On Saturday, voting rights advocates will gather, in-person or online, in more than 100 communities throughout the country to mark the “National John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Action Day.” The actions could not be more timely. Across the country, state legislatures continue to advance barriers to voting, spurred in part by what many are calling the “Big Lie” — the oft-refuted notion that the November 2020 elections were replete with error and fraud.
Archives: Voices
Help Wanted: Four Million-plus Workers to Care for an Aging America
Fact: the U.S. birth rate is declining. If the birth rate in 2008 had held steady through today, we would have an additional 5.8 million children in our country. Fact: by 2034, for the first time in U.S. history, Americans over 65 years old will outnumber Americans under 18. This will accelerate the need for people to take care of this aging population. Fact: an acute shortage of home care workers already exists, and without aggressive intervention by federal and state governments as well as the corporate sector, it will get much worse. Fact: the average hourly wage for a home care worker is about $12 per hour, and one in six lives in poverty.
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship, April 30, 2021
The lifting up families and children edition. Fourteen weeks into his term in office, President Biden told the American public Wednesday evening that the twin battles to beat the pandemic and improve the economy are succeeding. “Now — after just 100 days – I can report to the nation: America is on the move again,” Biden said. “Turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Setbacks into strength.” But Biden and his team know this is not the time to settle for a return to the pre-pandemic status quo.
CHN: President Biden’s Historic Investments to Secure Our Future
Over the years, anti-poverty advocates have often been disappointed when political candidates or officials failed to mention the problem of poverty in America in speeches or debates. Last night was different. President Biden, in his first address to a joint session of Congress, said ‘And, maybe most importantly, thanks to the American Rescue Plan, we are on track to cut child poverty in America in half this year.’
CHN members praise verdict in George Floyd murder trial but warn that our work is not done
CHN member organizations had a lot to say in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder trial. Here is a sampling of their comments.
Join SAVE for All and fight for our human needs agenda
The Coalition on Human Needs is asking local, state, and national groups as well as individuals to become a part of the SAVE for All Campaign. SAVE stands for Strengthening America’s Values and Economy for All. SAVE for All is a campaign of thousands of national, state, and local organizations working to protect important services from harmful federal budget cuts and to save the federal capacity to spur economic recovery and progress for the benefit of all.
CHN’s latest Human Needs Report: Biden’s American Jobs Plan, hate crimes legislation and more
CHN just released another edition of the Human Needs Report. Read on for a breakdown of what’s in President Biden’s American Jobs Plan and FY22 budget request, a hate crimes bill moving in Congress, and more.
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship April 16, 2021
The infrastructure is more than roads and bridges edition. Infrastructure can be physical – roads, bridges, housing, broadband, and safe water, for example. But we also must invest in human infrastructure – care work and job training are prime examples. As the U.S. begins what experts fear could be a long and arduous trek to economic recovery, we have important choices to make. Will we go small, essentially applying a band-aid or two to an economy ravaged by pandemic and recession? Or will we make the sound and robust investments we need to rebuild in a way that would promote opportunity and racial and gender equality and make the post-World War II generations proud? The choice is ours. The path we choose will say much about who we are and our aspirations as a potentially great nation.
Has the Child Tax Credit finally come of age?
In 1992, the year Bill Clinton was elected President, the U.S. was struggling to emerge from the worst recession in a decade. But even before Clinton was a blip on any political pundit’s radar screen, something significant happened, the ramifications of which are about to be experienced – and in a very good way. In 1991, the bipartisan National Commission on Children recommended a $1,000 annual tax credit for every child through age 18 in response to slow wage growth, higher costs of living, and a growing tax burden for average households. Even families that earned too little to owe federal income taxes would get the refundable credit.
In housing and hunger, a return to decency at last
In recent weeks, the Biden Administration has taken two major steps that will allow 25,000 mixed-status families to remain in public housing and will help millions of Americans struggling with food insecurity put food on the table. Both steps reverse cruel decisions by the Trump Administration that disproportionately threatened people with low incomes, people of color, immigrants, and children.
What we can learn from a Universal Basic Income for the expanded Child Tax Credit
A basic income pilot in Stockton, California provided $500 monthly payments to 125 residents with no strings attached. From improved family wellbeing and financial stability to an increase in full-time employment, these positive impacts hold hope for the refundable Child Tax Credit (CTC).
2021 State of America’s Children: ‘Our Children Are Not Immune’
A Black U.S. public school student was suspended every four seconds in 2019, based on a 180-day school year. Every 28 seconds, a Latinx student dropped out of high school. And every 33 minutes, An American Indian/Alaskan Native student was arrested. Those are just some nuggets of information included in the latest State of America’s Children report, an annual report published by the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF).