Yearly Archives: 2019

You might have heard that the poverty rate in America has finally fallen below its pre-recession level. But what has been less reported is that the number of Americans living in poverty is still higher than it was in 2007. In fact, it’s even higher than it was in 1964 when the War on Poverty began.

Federal spending priorities and budgets are moral statements: “Federal spending on children in the United States fell to the lowest level in a decade in 2018, negatively impacting working families with children”

The report does give a nod to the historical and systemic causes of food insecurity, but the policy it lays out seems to ignore the more holistic picture of hunger and its root causes—“affordable housing, systemic racism, systemic classism, and access to affordable, healthy food.”

Being poor is expensive. A 2016 United Way report found 26% of families in Erie County earned income above the federal poverty level, yet could not afford basic necessities to survive.

Medicaid has been shown to reduce poverty, and a new study finds that Medicaid may also improve housing stability. A common challenge facing low-income families is housing eviction, which prior research has shown has serious implications for physical and mental health.

The chasm between what the country’s corporate leaders and their workers earn is widening beyond scope according to Economic Policy Institute new research that shows CEO compensation surged 940% between 1978 to 2018 while the average worker saw a meager 12% pay hike over the same 40-year period.