NEW REPORT - From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half

[Sapphire Blue]

(Crossposted from GD: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x752667)

Taking on Poverty
Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Rangel Join CAP at Event to Release the Task Force on Poverty’s New Report
April 25, 2007

Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Charles Rangel spoke at the Center for American Progress today at an event highlighting the release of “ From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half,” a report by the Center’s Task Force on Poverty that outlines a strategy for cutting poverty in half in the next 10 years.

“The goal to cut poverty in half over the next {10} years is not an overly ambitious task when you look at what other industrialized countries are doing,” Kennedy said. Pointing to the minimum wage, he showed how Great Britain and Ireland have achieved great results in reducing poverty as a direct result of raising their minimum wages to $9.78/hr and $9.60/hr respectively.

In the United States, Kennedy said, “education and health care have an enormous resonance ... we have to tie those into poverty.” This means increasing funding for each of these policy areas. The 2.5 billion dollars a week being spent on the war in Iraq, Kennedy said, may be causing some barriers to progress in the areas that affect poverty.

Rep. Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, also spoke passionately about the goals laid out in CAP’s poverty report. “I came to the conclusion that poverty is a threat to national security,” Rangel said. “Poverty is expensive, poverty causes {such national disasters as} Katrina.”

“With the exception of getting the hell out of the Middle East, I can’t think of anything more patriotic that Americans can do than to eliminate poverty,” he said. This is why we need to fund poverty reduction with the same vigor with which we are funding the Iraq war, the congressman said.

(snip)

Blackwell explained that the Task Force was established when Hurricane Katrina forced Americans to face the socio-economic injustices persistent in this country. “From Poverty to Prosperity” lays out a viable strategy, said Blackwell, because it introduces a multi-faceted approach in order to address the multi-faceted nature of poverty. The report, she said, calls for both personal and social responsibility, and urges that action be taken at the local, state, and national levels.

Continued @ http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_event.html

From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half
By The Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty
April 25, 2007

Read the full report (PDF): http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/poverty_report.pdf

Executive Summary (PDF): http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/poverty_execsum_web.pdf

Research Model (PDF): http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/poverty_report_research_methods.pdf

Watch Task Force members discuss the report: http://www.americanprogress.org/projects/poverty/video.html

Thirty-seven million Americans live below the official poverty line. Millions more struggle each month to pay for basic necessities, or run out of savings when they lose their jobs or face health emergencies. Poverty imposes enormous costs on society. The lost potential of children raised in poor households, the lower productivity and earnings of poor adults, the poor health, increased crime, and broken neighborhoods all hurt our nation. Persistent childhood poverty is estimated to cost our nation $500 billion each year, or about four percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. In a world of increasing global competition, we cannot afford to squander these human resources.

The Center for American Progress last year convened a diverse group of national experts and leaders to examine the causes and consequences of poverty in America and make recommendations for national action. In this report, our Task Force on Poverty calls for a national goal of cutting poverty in half in the next 10 years and proposes a strategy to reach the goal.

Our nation has seen periods of dramatic poverty reduction at times when near-full employment was combined with sound federal and state policies, motivated individual initiative, supportive civic involvement, and sustained national commitment. In the last six years, however, our nation has moved in the opposite direction. The number of poor Americans has grown by five million, while inequality has reached historic high levels.

Consider the following facts:

One in eight Americans now lives in poverty. A family of four is considered poor if the family’s income is below $19,971—a bar far below what most people believe a family needs to get by. Still, using this measure, 12.6 percent of all Americans were poor in 2005, and more than 90 million people (31 percent of all Americans) had incomes below 200 percent of federal poverty thresholds.

Millions of Americans will spend at least one year in poverty at some point in their lives. One third of all Americans will experience poverty within a 13-year period. In that period, one in 10 Americans are poor for most of the time, and one in 20 are poor for 10 or more years.

Poverty in the United States is far higher than in many other developed nations. At the turn of the 21st century, the United States ranked 24th among 25 countries when measuring the share of the population below 50 percent of median income.

Inequality has reached record highs. The richest 1 percent of Americans in 2005 held the largest share of the nation’s income (19 percent) since 1929. At the same time, the poorest 20 percent of Americans held only 3.4 percent of the nation’s income.

It does not have to be this way. Our nation need not tolerate persistent poverty alongside great wealth.

The United States should set a national goal of cutting poverty in half over the next 10 years...


Please read the rest @ http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_report.html

Transformational Change For America And The World - JOHN EDWARDS 08

"I'm proposing we set a national goal of eliminating poverty in the next 30 years." - JOHN EDWARDS 08

Silence is Betrayal - JOHN EDWARDS 08