Here is an interview that David Beckmann, President of Bread for the World did with Spotlight on Poverty on the current budget and its effect on poor people here and abroad. To watch the interview click here.
This is an important issue; the proposed budget cuts are targeting those who are most vulnerable.
Hungry People Overseas Hit Hardest by Proposed Cuts
May 2011
The most alarming provisions of H.R. 1, the House spending bill discussed in this issue’s front-page story, affect some of the poorest people in the world. These provisions would make drastic cuts to international humanitarian and development assistance programs, such as emergency food aid, health (including HIV treatment), child survival, clean water, and sustainable agriculture.
Food aid and the McGovern-Dole program, which provides school lunches to children from poor families, would face the largest cuts: 46 percent. Hundreds of millions of dollars would be stripped from each of several other accounts, including Development Assistance, PEPFAR, Global Health and Child Survival, and the Millennium Challenge Account.
via Hungry People Overseas Hit Hardest by Proposed Cuts – Bread for the World: Have Faith. End Hunger..
See also this pdf file from Bread for the World: The US Budget: Myths and Realities.
America has highest poverty levels among most developed nations
Poverty in the United States is far higher than in other developed nations. According to UNICEF, the United States ranks 24th of 25 countries when ranked by the number of children living below the national poverty line.
According to the Center for American Progress, in 2005, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans had 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.
The nature of poverty in America
There is a common perception of what poverty in America looks like, but the true face of poverty in the United States may surprise you.
The poor do work: More than half of Americans who are considered poor do have jobs.
Poverty affects many: Half of all Americans will be poor at some time.
Most poor Americans are Caucasian: Nearly half of all people living in poverty in the United States are white non-Hispanics. However, African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to live in poverty than other ethnic groups.
Why are there poor Americans?
Several factors contribute to the state of poverty in the United States:
Illness — both physical and mental
Job loss
Limited, poor quality, or no education
Low wages
Detrimental peer or family influence
Study quantifies efforts of nonprofits
Groups’ efforts combat hunger and poverty
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
By Sally Kalson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In 2005, domestic violence victims found that Pennsylvania was not following the law exempting them from welfare work requirements due to trauma or other effects of abuse.
Enter Just Harvest, which promotes economic justice through public policy and services that combat hunger and poverty. The organization stepped in to ensure that welfare caseworkers were trained to offer correct, consistent benefits and information.
In 2007, the monthly allowance that covered medicine, toiletries and other necessities was only $60 for people with mental illness living in state-sanctioned homes. The Consumer Health Coalition, which works to overcome barriers to quality, affordable health care, joined a campaign to raise the allowance. The efforts succeeded, and the allowance is now $85.
Every dollar spent on behalf of the disadvantaged by these and other nonprofit advocacy groups brought a return of $122 in benefits to local communities. Advocacy also meant clean water in rural communities, support for the ill and education for students with cognitive disabilities.
Advocacy:
Advocacy is stewarding the influence and voice God has given each of us to promote justice on behalf of the poor.
via Public Policy.
The media were quick to condemn ACORN’s alleged misbehavior, but they’ve been extraordinarily slow to report on independent studies that have exonerated the organization. Investigations by two state attorneys general uncovered no illegal behavior. According to the GAO, all complaints filed against ACORN with the Federal Elections Commission were dismissed. Six FBI investigations into alleged voter fraud by ACORN employees were closed without indictments.
This March a federal District Court ruled that the law Congress passed cutting off ACORN’s federal funding was a bill of attainder, a type of law specifically prohibited by the Constitution because of the Founding Fathers’ fear that a powerful and vindictive federal government could single out a single individual or organization for penalties.
America is often called the land of opportunity, and that class mobility has long been a popular tenet of American culture. But the reality is that many children who grow up poor remain poor as adults. In addition, mobility is not always upward, particularly for black children raised in middle-class families who often find themselves in lower income ranks as adults.
via State of Working America preview: Whites more upwardly mobile than blacks.
Pittsburgh City Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak had second thoughts yesterday about buying a cup of coffee, because it would have eaten up one-third of her daily food allowance.
Through the end of this week, Rudiak said she will be spending under $7 a day on food, the same allotment a food stamp recipient receives, to highlight cuts in the federal program.
via City councilwoman cuts her diet to food stamp level – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
HARRISBURG, PA (SEPTEMBER 16, 2010) – National poverty rates rose significantly in 2009, climbing to 14.3% from 13.2% in 2008, new Census Bureau data show.
In Pennsylvania, poverty rates remained essentially unchanged, going from 10.8% in 2006-07 to 11% in 2008-09. (The Census Bureau averages two years of survey data in order to improve the reliability of the state-level estimates.)
The poverty rate would have risen even further nationally and in Pennsylvania in 2009, had it not been for unemployment compensation extensions and other key provisions of the 2009 American Recovery Act that have helped middle-class and low-income families stay afloat.
via Pa.’s Poverty Rate Holds Steady Thanks to Unemployment Comp System | The Keystone Reseach Center.
HARRISBURG, PA (October 27, 2010) – Hundreds of thousands more Pennsylvanians would be out of work today had policymakers chosen to do nothing in the face of the worst economic recession in decades, according to a new report from the Keystone Research Center.
For many conservatives, the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, as the stimulus is formally known, has been Exhibit A in their case against the Obama administration, a symbol for an era they feel will be defined by out-of-control government spending.
But the stimulus is also the largest-scale embodiment of what was, not long ago, a conservative priority: directing tax dollars to “faith-based initiatives,” as President George W. Bush called them.
The story of the Obama administration’s large-scale spending on faith-based groups has been largely untold, perhaps because it cuts so sharply across the moment’s intensely partisan narrative. And in fact, when the stimulus was being debated in February 2009, conservatives attacked the bill as “anti-religious” in its spending guidelines.
Read the rest of the article by clicking below.
via Obama’s stimulus pours millions into faith-based groups – Ben Smith and Byron Tau – POLITICO.com.
Roger Thurow – Outrage and Inspire – “Historic Moment”
HISTORIC MOMENT
Bread for the World’s new Hunger Report raises the stakes right from its very first sentence:
“2011 is a time of opportunity to achieve lasting progress against global hunger and malnutrition.”
Then it raises them further:
“Feed the Future, a bold new U.S. initiative, may be the best opportunity to come along in decades for the United States to contribute to lasting progress against hunger and malnutrition.”
The message implied in these two sentences: We’ve arrived at an historic moment, let’s not squander it.
via Roger Thurow – Outrage and Inspire – “Historic Moment” – Global Food for Thought.
Facing Global Hunger: Food as a Right
Testimony of Robert Zachritz, World Vision director of advocacy and government relations, before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Caucus
To read the testimony click on the link below.
World Vision’s Advocacy Handbook is available for download from the link below.
Topics covered in the handbook include:
Defining advocacy
Issues facing the world’s poor
Sending a message to Congress
Tips for media coverage
Online social networking
Talk radio stations
Involving your community and church
Involving your college or university
Advocacy and the arts
Advocacy and film
Advocacy and children
Advocacy and athletes
Making change a reality
via World Vision – Seek Justice: A Citizen’s Guide to Advocacy.
Fantastic article
“Of the donor dollars promised for 2010, Haiti has so far received a mere 38 percent, or $732.5 million, excluding debt relief. Nine months after the disaster, not a cent of the U.S. donation for Haiti’s reconstruction has been disbursed; it’s tied up in appropriations. Imagine trying to re-engineer a devastated country when your budget is at the mercy of political whims in foreign lands.”
Read the rest then email your congressman and senators to get the aid out of appropriations.
via 5 Lessons From Haiti’s Disaster – By Paul Farmer | Foreign Policy.
Raise Hope for Congo part of the Enough Project has initiated a new campaign targeting the link betwen conflict minerals and the conflict in the DRC and violence against women.
Can You Hear Congo Now?: Cell Phones, Conflict Minerals, and the Worst Sexual
Violence in the World (pdf file)
Activist Pledge:
By endorsing the Conflict Minerals Pledge, organizations and individuals commit to using their voices and consumer power to influence companies to sign the pledge. Specifically, they will:1. contact the largest makers of cell phones, portable music players, digital cameras, PC’s, and video games, and urge them to sign the pledge;
2. commit to only purchasing electronics from firms that have taken and are abiding by the conflict minerals pledge; and3. educate fellow consumers and activists about the crisis in Congo, the role of conflict minerals, and how they can be a part of the solution.
Take Action: Urge Electronics Companies to Sign the Conflict Minerals Pledge
The new blood diamonds? Article from Fortune Magazine
Other Raise Hope for Congo action:
Congo Advocacy Coalition Letter To United Nations: Civilian Protection Now
The Senate is voting soon on an amendment to restore full funding to the International Affairs Budget. Four Billion dollars has been cut from this budget. Senators Kerry and Lugar have offerred an amendment to restore the funding.
For more info go here Results or here ONE.Org
It is hard to believe we can find billions for the rich that caused the problem and we want to take 4 billion from those most in need.
One thing that often gets shoved to the backburner is the effect of the global financial crisis on the poor. The new edition of Global Future which is publisehed by World Vision tackles that question.
Articles include:
World Water Day is 22 March 2009. Access to clean water is currently a great problem for about 1 Billion people world-wide. One-sixth of the world’s population has poor access to clean water.
Here are some resources to learn more and help solve the problem of access to clean water.
Action needed to avoid world water crisis, UN says
By Patrick Worsnip
UNITED NATIONS, March 12 (Reuters) – The world needs to act urgently to avoid a global water crisis due to increased population, rising living standards, dietary changes and more biofuels production, the United Nations warned on Thursday.
By 2030, nearly half of the world’s people will be living in areas of acute water shortage, said a report jointly produced by more than two dozen U.N. bodies and issued ahead of a major conference on water to be held in Istanbul next week.
The report, “Water in a Changing World,” made “clear that urgent action is needed if we are to avoid a global water crisis,” said a foreword by Koichiro Matsuura, head of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Climate Change Could Produce Millions of Environmental Refugees
Some 25 million people have already been forced to leave their homes due to environmental problems. That number, according to a report by Tearfund, a UK-based relief and development agency, could become as high as 200 million by mid-century as the impacts of climate change cause water shortages around the world.
Water: Overviews and Factsheets
Living Water Christian Mission
Global Water.Org which includes a video Dying of Thirst
Equip International Appropriate Technology Institute Water Technologies Course
Life Water International Technical Resource Library
World Vision: Global Water Shortage a Concern
AlertNet: FACTBOX-The world’s water and climate change
AlertNet: FACTBOX-Key facts on the world’s water supply
Put water centre stage, says UN report
World Vision UK Dirty Water Video
Similar Video from Charity Water shows how it would be if people in the US had to get their water the same as people who do not have access to clean water.
World Vision Water Sponsorship video
Global Policy Forum: Water in Conflict
Drinking at the Public Fountain: The New Corporate Threat to Our Water Supplies
Dried Up, Sold Out: How the World Bank’s Push for Private Water Harms the Poor
The ONE Campaign will be sending a team of bloggers to the G20 Summit. This team will be composed of 50 bloggers, 20 will be from G20 countries, 15 from the developing world and 10 will be focused onpoverty reduction.
For more info see:
World Vision Latest News ONE Poverty UNlocked
SocialVibe