Las Vegas had a unique set of economic circumstances that made it ground zero for welfare reform. Much of its economy is based around the casinos, most of which preferred to hire temporary part-time staff, firing and rehiring them seasonally. In order to keep a pool of low-paid employees available year-round, the casinos would help laid-off workers get on welfare.
If workers wanted to keep getting welfare benefits, they could not look for other jobs until the casinos wanted to hire them back, thusly keeping an entire population of largely Black people in a low-income cycle.
“As we say in the film, the biggest beneficiaries of welfare at the time were the casinos, and the state itself,” said Gurland-Pooler.
Duncan said the best thing that happened to her in the 1960s was to enroll in job training through the state welfare program. Not just because it taught her a new vocational skill, but mostly because it put her in a room with other mothers receiving welfare.
They talked. They shared stories. They met outside of work. The mothers formed a powerful mutual aid group that turned into a reform movement.
“Those great women, you know, you don’t catch hundreds and hundreds of women coming together like glue, without fighting,” said Duncan. “They are human. I am human. We got, sometimes, a little pissed. We could have a problem, but nothing kept us apart. Our children had to have the best. That’s what made the difference.”
Duncan never stopped fighting. She now gets around using an electric mobility scooter, and in the film we see her rolling through the Nevada state house meeting legislators. While she believes a new generation of people needs to take up the baton of poverty activism, she says she can’t be the one to lead them.
“My brain never stopped. My mind never stopped rolling. I just wished I could pull this out and put it into the heads of people that don’t understand that they have the power,” she said. “I want them to vote.”
The welfare system that Duncan raised her children in no longer exists. The AFDC was shut down by President Clinton in 1997, replaced with the more restrictive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
Public assistance now comes in many forms, including Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), and a similar program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), administered by states which can decide for themselves how to distribute funds.
There was also the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income families, which was enhanced during the COVID-19 pandemic. But earlier this year Republicans in Congress did not renew the policy. Politicians may or may not bring it back.
“The thing to remember is that poverty is a choice in this country. It’s a policy decision that’s being made by our politicians,” said Gurland-Pooler. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Storming Caesars Palace” will not be screened again during the BlackStar festival. Gurland-Pooler said the documentary will be broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens next year. Until then she plans to screen it in as many festivals and schools as she can.
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