This post was originally published by the San Francisco Chronicle on October 2, 2015. Derrick, a 28-year-old Richmond man with an associate’s degree, loves his job doing after-school mentoring, tutoring, and coaching sports with elementary students in West Oakland, but with only 21 hours at work each week at $12.50…
Archives: Voices
Human Needs Report: Appropriations, Tax Cuts, Sentencing Reform and More
CHN just released our latest edition of the Human Needs Report, our regular newsletter on national policy issues affecting low-income and vulnerable populations. This edition includes articles on appropriations, tax policy, nutrition programs, social security, and sentencing reform. See below for the full analysis and links to each section of the report….
URGENT ACTION: 3 ways to tell Congress to #StopTheCuts
Congress averted a shutdown and passed short-term funding through December 11. But their work is not done. America needs a full-year plan to increase funding – and Congress needs to get to work NOW. Programs that support housing, Head Start, job training, nutrition aid, and education are all at risk. Your…
Resources from Around the Coalition: Poverty, Wage Gap, Economic Growth and More
Poverty. Wage gap. Economic growth. Following the Census Bureau’s release of annual poverty data and the release of CHN’s national poverty report, we wanted to highlight some amazing and related work by our coalition members in our Resources from the around the Coalition blog series. ♦ The National Women’s Law…
Congress is days away from a government shutdown. Tell them to get to work.
Congress needs to hear from you. We must raise our voices loud and clear and say no to government shutdown and no to cuts. After September 30, parts of the federal government will shut down if Congress does not approve FY 2016 funding. They may be ensnarled enough in divisive…
Cutting Poverty in Half Will Take a Quarter Century at This Rate

Even under the optimistic assumption that poverty continues to decline at the same rate it did from 2013 to 2014, it would take until 2040 for the poverty rate to be cut in half to 7.7 percent. Getting child poverty to the same level would take until 2049. These are…
Nuns on the Bus – Bridging the Divides and Transforming Politics
The two-week, 2000-mile, 7-state Nuns on the Bus (NOTB) trip leading up to Pope Francis’ arrival in the United States is, in essence, a listening tour with the goal of bridging what divides us and transforming politics in the process. For those of us privileged to be on the bus it…
Unshared Recovery: 46 Million Poor; Poverty Rate Unchanged
Below is the statement by Deborah Weinstein, CHN’s executive director, on the new poverty data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. We’ve also included tweets to share and our First Look at the data, which shows that economic recovery since the end of the Great Recession has been unshared. Unshared Recovery: 46 Million…
A message to Republican candidates ahead of tonight’s debate: Read the 2014 census poverty numbers and minimum wage polls
This post was originally published on OxFam America’s blog The Politics of Poverty on September 16, 2015. The Census numbers released today confirm that millions of people are working at jobs and still living in poverty. Women and people of color are particularly hard hit by low wages. The Census Bureau reports that 10.5…
#FoodFri Tweetchat 9/18: How do hunger & poverty data relate to upcoming budget fight?
This Friday join MomsRising, Coalition for Human Needs, and National Women’s Law Center for a #FoodFri Tweetchat from 1-2pm ET. During this tweetchat we will be discussing the 2014 USDA hunger data, as well as the newly released Census data on poverty and healthcare, and how it relates to the upcoming budget…
Resources from Around the Coalition: Paid Sick Days, Child Tax Credits, the Budget Resolution and More
Economic mobility. Paid sick days. Child tax credits. CHN’s coalition members are producing great work on very important issues. This month, we continue our Resources from around the Coalition blog series, highlighting important resources you should be aware of. ♦ The National Partnership for Women & Families recently released a…
Low-Wage Workers See Largest Drop in Real Wages
Today’s jobs report saw unemployment fall again, down to 5.1 percent. While that’s great, it doesn’t say enough about the losses workers have been taking for far too long. Just in time for Labor Day, a new report from the National Employment Law Project shows that, after taking inflation into…