As Congress looks to avoid the fiscal cliff, the Half in Ten campaign released a new report today that provides key insights into how America is faring on key indicators of cutting poverty and expanding opportunity for all.
Visit link →The House should reject the farm bill, which asks low and middle-income Americans to foot the bill for deficit reduction while asking nothing of the wealthiest Americans.
The gap between rich and poor Americans grew in 2011 as the poverty rate remained at almost a two-decade high.
The number of Americans at or near the federal poverty level is set to reach an all-time high in 2012, a point Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has used to bolster his election case against President Obama. Poverty has grown as high unemployment persists and wages remain stagnant, driving up income inequality and slowing down the nation’s economic recovery.
Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, joined a group of 102 other faith leaders this week urging Republican governors to drop their opposition to the Affordable Care Act and accept the law’s Medicaid expansion. “Depriving struggling families of healthcare is wholly incompatible with the teachings of our faiths and the ideals of our nation,” the statement reads.
Steve Bogira talks about the poverty data that came out yesterday, and discusses poverty trends over the last few years as well as the Democratic and Republican platforms as they relate to reducing poverty in our country. The article “5 things you need to know about the 2011 poverty data” by Half in Ten’s Melissa Boteach is referenced, showing how since 2000, poverty has crept upwards in good and bad times - meaning that economic growth has not trickled down to poor.
Catherine Dodge and Mike Dorning discuss the new 2011 poverty data, which show that while poverty has remained stable, the gap between the rich and the poor has expanded to the widest it has been in more than 40 years. Melissa Boteach is quoted. saying that gains from economic growth have not reached working families struggling at the bottom.”
The U.S. Census Bureau today released new data on poverty in 2011. Just looking at these headline numbers, however, misses some of the most important things the data tells us about growing income inequality, the state of the middle-class and more.
Today, in response to new Census Bureau data for 2011 that reveal an unchanged rate of poverty and declining middle class incomes, Half in Ten’s leadership issued the following statements.
Many books have been written about poverty in America. As part of the Shadow Conventions 2012, we’ve talked to experts across the country, in academia and thinktanks, authors and an Occupy Wall Street librarian, to track down the best reads about this serious and growing problem in the richest country on earth.
For all the talk by the presidential candidates about producing jobs, fixing the economy, and bolstering the country’s middle class, a dispiriting prospect looms ahead of November’s election: The nation’s poverty rate is poised to rise to its highest level since President Lyndon B. Johnson launched his war against it. New Census Bureau estimates are expected to be released this week, and even a small two-tenths tick upward would push the 2011 rate to the highest level since 1965. With nearly one in every six Americans now living in poverty, advocates for the poor say little attention is being paid to the issue and express concern over how this fall’s elections could influence government programs meant to aid the poor.