Our Path Forward: Advocates nationwide join in CHN’s webinar on how to protect people despite threats from the new Administration and Congress
January 15, 2025
Brand new data and reports show impact of expanded CTC: ‘This is huge for low-income families’
David Elliot,
August 27, 2021
Last week, Voices for Human Needs discussed recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse survey that showed the first round of child tax credits – distributed beginning July 15 – caused a significant drop in hunger and economic hardship. Now the Census Bureau, as reported by the Economic Security Project, has released brand new data, collected after the second installment of payments was distributed in August. And the news is even better. The new figures show that hunger among families with kids has now dropped from 11 percent before the expanded CTC payments to 7.7 percent – last month, that figure was 8.4 percent.
America’s caregivers need a pay raise. Congress can give them one.
David Elliot,
August 25, 2021
Chandra Campos works as a caregiver in San Luis Valley, a picturesque part of south-central Colorado punctuated by the Rio Grande River, whose headwaters lay just north. Caregivers in that part of the state are in short supply – meaning Chandra has lots of work helping clients dress themselves, bathe, and making sure they get enough to eat – the things that enable people to live independently at home instead of in long-term care facilities.
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship August 20, 2021
CHN Staff,
August 20, 2021
The CTC-and-SNAP-to-the-rescue edition. The Delta variant is spreading rapidly, making up more than 98 percent of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. The daily death rate is roughly double what it was at the beginning of August. Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi are seeing their highest daily caseloads since the start of the pandemic. Alabama has run out of ICU beds. “It’s absolutely due to delta; it’s absolutely due to unvaccinated people,” said David Wohl, a specialist in infectious diseases at the University of North Carolina. “There is an incredible increase in hospitalizations across the spectrum, from just needing oxygen and some care to needing serious interventions to keep people alive. If everyone was vaccinated, our hospitals would not be anywhere near where we are.”
The CTC expansion is doing exactly what it was meant to do – and families and children are benefiting
David Elliot,
August 18, 2021
Endia Villar, a working mom in Allen, Texas, with a two-year-old daughter and a baby on the way, was recently asked how she spent the $300 child tax credit deposit she received last month. “Groceries,” she said. “I am pregnant, and I eat like a teenage boy. We needed more food. So it – it worked out perfectly.” Endia is not alone. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse survey, 47 percent of parents receiving the expanded benefit used at least some of the funds on food.
“With Immigrants We Rise:” Advocates wrap up week of national action
David Elliot,
August 13, 2021
In conjunction with the We Are Home campaign, People’s Action and the Coalition on Human Needs this week launched a national week of action to urge Congress to include Dreamers, immigrants who came here fleeing natural disasters or violence in their home countries, and essential workers, including farmworkers, in the Senate’s budget resolution.
