Family Support Programs

Do you live in Arizona, Massachusetts, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Washington? If so, call 1-866-251-4044 today to tell your senator on the super-committee to oppose cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the super-committee.

If you’re a resident of one of the states above, we need your help. Senators Kyl, Kerry, Baucus, Portman, Toomey, and Murray are all members of the very powerful congressional super-committee charged with deciding how to cut the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over ten years. Time is short — the committee faces a deadline of November 23 — and the stakes are high.

Various proposals before the super-committee would reduce Social Security benefits and cut Medicare and Medicaid by as much as $685 billion. Each of these vital programs provides income security and health care to millions of Americans — mostly women.

Your senator needs to hear from you now! Over the next couple of weeks, the handful of members on the super-committee will decide the fate of these and other vital programs. Read more »

In a recent blog post, I explored how new poverty data demonstrate the necessity of maintaining important safety net programs. Social Security, the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, and SNAP (food stamps) have played an important role in keeping millions out of poverty and lessening the severity of poverty for millions more. However, another important part of the safety net, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF – the program that replaced welfare in 1996), has been less effective during these difficult economic times. TANF provides block grants to states to fund cash assistance, work supports, and other services for low-income children and parents. This post will begin to explore how and why TANF has failed to respond to a continuing economic crisis for women and families. Read more »

The release of new poverty data this week naturally leads us to focus on the bad news: 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, including 17.2 million women and 16.4 million children; record numbers of women and families living in extreme poverty (i.e., below half the poverty line, which is just $11,157 for a family of four); and the highest income gap ever recorded between those in the bottom tenth and those in the top tenth. But the new data also offers an opportunity to reflect on the positive impact that the safety net has had: Social Security alone prevented 20.3 million more people (including 1.1 million children) from falling into poverty last year. Read more »