Tuesday, March 20 marks six months since Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc on Puerto Rico, killing more than 1,000 people, destroying tens of thousands of homes, darkening much of the island for months, cutting access to clean water and uprooting the lives of millions of U.S. citizens. Today protesters will gather…
Archives: Voices
Left behind after Hurricane Maria: Puerto Rico’s Children
Even before Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico with historic, sustained, 155-mile-per-hour winds, the U.S. island was facing an economic catastrophe of unprecedented magnitude. For more than a decade, following a disastrous, U.S.-enforced tax policy that took effect around 2006, Puerto Rico shed jobs, suffered a loss of economic vitality, and…
Child care advocates deliver more than 43,000 petitions in support of Child Care for Working Families Act
Editor’s note: This piece was written by Jessica Church, Advocacy Manager for Child Care at the National Women’s Law Center. It was originally published on the National Women’s Law Center’s website on March 9. Several of the groups that participated in the event described below, including NWLC, are members of…
Fact of the Week: Only 1 in 4 unemployed workers receives unemployment insurance, a near historic low
Only 27 percent of unemployed workers received unemployment insurance in 2016 – a near historic low – according to a recent report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP). The report also found that the percentage of jobless workers receiving unemployment insurance (UI) has declined by 25 percent nationwide since…
Honor people lost to gun violence by seeing them and taking action
Today students around the nation walked out of class for 17 minutes to commemorate the lives of those killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It is the one-month anniversary of their deaths, and participants are shining a spotlight on Congress’ failure to act to curb…
“Dear National Rifle Association: We Won’t Let You Win. From, Teenagers.”
Students from coast to coast walked out of school today, with many observing 17 minutes of silence in memory of the 17 victims of the most recent mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The National School Walkout was loosely organized by EMPOWER, the youth…
The real reasoning behind Medicaid work requirements
Back in January, I wrote a piece for this blog about a move by the Trump administration to allow states to impose work requirements for Medicaid recipients. Since then, three states – Kentucky, Indiana, and Arkansas – have received federal approval to allow them to establish work requirements for adult…
Rallying for the Dreamers
Dreamers and their advocates gathered Monday in at least a dozen communities throughout the U.S. as a Trump-imposed six-month deadline for resolving their immigration status came and went with no action from Congress. In Washington, D.C., advocates flooded Capitol Hill to pressure lawmakers to reach a deal – and it…
The Human Needs Report: Spending and budget work, immigration proposals, gun control measures, and more
CHN just released another edition of the Human Needs Report. Read on for the latest on Congress’s spending and budget work, immigration proposals, gun control measures, and much more. Click here for a PDF version. Appropriations Work Continues as Congress Approaches March 23 Deadline Appropriators continued negotiations through the weekend…
A bit of good news for some Dreamers, but a real solution is needed
Dreamers, whose lives have been turned upside down in the past few months, received a small amount of good news on Monday. That’s when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to speed up the legal fight over ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The notice came just one…
Condescension in a box: The Trump administration’s SNAP proposal
Earlier this month, as part of its overall budget plan, the Trump administration proposed a radical restructuring of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. The changes would involve $213 billion in cuts over a decade, and one fundamental change would mean that just over 80…
Janus vs. AFSCME: An attack not just on labor unions, but on lower- and middle-income America
Editor’s note: Deborah Weinstein, Executive Director of the Coalition on Human Needs, issued the following statement Monday, Feb. 26 in response to oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus vs. AFSCME. “Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could adversely affect millions of working…