Poverty

Poverty Debates After the Midterms: Five Lessons Going Forward
(Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity - Nov. 22, 2010)

This commentary provides recommendations to advocates of the poor on developing new strategies in response to the recent midterm elections. Contributors Tom Freedman, former senior advisor to President Clinton and president of Freedman Consulting, and John Bridgeland, former director of the Domestic Policy Counsel for President George W. Bush and CEO of Civic Enterprises, discuss five lessons for those on both sides of the aisle who are interested in effective anti-poverty solutions. The five lessons include the economy, concern for low-income issues, need for reform, spending versus deficit reduction and multiple approaches and innovation.

What Happens to the Poor If the U.S. Reduces Its Debt Ratio and Its Deficits
(Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity - Oct. 25, 2010)

This commentary discusses the difficulty of deficit reduction for all stakeholders, including advocates for the poor. Contributor Bill Frenzel, guest scholar for economic studies at the Brookings Institution and former member of Congress, asserts that if real budget reform occurs, all government programs will face increased scrutiny and new programs or expansions will be scarce.

Battling Poverty in the Golden State; Recommendations for the California Statewide Poverty Commission
(Center for American Progress Action Fund - Oct. 25, 2010)

Severe fiscal crises have challenged many states to maintain current services and programs in the recession—never mind think about a comprehensive plan to reduce poverty. In California alone, the CalWORKs program, the state's version of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, recently suffered a crushing cut of $256 million, including cuts to child care for working families.

Yet it is exactly during times of economic distress that states must convene stakeholders to stop the bleeding and provide a vision to move forward. State poverty commissions and targets are an important way for states to leverage resources and develop a coordinated plan to respond to growing economic distress.

In this memo, the Center for American Progress Action Fund offers recommendations for the California Statewide Poverty Commission.

2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area
(Washington Area Women's Foundation - October 2010)

This report produced by the Washington Area Women's Foundation, in conjunction with the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) and the Urban Institute, found a persistent gender wage gap and increasing poverty levels among women and girls. A fact sheet update to the report, reflecting new poverty data, shows levels of poverty increased in the region to 177,964 poor women and girls in 2009, from 160,000 the previous year.

Reducing Student Poverty in the Classroom: School-Based Antipoverty Strategies the Federal Government Can Learn From and Act On
(Center for American Progress - September 2010)

This report argues that schools should implement strategies that not only help students learn, but also address outside-school influences such as inadequate housing and food insecurity that cause low-income students to underperform or drop out.

Poverty Among Women and Families, 2000-2009: Great Recession Brings Highest Rate in 15 Years
(National Women's Law Center - Sept. 21, 2010)

The latest Census Bureau data show a significant and alarming increase in poverty and extreme poverty among women, men and children in the United States in 2009. Poverty among women rose to 13.9 percent, up from 13.0 percent in 2008 — the highest rate in 15 years and the largest single-year increase since 1980. More than 16.4 million women were living in poverty in 2009, the largest number since the Census began collecting this data in 1966. Poverty among children also reached a 15-year high, rising from 19.0 percent in 2008 to 20.7 percent in 2009. These increases mirror the rise in the overall poverty rate from 13.2 percent to 14.3 percent in 2009, also the largest single-year increase since 1980. This report fully explores all of this data and more.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish: Why Tackling Child Poverty During the Great Recession Makes Economic Sense
(Center for American Progress - Sept. 16, 2010)

Children who grow up poor in America end up worse off as adults than those who do not grow up poor along a variety of dimensions, including poorer health, lower education, and lower earnings. This report argues that we need a set of robust public policy responses to poverty and unemployment over the next few years. It also points out that greater short-term federal expenditures are necessary to mitigate the Great Recession’s harm to parents and their children, and for cost-effective longer-term strategies to reduce poverty.

Children in Poverty: Trends, Consequences, and Policy Options
(Child Trends - Sept. 16, 2010)

This report focuses on figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, which show that both the number of children in poverty and the child poverty rate increased between 2008 and 2009. The number of children in poverty rose from 14.1 million to 15.5 million in 2009 and the child poverty rate increased from 19 percent to nearly 21 percent. In addition, the number and percentage of children living in "deep" poverty (households with incomes below 50 percent of the federal poverty level) also increased (from 6.3 million to 6.9 million and from 8.5 percent to 9.3 percent in 2009, respectively.) Children made up more than a third (35.5 percent) of all people in poverty in 2009. These numbers represent an increase again over 2007 data, which reported 13.3 million children, or 18 percent, living in poverty in the United States.

Poverty Rises Nationally in 2009, New Census Bureau Data Show
(Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center - Sept. 16, 2010)

This fact sheet examines national poverty data released on Sept. 16, 2010, by the Census Bureau. As a result of the Great Recession, the year 2009 saw a significant increase in the national poverty rate. The poverty rate rose to 14.3 percent in 2009 from 13.2 percent in 2008, the Census data show. The poverty rate would have risen even further had it not been for key public benefit programs and the expansions made to them under the 2009 Recovery Act. Unemployment insurance benefits alone kept 2.3 million individuals out of poverty in 2009, the data show.

Women in Poverty During the Great Recession: Public Benefits Do Not Always Respond to Rising Need Variation Across States is Substantial
(Institute for Women's Policy Research - September 2010)

A briefing paper from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research finds that a large number of the 15.5 million women who live in poverty are not receiving help from benefit programs. The paper, Women in Poverty During the Great Recession, uses the most recent American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau to provide state-by-state rates of low-income women who do not receive benefits from programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly food stamps.

Tackling Child Poverty: What the U.S. Can Learn from Britain
(Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity - July 12, 2010)

Jane Waldfogel, professor of Social Work and Public Affairs at Columbia University, discusses the success of Britain's campaign to end child poverty. Implemented by the Labour government, in office from 1997 to 2010, the campaign has reduced child poverty from 26 percent to 12 percent. Although Britain's programs were modeled on U.S. efforts, Waldfogel argues that Britain was able to surpass the U.S. by using a more comprehensive approach to breaking the cycle of poverty including raising the minimum wage and increasing children's school readiness.

Measuring Poverty at the State Level
(Urban Institute - March 1, 2010)
This study uses the modern poverty measure to gauge economic hardship in Minnesota. It also simulates the effects of alternative safety net policies on poverty using the Urban Institute's TRIM3 microsimulation model. The simulations apply new program rules and behavioral assumptions to recalculate family resources and poverty. The results highlight the numerous decisions and imputations required to implement a new poverty measure.

What Gets Measured Gets Done: How a Supplemental Federal Poverty Measure Will Drive Smarter Policy
(Center for American Progress - March 2010)

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” said New York City Mayor and business magnate Michael Bloomberg in 2007 describing the need for an updated poverty measure. Now it seems he is getting his wish. This article from the Center for American Progress reports the U.S. Census Bureau announced that it will be developing an alternative way to measure poverty. This new method will better reflect the realities facing struggling families and ways in which current government programs can help them to get back on their feet.

Asset Poverty and Debt
(National Center for Children in Poverty - Feb. 2010)

Asset Poverty and Debt Among Families with Children, from the National Center for Children in Poverty, examines the concept of asset poverty and estimates the proportion of families who are asset poor, then examines debt and financial assets of families with children. The brief concludes with policy implications and recommendations to promote financial security of families with children.

Short-Term Labor Solutions to Reduce Long-Term Poverty among Minorities
(Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity - Feb. 2010)

In this commentary, Christian Weller and Luke Reidenbach of the Center for American Progress argue that to help vulnerable groups overcome economic challenges during the recession, lawmakers must implement policies that support targeted employment initiatives, unionization and educational job training. The authors argue that such labor policies can help African Americans, Hispanics and low-skilled workers, who have historically faced structural barriers to employment and economic security, and are the first to experience job losses and face poverty during an economic crisis. Specifically, the authors urge policymakers to increase funding for programs such as AmeriCorps or YouthBuild that target young, minority workers, provide additional funding for programs that support skill development, and support legislation that allows more workers to unionize for livable wages and benefits.

Target Practice: Lessons for Poverty Reduction

This report, by Jodie Levin-Epstein and Webb Lyons of the Center for Law and Social Policy, outlines how governments (local, state and the federal) can use targets (goals and timelines to achieve those goals) as a policy tool for reducing poverty by drawing on lessons learned from targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and homelessness.

Still Working Hard, Still Falling Short

This report, from the Working Poor Families Project, provides critical national and state data on the percent of low-income working families and percent of children in low-income working households. The report also examines the conditions of low-income working families relative to the parents' education, health insurance status, and housing costs, and calls for stronger federal and state policies to address these conditions.

The Straight Facts on Women in Poverty

This report, from the Center for American Progress, discusses the fact that women in America are more likely than men to be poor across all racial and ethnic groups. In fact, poverty rates for males and females are the same throughout childhood, but increase for women during their childbearing years and again in old age. Why? Consider the following:

America's disparity in poverty rates between men and women is wider than anywhere else in the Western world. Ending the gender wage gap will require policy solutions that promote the equal social and economic status of women.