CHN just released a special edition of the Human Needs Report focusing on President Biden’s FY22 budget request. Read on for an overview of the request and details from select government departments that most directly impact people with low incomes.
Archives: Voices
Emerging from the pandemic: How we place America’s children and families on a path to prosperity
Emerging from the pandemic will neither be easy for America nor for America’s children. Many have experienced hunger and live in households anxious over possible eviction. Many have not been able to learn effectively without adequate access to the internet. Children of color and children in families with low incomes have been disproportionately harmed, sometimes by the deaths of loved ones from COVID-19. But the groundbreaking proposals put forth by the Biden Administration give us hope that America’s children and families will have the resources and programs they need to place them on a path toward recovery and prosperity.
COVID-19 brought unique challenges, both for college students and those outside the college track
With online learning transitions, many students lost the resources and financial assistance their schools provided them. Combined with decreased availability of short-term employment and increased risk of front-facing jobs, many education plans have been uprooted.
COVID-19 magnified America’s housing crisis for families with children
Homelessness and insecure housing have received attention from policy researchers as growing evidence of their harm has surfaced. Links between experiencing homelessness and poor health outcomes are long-lasting and harmful for marginalized communities and families, especially those with young children.
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship May 28, 2021
They Don’t Care Why You’re Out of Work edition. So far, 24 states have announced they will terminate federal pandemic unemployment benefits sometime in June, months before they will expire. They don’t seem to have tighter labor markets than the other states; rather, the early ends to UI look tied to politics, not economics. And it sure may force some people back to work in low-paying and even unsafe jobs.
CHN’s Podcast Episode 1: Raising the Federal Minimum Wage
In our first episode of the Voices for Human Needs Podcast, hear from three policy advocates, activists, and organizers discuss the top-line impacts of raising the federal minimum wage through the Raise the Wage Act, the disproportionate impacts of a low federal minimum wage on women workers and BIPOC workers, and what listeners can do to organize in your communities in support of One Fair Wage.
COVID-19 and children: An ongoing nutrition crisis
When COVID-19 struck, hunger among children increased sharply. By March of this year, up to 8.8 million children lived in households reporting that their children did not have enough to eat in the past 7 days. Before the pandemic, in December of 2019, 1.1 million children were in households in which children did not have enough to eat at some point in the previous 30 days.
The long-term impact of COVID-19: Assessing the pandemic’s youngest victims
Possibly the broadest impact of COVID-19 lies in its economic ramifications. From the effect of lockdowns on labor practices and employment to the loss of community supports and services that require in-person attention, the pandemic pushed apart cracks in a faltering social safety net in America. As more households fall into poverty, children have become one of the pandemic’s biggest victims. Beginning today, a new Voices for Human Needs series of blog posts will highlight how the pandemic has harmed children and families in poverty, focusing on children of all ages and how key risk factors have evolved in the age of COVID-19.
For some, no ID has meant no COVID-19 vaccination
Miguel has tried twice to get the COVID-19 vaccination. So far, he’s 0 for 2. As an undocumented construction worker living in crowded conditions outside of Miami, Miguel is a prime example of someone who needs the COVID-19 vaccination – as well as representative of a population public health officials acutely want to see vaccinated. But like millions of people living in the U.S., Miguel lacks state-issued identification.
Small business owners praise Biden proposals, bemoan pro-corporate tilt of America’s tax code
Rosalind McCallard lives in Portland, Oregon. Along with her husband, she owns Snackrilege Vegan Foods, which she cheerfully describes as the “only wholesale heavy metal-themed sandwich company in the world – at least in the U.S., but probably the world!” McCallard and her husband favor President Biden’s plan to more progressively tax corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay for the proposed American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan.
The Big Tax Day choice: Invest in America, or let corporations and the rich off the hook
Human needs advocates, grassroots organizers, key public officials, and tax policy and other experts came together this week to promote President Biden’s plans to bring fairness and equity to the nation’s tax code. Officially, the “Tax Fairness Day” event, which was live-streamed on Facebook, marked the May 17 deadline for Americans to file their taxes (moved back, courtesy of COVID-19). Unofficially, speakers came together to praise Biden’s proposed American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, and the means to pay for them.
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship May 14, 2021
The where-are-the-good-jobs edition. The economy is growing in fits and starts. More than one million combined jobs were added during the months of March and April — although the April jobs report was nothing to write home about. But evidence is emerging that many of the jobs that are returning are not good jobs; they pay low wages, have few benefits, or fall short in other measures of job quality. That contradicts the narrative of governors in 12 states terminating federal unemployment benefits. These governors claim that the extra unemployment benefits, that may exceed wages in low-paying jobs, are discouraging workers from returning to work.