the senate, by the way all we ve heard are these broad-brushed generalized statements. what we haven t heard is how one job is going to be created for ann. ann wants a check. those poor kids sitting in the kitchen, that woman needs to be able to buy a home, own a car, move up, help her kids. we ve had the trickle-down economic not these economic war on women that the president has been putting forth for the last five years.
education. she wants a job. ann wants a job. i heard her say she wants a job and to be able to support her family. i think she also said she needs education in order to get the job and if you don t have any money, it s hard to get education. but in america we have higher education, we ve got a great educational system. she needs access to that. excuse me. in america you have a college education system where costs are soaring, where kids leaving school 25, $50,000 in debt and hundreds and thousands of young people have given up college. and it s an american policy when it comes to college education. if you look at the correlation, the federal government has increased the cost of education and now there s a trillion dollars of debt outstanding from american kids. you ve got it a little bit backwards and i think the idea that solving the very serious problem of declining middle class and the growing gap
between the wealthy and everybody else is to do what miss bachmann and perhaps yourself you want to cut social security and that is absolutely a lie. it s brought up all the time and it s a lie. let s face is, senator sanders. you shouldn t be lying about what our position is. i m not lying. ask me. do i want to cut social security? no. i m not cutting social security. that s not what i m doing. do you support a change cpi? do you support a change cpi? it is a joke for the democrat party to lie about what our position is. hold on. i asked you a question. you didn t give me an answer. well, calm down. do you support change cpi? calm down. the reality is, we want ann s life to be better because president obama has created an economic war on women so that women are saying, i can t even buy propane to heat my house and now my health insurance premiums