With the arrival of warm weather, health officials in the U.S. say it is not a matter of if but when we will see a widespread outbreak of the mosquito-borne Zika virus. Are we ready for it? No, we are not. Stateline, an initiative of Pew Charitable Trusts, recently reported…
Archives: Voices
Join the #TaxChat Tweetchat on March 15
Tax Day is a little over one month away. In the lead up to the big day, CHN will be joining MomsRising, Americans for Tax Fairness, National Priorities Project, National Women’s Law Center and others on Tuesday, March 15th at 2pm ET for a #TaxChat tweetchat. We hope you’ll be…
Head Smacker: What Could We Do with $695 billion?
Imagine what our country could do with an additional $695 billion. Imagine the number of schools we could build. The number of teachers we could hire (and the decent salaries we could pay!) The number of child care and early childhood education slots we could fill. Imagine how we could…
Will We Remember Flint?
Rachel Mingo has 11 reasons to be concerned about the lead poisoning scandal in Flint, Michigan. First, there’s her and her husband, who together recently bought a home in Flint. Then there’s her 2-year-old daughter Madilyn and her three-year-old son Maverick. Finally, there are her seven brothers, all single, all…
Senate Must Act to Help Flint Residents
At a fundraising event live-streamed from Flint, Michigan this past Sunday, Flint schoolchildren spoke to their neighbors and the nation. Jeremiah described his headaches, memory loss and stomach pain, and his three months of missed school. The children were resilient and brave, and they need and deserve urgent and continuing…
‘We Ate that Food and Swallowed Our Pride’
[Editor’s note: Today Sherry Brennan works as a high-ranking TV executive. But it wasn’t always that way. Growing up, Sherry’s family received SNAP and WIC benefits, and Sherry benefited from the National School Lunch Program as a high school student in Austin, Texas. This past weekend, Sherry was part of…
Since 2010, Human Needs Programs Suffer Congress’ Budget Ax
This piece originally appeared in The Hill’s Congress Blog on February 29. Advocates for human needs breathed an audible sigh of relief this past December when Congress reached a budget agreement that prevented the next round of sequestration cuts from taking place. And congressional action helped: of 164 human needs…
Human Needs Report: House Budget Delayed, Slow Response to the Flint Lead Poisoning Emergency, and a Bill to Fight Opioid Addiction
CHN just released our latest edition of the Human Needs Report, our regular newsletter on national policy issues affecting low-income and vulnerable populations. This edition includes articles on the House FY17 budget delay, the Flint, MI lead poisoning emergency, and a bill to fight opioid addiction moving in the Senate. See below for the full…
Truth in Payday Lending: James’ Story
This post was originally published on the National Council of La Raza’s blog on February 24. This week we begin a brand new series to highlight the struggles many Latinos have endured because of payday lending services that have trapped them in a vicious and costly cycle. The Consumer Financial…
Pfizer’s Tax Dodge and the Impllications for Human Needs
One hundred and sixty-six years after its founding in New York City, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies is about to renounce its American identity. But not its American profits. Pfizer, which makes the popular drugs Celebrex, Lipitor, Lyrica and Viagra, among others, wants to merge with fellow drug firm…
Fact of the Week: 85 Percent of Critical Human Needs Programs Have Lost Ground Since 2010
Out of the more than 160 programs tracked by CHN that assist low-income people, 139 saw funding cuts from FY2010 through FY2016 after taking inflation into account. But it wasn’t just inflation eroding the value of the funding. New research by CHN found that nearly half of the programs (67…
Sharon, Tamara, and Living on $2 a Day
Back in December we hosted a webinar featuring Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Schaefer, the authors of $2 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, as well as a panel of experts on poverty: Sharon and Tamara, who have experienced abject poverty first-hand and survived to share their…