The Biden budget makes right and responsible choices: less poverty, more jobs, investments that help workers, families, and children, and more economic security for older Americans. It translates moral clarity about the need for shared prosperity into dollars and cents.
Archives: Voices
Witnesses: Both default on debt and deep spending cuts would cause lasting economic damage
Rare, bipartisan agreement broke out in a Senate subcommittee hearing this week when Democrats, Republicans, and both conservative and progressive economists agreed that the U.S. must avoid defaulting on its debt later this year.
In memory: Karen Hobert Flynn
All of us at the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN) are deeply saddened at the passing of Karen Hobert Flynn, President of Common Cause. She was a tireless fighter for democracy.
A health care cliff is coming
I’m one of the 84 million Americans who get our health care through Medicaid. And I’m one of the 18 million who might lose it starting this spring unless our policymakers take action. I went to college, got a degree, and planned on being self-sufficient. But in my early 20s, I was struck by an autoimmune condition that caused painful, chronic flare ups that affected my ability to stand or walk.
Impending SNAP cuts: ‘There’s no way…that we’re ever going to make up fully for what’s being lost’
Beginning this week, tens of millions of Americans in 32 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands may have less to eat. That’s because increased SNAP aid approved by Congress in 2020 as part of COVID-19 relief legislation – called “emergency allotments” (EAs) — comes to an end beginning March 1.
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship, February 24, 2023
The essentiality of SNAP edition. When the Great Recession took root in 2008 and worsened the following year, Congress did not act aggressively enough to protect America’s safety net. One result: as job losses escalated, hunger surged from 11.1 percent to 14.7 percent, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But when the coronavirus pandemic caused an even worse (if shorter) disruption of the economy in the spring of 2020, Congress was more proactive. One of the measures it passed as part of an initial COVID-19 relief package was additional SNAP aid.
CHN opposes President Biden’s proposed asylum ban
Earlier this week, the Biden Administration proposed a rule that would ban many refugees from seeking asylum in the United States. Under this rule, most asylum seekers who cross into the United States between ports of entry or who present themselves at a port of entry without a previously-scheduled appointment will be considered ineligible for asylum, unless they previously sought and were denied protection in a country they traveled through to get to the United States. CHN opposes this proposed rule.
House measure seeks to rein in wasteful Pentagon spending, redirect funds to critical basic needs
Today Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) reintroduced the People Over Pentagon Act, which would cut $100 billion in defense spending and reallocate the funds to human needs programs. The Coalition on Human Needs immediately endorsed the legislation.
New report: As extra Medicaid aid expires, the number of uninsured children could double by May 2024
The number of children in the U.S. without access to health care could double over the next 15 months as states begin a massive effort to determine who remains eligible for Medicaid and CHIP and who isn’t. That’s the finding of a groundbreaking report issued this week by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.
Credit card holders get protection from fraud. Shouldn’t EBT users, too?
A few years ago, someone stole my card information and took over $100. You’d assume the bank or credit card company would reimburse that fraud, right? Not for me, unfortunately. The skimmed card number was for my Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, which allows me to purchase food for my family through the federal SNAP program (formerly known as food stamps). Unlike credit and debit cards, EBT cards are not protected
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship, February 10, 2023
The cuts are unacceptable edition. Throughout the pandemic, certain Americans have borne more of the brunt of COVID-19 than others. The elderly have experienced the highest death rates. People with low incomes and people of color have been more likely to get sick, and to face economic displacement though job loss, lack of access to affordable child care, and even homelessness. These vulnerable Americans now face new threats: cuts to many programs critical to those in need.
Investments and Justice: A State of the Union in Which “No One is Left Behind”
President Biden gets it. “Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible,” he told us during his State of the Union address. “That’s why we’re building an economy where no one is left behind.”