In her May 7th column, “Essential Legal Services“, Joy Moses – a policy analyst with the Center for American Progress – highlights the legal challenges poor and lower-income families face in a recession, among these being foreclosure, landlord-tenant disputes, and government assistance eligibility. Unemployment projections due out later this week are expected to be the worst since this recession began in 2007. As such, she argues, the Obama administration and Congress must take appropriate steps to ensure the Legal Services Corporation has adequate funding this year and going forward. State and federal authorities looking to ‘trim the fat’ ought to be chastened by the fact that recessions tend to affect these two groups disproportionately and therefore, cuts to legal programs would merely exacerbate the effects of hard times on the hard-hit.

Joy Moses of The Center for American Progress has written a piece that introduces the many poverty-fighting aspects of Obama’s proposed budget.

The budget includes measures ranging from a commitment to end childhood hunger by 2015, to increased funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, to extending aid for veterans at risk of homelessness.

Click here to read Moses’ article, “Helping Those Most in Need.”

A new report published by the Ontario Association of Food Banks outlines the economic cost of poverty in Ontario, and across Canada. Citing the Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty’s report “From Poverty to Prosperity” as well as a study of child poverty in the United Kingdom, the Canadian study estimates that in Ontario alone, poverty costs between $10.4 billion and $13.1 billion every year, or about $2,900 per household.

“The Cost of Poverty: An Analysis of the Economic Cost of Poverty in Ontario” comes in advance of the official presentation of a government-sponsored poverty reduction plan.
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From the Center for American Progress

Arguments for ending child poverty often rely on a feeling that it is simply wrong to allow any child to miss out on the experiences that so many take for granted. But now new research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in the UK shows that a high child poverty rate imposes a substantial drag on a country’s overall economy.
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Addressing poverty and economic security takes on greater urgency in the new economy. Employment for millions is now less secure than at any point in the post-World War II era. Jobs are increasingly unlikely to provide health care coverage and guaranteed pensions. The typical U.S. worker will change jobs numerous times over his or her working years and must adapt to rapid technological change. One quarter of all jobs in the U.S. economy do not pay enough to support a family of four above the poverty line. It is in our nation’s interest that those jobs be filled and that employment rates be high. It is not in our nation’s interest that people working in these jobs be confined to poverty. Read more »

Poverty violates our fundamental principles as a democratic nation and as ethically conscious individuals. American democracy is built on a simple proposition, declared in our founding documents and developed over centuries of trial and error: All Americans should have the opportunity to turn their aspirations into a meaningful and materially satisfactory life. Read more »

In the global economy, the greatest potential for success turns on having an educated, healthy, adaptable workforce. It is in all of our interests that children grow up under conditions that prepare them for the economy of the future. But, an estimated eight percent of all children and 28 percent of African-American children spend at least 11 years of childhood in poverty.
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