President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 sets a responsible course for rebuilding the economy so that it works for everyone, not just the privileged few.
Republican presidential candidates over the past few months engaged in 25 public debates, sharing their views on a wide range of issues from who best embodies the ideals of former President Ronald Reagan to why the wealthy deserve more tax breaks. Yet in all of these engagements, the candidates rarely took the opportunity to present a comprehensive strategy to support our nation’s young Americans.
Panel of poverty experts discuss the human impact of poverty in America, and Melissa Boteach discusses what the government can do to address it.
Half in Ten applauds the progressive policy agenda outlined by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The president’s focus on higher education, job creation, and equitable tax policies will help strengthen the middle class, and it represents the types of aggressive steps that are necessary in the near term if we are to achieve our goal of cutting poverty in half over the next decade.
How much does hunger cost our economy each year? Test your knowledge of this and other questions with Half in Ten’s latest interactive quiz on poverty and effective policy solutions.
Occupy Wall Street’s two-month anniversary along with the recent setbacks protesters are now experiencing in New York City, Oakland, and elsewhere suggest that now is a good time for reflection on how the movement reflects the plight of poor and low-income Americans and has the power to draw the bright light of the media on often neglected issues.
Today the Census Bureau released the 2010 supplemental poverty measure, or SPM, which reveals that last year 16 percent of the population lived in poverty, higher than the 15.2 percent the traditional measure shows. This new measure better reflects the medical out of pocket costs and work expenses that families face such as child care and transportation, and takes into account the impact of public policies such as the earned income tax credit and SNAP/food stamps program in keeping people out of poverty.
The U.S. Census Bureau today released new data that provided a more detailed picture of poverty and hardship in the United States. For the first time, the Bureau released 2010 poverty statistics under a new Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM).
The new report offers a comprehensive look at a record 46.2 million people living in poverty in the nation today, and lays out the key indicators within four categories that Half in Ten will track to measure progress towards its goal: overall poverty in the US, more good jobs, strengthening families and communities, and family economic security.
The 99 percent movement has given voice to a sentiment that is felt around the kitchen tables as much as it is reflected in most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau: Wealth is concentrating in the top one percent, while the middle-class is eroding and the ranks of the poor are growing. We’re coming out of a lost decade in which poverty increased and median incomes declined despite overall increases in worker productivity and corporate profits.