Washington, D.C.—Today the Half in Ten campaign released a new report that tracks the nation’s and every state’s progress towards cutting poverty in half over the next decade and the organization’s leaders issued the following statements:
Melissa Boteach,Director of Half in Ten:
“It’s time to hit the re-set button on our national debate on poverty. We need a conversation about how to create enough good jobs to lift families into the middle-class, not about how to attack the services helping struggling families scrape by.”
Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a Half in Ten partner:
“When large portions of our population fall behind, our entire nation suffers, our collective prospects for the future are diminished, and the promise of American as the land of equal opportunity becomes harder to fulfill.”
Deborah Weinstein, executive director of Coalition on Human Needs, a Half in Ten partner:
“We cannot and will not accept that there is nothing our government can do to address persistent poverty, a job market that is not growing fast enough, and too many jobs that are not paying a living wage”
Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress:
“The current Congress has effectively applied the brakes to the labor market by failing to take action needed to boost job creation and by refusing to cancel the so-called sequester. It is time to change course in our national conversation and to again focus on investing in our economy and families.”
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