We are deeply saddened at the passing of Susan Rees, a great builder of the Coalition on Human Needs who served as Executive Director from 1983 to 1991.
We are so grateful Susan’s family has suggested contributions be made to CHN in Susan’s memory to continue the fight for justice.
If you would like to contribute to honor Susan Rees, please use the form below and email Radha Rath at rrath@chn.org to let us know you are contributing in Susan’s memory.
You may also contribute by mail at the following address: Coalition on Human Needs, 1825 K Street, NW, Suite 411, Washington, DC 20006.
Tell Congress: End the crisis in child care and early education!
Click hereto send a message to your members of Congress and tell them to take action to end the child care and early childhood education crisis in the United States.
The child care crisis in the United States continues to dramatically impact the lives of children and their families, stretching household budgets and causing parents to miss work when quality care cannot be found.
Even when child care slots can be found, working families face an incredible financial strain to afford child care.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made the crisis in child care far worse.
Just 29% of parents report the child care arrangement they had at the start of the pandemic was open without any changes
57% of parents reported that the lack of child care options and increased child care responsibilities in the home have directly impacted their ability to work over the last month.
Even before the pandemic, child care was unaffordable for many families. The cost of child care exceeds $10,000 a year in many parts of the country. Nearly half (47%) of parents can only afford less than $200 a week for child care and 22% say they can afford no more than $50 a week.
The pandemic has made it incredibly difficult for families to find and afford quality child care, and even as the pandemic recedes, those issues remain a top concern.
We have a historic opportunity for Congress to fund child care and pre-school, and reform the system in a meaningful way.
The Biden administration’s American Families Plan aims to invest in child care, sending $225 billion over 10 years into federally supported child care programs. Under the President’s plan, the cost of child care would be capped at 7 percent of a family’s earnings for millions of working families. In addition, Biden’s proposal would provide $200 billion for voluntary pre-school programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, and continue expanded tax credits to make child care more affordable for families.
In order for Congress to act, they must hear from us.
Click here to send a message to your members of Congress and tell them to take action to end the child care and early childhood education crisis in the United States.
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CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship July 9, 2021
The door-to-door-vaccination-drive edition. As of Thursday, 605,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. The CDC estimates that the more dangerous Delta variant now makes up a majority of new cases in the U.S. 67.1 percent of adults have at least one vaccine dose; 58.3 percent are fully vaccinated. The U.S. has been averaging fewer than 15,000 new cases a day for nearly a month. In recent days, however, the average number of new cases has started to trend slightly upward, driven largely by localized outbreaks in places with low vaccination rates, including parts of Missouri, Arkansas, and Nevada.
“It is the unvaccinated people who are dying,” Dr. Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi’s state health officer, told TV station WLBT. “The unvaccinated people who are going to the hospital. The unvaccinated people who are getting diagnosed, for the most part.”
President Biden has urged renewed efforts to encourage Americans to get their shots, including door-to-door drives in neighborhoods with high numbers of unvaccinated people. We’re all in this together – we can’t conquer COVID-19 and starve new variants of their human hosts unless enough of us get vaccinated.
Meanwhile, hunger and unemployment remain much too high in the U.S., fueled by inequality and structural racism. And there is important legislation to pass. Congress is bearing down on at least three key pieces – a reconciliation bill, which will include portions of President Biden’s American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan; a bipartisan infrastructure bill; and the President’s budget.
We have a lot of work to do and a busy summer ahead of us.
Please tell your Senators and Representative to act.
16,000/250,000
The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases has started to rise again (up 39 percent over the past 2 weeks). But at just over 16,000 on July 8,it’s a far cry from the worst days of the pandemic last winter, when new cases sometimes exceeded 250,000 a day. Tweet this.
Less than 2 in 5
Fewer than 40 percent of adults in Nevada, where COVID-19 cases are spiking, have received a vaccination. In southern Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, about 95 percent of those who have been hospitalized have not been vaccinated. Tweet this.
54%/72%
Only 54 percent of adults living in rural areas have received at least one vaccine shot, according to the most recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, compared with 72 percent of adults living in urban areas. Kaiser also found that vaccination rates were below average for Americans under 50; Blacks; Republicans; and those without a college degree. Tweet this.
Less than 3;
18 or more
In many urban and suburban communities, COVID-19 cases continue to plummet. The rate of new cases has fallen below three per 100,000 in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. But in Arkansas and Missouri, the rate is 20 and 18 per 100,000, respectively. And those states are followed by Louisiana and Nevada (each at 14), as of July 8. Tweet this.
6 and 19;
34 and 1
University of Albany researchers, in conjunction with the NY Department of Health, conducted antibody testing on more than 15,000 people at grocery stores in 26 counties last April. The test results were startling: Black and Latinx residents had COVID-19 antibody rates exceeding their share of the population by a respective 6 and 19 percentage points, while rates among whites and Asians fell short of their populations by a respective 34 and 1 percentage points. The study found structural racism is to blame for the toll COVID-19 has taken on New York’s communities of color. Tweet this.
2x
Among Latinx respondentsto the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey, 21.4 chose to take the survey in Spanish. Those who did so said that they did not always have enough to eat in the previous week at two times the level reported by Latinx respondents who took the survey in English. This finding, and others, suggests more economic hardship borne by Spanish-speaking Latinx.
13%
The percentof adults living in households with children who were not caught up on their rent or mortgage. Of those not caught up, 38 percent sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the past week.
10.1 million
Overall, about 10.1 million adults in households with children sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the past week.
About 1/3
About one-third of adults in households with children said they were currently unemployed. Among these, 18 percent said they sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the past week. Close to one in five Latinx and Blacks living in households with children reported some lack of food – more than double the proportion of whites (8.5%).
31 million
The numberof adults with children who reported difficulty paying for usual household expenses in the past week (35%).
July 9, 2021 