Chart from Melissa Boteach, Lawrence Korb, and Max Hoffman shows that House conservatives are asking low- and middle-income families to foot the bill to protect weapons systems that don’t enhance our national security.

The House Agriculture Committee found nearly all of its savings ($33.2 billion over 10 years and less than what the Buffett Rule would raise even under the low scenario) from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. This translates into an 11 percent cut in the monthly benefit for an average family of four. The proposal would also change the rules of the program to make it more difficult for families who fall on hard times to access benefits, reduce coordination with other forms of assistance, and force families who lose a job to spend nearly all their savings to get temporary help.

Paid sick days legislation would enable workers to accrue paid sick leave and provide for provisions to help employers manage. It also makes economic sense as it costs businesses more in lost worker productivity to have sick employees come in, than it would cost to offer paid time off in the first place. President Obama has come out in favor of such legislation. Mitt Romney, who claims to understand the plight of working people, has been silent.

Katie Wright, Research Associate with the Half in Ten campaign, on the GOP and their new front on poor women and their families.

House Republicans have made it clear that they aren’t finished with their war on women. In fact, they’ve just taken their crusade to a new level: attacking women’s economic security.

House Republicans want to overhaul the nation’s safety net by turning Medicaid and food stamps into block grants and making recipients work for certain benefits.

The latest House Republican budget plan asks low-income and middle-class Americans to shoulder the entire burden of deficit reduction while simultaneously delivering massive tax breaks to the richest 1 percent and preserving huge giveaways to Big Oil.

With the end of the war in Iraq and the involvement in Afghanistan winding down, the United States can expect to see about 100,000 veterans return home. Many will need help and support from safety net programs or job training to transition to civilian life, but that help isn’t guaranteed to be there.

To help more working families keep what they earn, antipoverty activists are embracing financial empowerment efforts and pushing for new policies to restrict asset-stripping practices.

It has been 47 years since our country declared war on poverty, and there is still much to be done. For this reason, we must again think big about how to fight poverty in America.