Plunging millions back into poverty: After historic reduction in 2021, some in Congress forced a painful reversal
CHN Staff,
September 12, 2023
In 2021, poverty and child poverty declined to historic lows. There were 3.37 million fewer poor children in 2021 than in 2020, a drop from 9.7 percent to 5.2 percent of children in poverty in just that one year. But in 2022, this unprecedented progress was painfully reversed. The number of poor children rose by a stunning 5.1 million children over the previous year, increasing to 12.4 percent of all children.
681 groups tell Congress: Responsibly fund needed services and reject the chaos of a government shutdown
CHN Staff,
September 12, 2023
The Coalition on Human Needs and 681 local, state, and national groups delivered a message to Congress Tuesday: do your duty and keep government running. The groups delivered a letter to every member of the House and Senate urging passage of a clean, bipartisan continuing resolution (CR), including “emergency funding that supports current services and addresses urgent needs and is free of poison pill policy riders that are harmful and irrelevant to the functions of government.”
CHN’s Human Needs Watch: Tracking Hardship, September 11, 2023
CHN Staff,
September 11, 2023
The not everyone back to school edition. It’s September, and our children really should be back at school. But millions are missing – described as chronically absent. Why? Part of the explanation may be academic disengagement during the pandemic. Another part is the nation’s youth mental health crisis – the two causes are probably related, although the youth mental health crisis existed before the pandemic began.
Survey: The end of expanded Child Tax Credit payments led to financial stress for many
David Elliot,
September 1, 2023
When expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments ended in December 2021, many families had a harder time paying bills and putting food on the table, and their levels of financial stress increased. That’s one of many findings of a recently released survey of more than 1,000 households that received in the benefits in the continental U.S., and another 500 households in Puerto Rico.
With Tuesday’s announcement, lower drug prices closer for millions of Americans
David Elliot,
August 29, 2023
A key provision to reduce prices for seniors came closer to reality Tuesday as the Biden Administration announced the first ten prescription drugs that will be subject to price negotiations between pharmaceutical companies and Medicare. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, Medicare now has the power to directly negotiate drug prices with manufacturers for the first time in the federal program’s nearly 60-year history.
