By Caryn Freeman Special to the NNPA This year’s Black Press Week held in Washington, DC culminated with the award ceremony honoring Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP, who received an award for community service and founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, Marian Wright Eldelmen who received a lifetime achievement award for her [...]

Congresswoman Gwen Moore (WI-4) released the following statement in recognition of Poverty in America Awareness Month. “Today, the unemployment rate stands at 8.6 percent and despite recent economic growth more than 43 million Americans including 14.7 million children live in poverty, the highest in the more than 50 years since we have been tracking this [...]

Washington, D.C. – This week Congresswoman Gwen Moore (WI-4) introduced the Rewriting to Improve and Secure an Exit Out of Poverty Act (the RISE Out of Poverty Act or the RISE Act), an overhaul of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Block Grant (TANF). Original co-sponsors include Reps. Danny Davis (D-IL), Edolphus Towns (D-NY), John [...]

The slumping economy and tight budgets on all levels are presenting new challenges to agencies and programs seeking to reduce poverty in the Milwaukee area. The Social Development Commission’s 5th Annual Symposium on Poverty will tackle that problem Wednesday, November 9 at the Italian Conference Center. The daylong Symposium starts at 7:30am and will feature [...]

For many residents of Wisconsin and Milwaukee County, the recession has dealt a double blow. They have lost both their jobs and their health insurance. A new county-level analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (WCCF) examines the impacts of the recession on families across the state, based [...]

Milwaukee is now the fourth poorest city in the United States according to new figures just released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The news comes as one Milwaukee alderman worries about the educational and public safety institutions within Wisconsin’s largest city.[1] Some say that it’s the Democrats and their policies that is the reason we [...]

4th Annual Symposium on Poverty Community organizations, business people, leaders, faith-based groups, seniors and students are all being sought to weigh in on different aspects of the problem of poverty. The 4th Annual Symposium on Poverty will be held Wednesday, November 10 from 8:30 to 3:30 pm to involve all aspects of the community in [...]

Milwaukee fourth poorest city in nation Washington, DC – Annual data released recently by the U.S Census Bureau indicates that 43.6 million Americans—one in seven people— now live in poverty. This is the largest number of people in poverty in the 51 years for which the estimates are available. The figures also show that African [...]

By Joel I. Klein, Michael Lomax and Janet Murguía In the debate over how to fix American public education, many believe that schools alone cannot overcome the impact that economic disadvantage has on a child, that life outcomes are fixed by poverty and family circumstances, and that education doesn’t work until other problems are solved. [...]