CHN Urges the Senate to Separate DHS Appropriations Bill from Larger Package, Reject DHS Funding
January 26, 2026
CHN’s latest Human Needs Report: FY 2022 spending, Build Back Better Update, and more
Leo Nguyen,
February 22, 2022
Read on for the latest on FY 2022 spending, efforts to resuscitate the Build Back Better Act, postal reform, and more.
Why are we torching our best tool to end child poverty?
CHN Staff,
February 18, 2022
Ada Mae’s beautiful blonde curls are wild on this sunny, mild winter afternoon. I’ve just picked her up from the homeschool co-op that supplements the first-grade lessons we’ve been doing at home, and we’re hanging out at the park. This is my favorite time of the week, watching her play with other kids. But I’m also remembering my own childhood — cold Missouri winters without boots, hats, or mittens. The grind of poverty was tough on my family, and that trauma pursued me into adulthood. I would do anything to keep my child from that fate, but we’ve had our close calls.
‘Til death do they part?’ Not for some Americans with disabilities.
David Elliot,
February 18, 2022
Five years ago, Lori Long’s boyfriend asked her to marry him. For Lori, it was a dream come true. She has a significant disability – an autoimmune system that results in painful fractures in her spine, frequently leading to expensive hospital stays. Given her condition, she wasn’t sure she would ever marry. And now, five years later, Lori and her boyfriend, Mark Contreras, are still waiting. Not long after her engagement, she learned that marrying her fiancé, who does not have a disability, would mean completely losing her Social Security disability benefits as well as Medicaid.
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship February 18, 2022
CHN Staff,
February 18, 2022
The inflation inequality edition. Daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. continue to drop dramatically, as do hospitalizations. Deaths – finally – are following this trend, down significantly over the past two weeks. Meanwhile, here at home inflation rages at breakneck speed. While inflation is rising everywhere, affecting every income bracket, price hikes are particularly devastating to lower-income households with already tight budgets.
For these WV moms, the expanded Child Tax Credit paid for “bear” necessities
David Elliot,
February 11, 2022
Even in a pandemic, the grounds of the U.S. Capitol tend to attract a lot of human visitors. But bears? Not so much. That changed earlier this month when a group of West Virginia moms, flanked by 500 teddy bears, gathered for a rally to highlight support for continuing the expanded Child Tax Credit that was passed in March 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan but was allowed to expire in December. It was all a part of the “Unbearable Campaign,” with the message being that allowing millions of American families to slip into poverty without the expanded CTC benefit is, well, unbearable.
