Archives: Voices

Child Care Centers and the Quality Improvement Catch-22

This post was originally published on the Half in Ten Education Fund’s TalkPoverty blog on October 22. Quality, affordable child care is not only right and necessary to prepare children to learn; it’s also needed if low-income working parents are to have a shot at working their way out of poverty….

The Intersection of Poverty and Domestic Violence

We know that poverty disproportionately affects women and single moms. In 2013, nearly 16 percent of women and nearly 40 percent of families with children headed by a woman lived in poverty, higher than their male counterparts. We know that women who are poor are more likely to suffer from health…

Poverty in the 50 Biggest U.S. Cities

As we noted in our Head Smacker last week, poverty is rampant in cities across America. And poverty among children in cities is even higher. We did a little more digging on this subject and, using recently-released Census Bureau data for 2013, put together a table showing poverty in the…

Fact of the Week: Those with Less Give More

While millions of Americans struggled through the Great Recession and in the years that followed, the need seen by charities was higher than ever. Many charities experienced a decline in donations during these years. However, those who struggled the most found a way to dig even deeper into their pockets…

You Won’t Believe How Little $8.25 an Hour Buys

This post was originally published on Oxfam America’s First Person blog on Sept. 29. For my hard-working family and friends who earn just above the U.S. minimum wage, a paycheck doesn’t go very far. My daughter struck it lucky when she landed a job for $8.25 an hour at the local…

Head Smacker: Poverty is Rampant in Cities. Where is the Urgent Response?

One in seven Americans is poor.  But what if poverty were far more prevalent – say, if one in four were poor.  What if the concentration of poverty among children were still higher:  at least one in three.  At those very high levels, we would expect many things to go wrong. …

What’s the State of Poverty in Your State? – Part 2

Last week, we highlighted some of the fabulous work our state partners did surrounding the reports on poverty in their states that they released in conjunction with CHN . The work continued this week, with even more organizations releasing reports based on the new Census Bureau data, and spreading the word…

Some Say $10.10 Would Hurt Business, But Most Business People Disagree

This post was originally published on Oxfam America’s blog, The Politics of Poverty, on Oct. 2. U.S. businesses are in. The American public is in. So what’s next on the minimum wage, Congress? It has long been the argument from some voices in business—or at least their Washington lobbyists and…