On September 21, CHN released a national report, Economic Growth Leaves the Poorest Americans Behind, on the state of poverty in the U.S. Since then, we’ve been busy working with partner organizations in nearly 20 states to prepare and release state reports using the data from the American Community Survey published by the Census Bureau on September 17. Several of our state partner organizations have released their reports over the past few weeks and have been doing great things to get the word out about poverty, the devastating effects of continued cuts to human needs programs, and the need for additional investments in programs that help people stay out of poverty in their states. Here are just a few of the things they have been doing around the country:
9to5 Colorado received great press coverage when their report was featured by Public News Service – Colorado. They promoted the story and the report via Facebook.

9to5 Wisconsin also released their report on their website last week, and 9to5 sent out a national action alert urging Congress to pass a spending bill that loosens the tight caps on domestic programs.

Every Child Matters in New Hampshire got coverage of their report in the New Hampshire Labor News and got reactions to their report from several members of Congress, including this quote from Senator Jeanne Shaheen:

“This report shows that many federal programs are working to lift New Hampshire families out of poverty. We need to end sequestration and reach a budget deal that will strengthen these programs, not cut them as the latest Republican budgets have.”

They also highlighted the report in their weekly newsletter, which is sent to thousands of Granite Staters and posted on their website.

Their neighbors to the north, Every Child Matters in Maine, also got reactions to their report from members of Congress, including this quote from Congresswoman Chellie Pingree included in their press release:

“This report makes it clear that we need to fight poverty and economic inequality on many levels. In Washington and Augusta we face continued attacks on the programs that make up our social safety net, with dozens of programs cut or eliminated in the last few years. But we also have to focus on a comprehensive approach to the problem of poverty—higher wages for parents, stable housing, greater access to health care and especially access to education at all levels.”

Their report also went out to thousands of Mainers via their weekly newsletter, which is also posted on their website.

The Sargent Shriver National Center of Poverty Law in Illinois promoted their report with a press release and a post on their blog, the Shriver Brief. They also promoted their report on Twitter.

Census Data Show Little Progress against Poverty in Illinois w/ @CoalitiononHN http://t.co/kFZsrwDnPp pic.twitter.com/Gqxvx5Pw2k

— Shriver Center (@shrivercenter) October 6, 2015

Advocates for Ohio’s Future

released their report on their website and are hosting a webinar on the state of poverty in Ohio on October 29, featuring CHN’s own Deborah Weinstein. They also publicized the report via Twitter and Facebook.  

Our friends at the Connecticut Association for Human Services also took to social media with posts on Facebook  and Twitter, as well as published a post on their blog, to publicize their report.

New proposed federal cuts put Connecticut low income families at risk http://t.co/GG3MOJxwvf pic.twitter.com/naWWSLbTAO

— CAHS (@CAHS_org) October 8, 2015

Michigan Community Action

also released their report on their website.

All of our state partners will also be sharing their reports with the local offices of their members of Congress to point to the reality of poverty in their home states.

You can help spread the word by sharing these reports on social media, and especially by Tweeting the reports to your members of Congress. CHN and several partner organization are hosting a Twitterstorm on October 21 at 1pm ET, and we hope you’ll join us! You can also check out the full list of state reports and state social media toolkits here. For more resources, news, analysis, visit our 2014 Census and Poverty Data resource page. Several other state partners will be releasing their reports this week, so stay tuned for more information about all the great work they’re doing.