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Time for Collective Action (and Other Lessons from Duck Run)
Growing up, I lived out in the country in southern Ohio on a road called Duck Run. It was sort of a secluded upbringing. There was no city, no town—not even a small town nearby. The first house I...
View ArticleWe Have Blown a Huge Hole in the Safety Net
You can count on your fingers, and maybe a toe or two, the number of otherwise progressive public officials and policy experts inside the Beltway who want to talk about the gaping hole in our safety...
View ArticleConcentrated Poverty and The Case for Promise Zones
In his post, “The Ghetto Is Public Policy,” Ta-Nehisi Coates, national correspondent at The Atlantic states, “The wealth gap is not a mistake. It is the logical outcome of policy and democratic will.”...
View ArticleAmazon Army, Southeast Kansas
Southeast Kansas is a proud place—a place of earth and agriculture, steeped in coal and hard work—the region covers nearly 7,500 square miles and is home to over 190,000 people. The land is punctuated...
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Was ‘Welfare Spending’ Up Substantially Before the Great Recession?
In a speech to the Population Association of America earlier this month, economist Robert Moffitt argued that “welfare spending is up—but help for the neediest is down.” The assertion has gotten a fair...
View ArticleTethered to Hope
Relationships matter. They really matter. For Niki Davis, it took more than money to move from homelessness to homeownership. A college educated artist, when she walked into LIFT’s DC office after a...
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Scott Walker Official Ignored Law that Protected Low-Income Kids
Twenty years ago, on July 4th , California passed legislation that prevented children who are born into families already receiving cash welfare assistance from qualifying for additional aid. The child...
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House Republicans Exclude Just About Everyone from Summer Meals Expansion Pilot
In recent weeks, both House and Senate Appropriations Committees advanced 2015 Agriculture appropriations bills, taking the opportunity to meddle counter-productively in USDA child nutrition policies....
View ArticleA Historic Opportunity to Talk Poverty
I was five years old when my parents divorced and my father left. My mother faced a stark decision: return to India, where very few people divorced and, as a result, my older brother and I would face...
View ArticleIncreasing Wages is an Effective Poverty Reduction Tool
Broad-based wage growth—if we can figure out how to achieve it—would dwarf the impact of nearly every other economic trend or policy in reducing poverty. Even in 2010, the bottom fifth of working age...
View ArticleGenerational Poverty the Exception, Not the Rule
Poverty is worse than you think, but it’s different than you think, too. Even if you count yourself as reasonably well informed about poverty in the U.S., what you think you know may be wrong. For...
View ArticleLawmakers Should Stop Their Rhetoric and Listen
On October 16 of last year, when I was on a Target run to stock up on some soup that was on sale, I discovered—as did millions of low-income Americans who rely on food stamps to prevent hunger—that the...
View ArticleWords Matter When Talking Poverty
Now and then, I volunteer as a consultant for the NJ Coalition to End Homelessness. A few weeks ago they invited me to join them and other groups in Trenton, N.J. for a day of lobbying politicians...
View ArticleThe Other Side of Caregiving: Selfless Acts Punished by Zero Contributions to...
80-year-old Sara Moore of Chicago spent years outside of the paid workforce caring for her sick father, and then other family members. She worked hard – in a selfless act of love – and yet all those...
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Anti-Poverty Leaders Respond to Rep. Paul Ryan
TalkPoverty.org believes that if we are to dramatically reduce poverty in the United States we will need a strong and diverse movement that is led by people who know poverty firsthand. Yesterday,...
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The Three False Premises of the Ryan Poverty Plan
Paul Ryan has received a lot of attention for his recent poverty proposals. One wonders why, given that he has demonstrated time and again that he’s either unaware of the research on the topic, doesn’t...
View ArticleA New Social Contract for the 21st Century
In the 50 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson declared an “unconditional war on poverty in America,” our nation’s system of work and income supports has protected millions of families from poverty,...
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Communities, Individuals, and the Long Fight Against Poverty
Today, the nation confronts an unacceptable poverty rate of 15 percent. Of course, the conditions that people in poverty contend with—such as overcrowded and inadequate housing, not enough food, lack...
View ArticleThe Economic Opportunity Act, 50 Years Later: We Need Renewed Presidential...
When President Lyndon Johnson signed his “war on poverty” legislation 50 years ago on August 20, 1964, America had a different view of itself, of poverty, even a different political lexicon. The...
View ArticleThe Floor Beneath Our Feet
Last year, I participated in AVODAH’s Jewish Service Corps in New York City, engaging in antipoverty work, leadership development, and communal living with my fellow corps members. AVODAH placed me...
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