The American Community Survey (ACS) is the most important Census Bureau survey you’ve never heard of. This nationwide survey provides vital information on a yearly basis about the housing, employment, economic security, education, health insurance coverage, and demographic characteristics of the nation’s population and neighborhoods. These data are used to allocate trillions of dollars in federal funding, develop informed policies, conduct rigorous research, assess programs, and enforce civil rights laws that protect people from discrimination.
Archives: Voices
Project 2025 and public health: A grim diagnosis
Millions of Medicaid and Medicare recipients will be harmed. Newly won prescription drug negotiations will be stopped and costs will once again spiral, as will the cost of vaccinations. And in part by causing untold damage to the Environmental Protection Agency, millions more will suffer adverse health effects. During a recent webinar, three experts with the Center on American Progress (CAP) discussed the potential impact Project 2025 would have on health policy. Their diagnosis: not good.
What Project 2025 has in store for the Census Bureau
Politicizing the Census Bureau. Adding a citizenship question to the decennial Census. Weaponizing and politicizing data collection. Undermining decennial Census and American Community Survey questions. These are only some of the things Project 2025 has in store for the Census Bureau if its radical agenda has its way.
CHN’s Human Needs Watch: Tracking Hardship, August 23, 2024
The election potpourri edition. It is difficult to believe, but in 25 days, Americans begin voting for President. That’s when voters in Pennsylvania begin early voting. The election is truly upon us. Unfortunately, when some voters attempt to cast ballots, whether it be in person, or through some combination of early voting, absentee, mail-in, or drop-box, they will be in for a rude surprise. This is because a number of states have tightened voter ID laws and otherwise have made it more difficult to vote.
Project 2025 would eviscerate federal funds for public schools, eliminate Head Start, cut nutrition assistance programs, and more
Nutrition assistance, Head Start, federal funds for education, and even safe baby formula would all be on the chopping block if the architects of the highly controversial Project 2025 have their way. Project 2025, drafted in part by the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation with the help of many former aides to ex- President Donald Trump, is a 900-plus page document that lays out guidelines as to what a new administration might look like, although the Trump campaign has disavowed any connection.
Sixty years later: Empowering women to finish the fight against poverty
Sixty years ago this week, President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) took a historic step forward in our nation’s fight against poverty, signing the historic Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and marking the beginning of the War on Poverty. Alongside civil rights and anti-poverty leaders, policymakers envisioned a country that lived up to its ideals of opportunity, democracy, and a fair chance for every child.
Child exploitation and Project 2025: Rewriting the Fair Labor Standards Act
Eighty-six years ago, Congress passed and President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act. It outlawed, among other things, the practice of children working in hazardous occupations. But today, violations of the FLSA, particularly involving children, are sharply on the rise. And there are those who want to take us back even farther.
Babies in the Budget 2024: New report finds share of spending on children continues to decline
For the third straight year, the share of federal spending on children ages 0-3 declined in fiscal year 2024. That’s according to First Focus on Children, which just released its annual report, and found that the percentage of federal dollars going to programs that wholly or partly serve young children dropped from 1.98% in FY 2021 to just 1.52% in FY 2024.
CHN’s Human Needs Watch: Tracking Hardship, August 2, 2024
The compare and contrast edition. This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee all but completed marking up its 12 appropriations bills – it has one left to go (Homeland Security), which they plan to finish when members return after the August recess. House appropriators completed their 12 mark-ups last month, but their bills are going nowhere fast.
CHN urges Senate passage of bipartisan Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act
We urge the Senate to consider and ultimately pass this bipartisan tax package at the first opportunity because it includes important improvements to the Child Tax Credit (CTC). We see Thursday’s vote as a crucial step. You can act to provide needed help for 16 million children in families with low wages, or you can stand in the way of moving this help forward.
CHN hosts Human Needs Hero gala, honors CBPP’s Ellen Nissenbaum
Hundreds of advocates crowded into a standing-room-only event at the AFL-CIO headquarters last week as the Coalition on Human Needs celebrated its annual Human Needs Hero gala by honoring one of the movement’s foremost leaders on budget, tax, and related battles.
Human needs advocates gather in U.S. Capitol to oppose House spending cuts
Led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-CT and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, advocates gathered earlier this week to warn of the effects of proposed cuts to human needs programs. The speakers, including advocates for human needs, education, the environment, labor and public health, among others, warned of both dangerous spending cuts and harmful and discriminatory policy riders sprinkled throughout all 12 fiscal year 2025 House spending bills.