Anti-poverty advocates gathered in the U.S. Capitol Wednesday as House Democrats convened a hearing on poverty in the U.S. The hearing came after the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival this summer called on Congress to convene a bipartisan hearing to focus attention on policies that have…
Archives: Voices
Fact of the Week: Drop in uninsured rates for low-income rural residents is three times larger in Medicaid expansion states
The uninsured rate for low-income adults has decreased in the last several years across America, thanks in large part to the Affordable Care Act. But small towns and rural areas of states that have expanded Medicaid have seen the sharpest decline in uninsured rates. That’s one of the findings of…
Trump’s Public Charge proposal: A ‘sicker, hungrier, poorer nation’
Deborah Weinstein, Executive Director of the Coalition on Human Needs, issued the following statement Monday in response to the Trump Administration’s proposed Department of Homeland Security Public Charge rule regarding immigrants: “The Trump Administration’s proposed Public Charge rule is the latest in a series of unconscionable attacks on immigrants and…
I know West Virginia kids depend on SNAP. I was one.
Editor’s note: The following op-ed, by Teresa Blake-Allen, appeared in the Sept. 20, 2018 edition of the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Blake-Allen is a school teacher at South Harrison Middle School in Lost Creek, West Virginia. By Teresa Blake-Allen Congress is debating the future of a program that is key to feeding…
Child Poverty Should Be a National Outrage
Editor’s note:This post was written by Bruce Lesley, President of First Focus, Rev. Douglas Greenaway, President and CEO of the National WIC Association, and John Bouman, President of Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. It was previously posted on Medium on September 17. Whether you have children or not, it’s…
Resources from around the Coalition: 2017 Census poverty data
Editor’s note: The following blog post was written by Makenna Whitworth, CHN’s Fall 2018 intern. On Wednesday, September 12 and Thursday, September 13, the U.S. Census Bureau released the latest national, state, and local data about income, poverty, and health insurance. Since then, CHN and its members have been busy assessing…
Hurricane Trump
As Hurricane Florence prepares to make landfall somewhere in the Carolinas, many who live along the Eastern Seaboard are questioning whether federal authorities are prepared to help them weather the disaster. And President Trump doesn’t seem to be helping – neither do reports out this week about alleged corrupt conduct…
Progress in Fighting Poverty Slows — And for the First Time in Years, the Number of Uninsured Americans Does Not Significantly Decline
Editor’s note: CHN on Wednesday, Sept. 12 issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest census and poverty data. For more information, please visit our 2017 Census and Poverty Data Resource Page. After years of progress, the decline in the poverty rate slowed between 2016 and…
Kavanaugh Hearings: Justice Kennedy Was a Voice of Reason on Youth Justice, Now What?
Editor’s note: This piece was written by Brian Evans, State Campaigns Director at Campaign for Youth Justice. It was originally published on CFYJ’s blog on September 5. CHN is urging national-scope organizations to sign a letter opposing Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Additional signers will be accepted until 11am…
You can teach kids hard work, but feed them first
Editor’s note: The following piece is cross-posted from OtherWords. Growing up, I hated being on “food stamps.” I hated being walked into a welfare office and inspected, queried to make sure we were really our mother’s children. I hated standing in line at the grocery store, knowing we weren’t going…
President Trump’s Labor Day contempt for workers
It’s Labor Day Weekend. President Trump has just ordered a pay freeze for federal workers to start in January. Although of course his action is particularly brazen coming just before a national celebration of workers, it is far from the only expression of contempt for workers coming out of the…
Opposing Kavanaugh’s Confirmation
“[Judge Kavanaugh’s] opinions threaten people across the economic spectrum, but their consequences will fall especially heavily on the poor and near poor, communities of color, immigrants, and people with disabilities.” CHN doesn’t usually work on judicial appointments. But we’ve looked at Judge Kavanaugh’s record and have concluded his positions pose…