Greg Kaufmann

This Week in Poverty: Revealing the Real TANF

Greg Kaufmann on February 8, 2013 - 12:14 PM ET

(Flickr/USDA)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again: the American people have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program created in 1996. Both parties tout it as a “success,” but if you look at the numbers—and at the real lives of people who turn to the program for assistance when they are out of work—the picture is bleak, to say the least.

This Week in Poverty: Time to Take On Concentrated Poverty and Education

Greg Kaufmann on February 1, 2013 - 11:26 AM ET

Students at the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Dorchester, Massachusetts. (Reuters/Adam Hunger)

Co-authored with Elaine Weiss

This Week in Poverty: Citizen Obama and the Anti-Poverty/Pro-Prosperity People

Greg Kaufmann on January 25, 2013 - 11:09 AM ET

President Obama’s swearing-in. (AP Photo)

“So you see, the election four years ago wasn’t about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens—you were the change…. Only you have the power to move us forward.”

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This Week in Poverty: An Anti-Poverty Contract for 2013?

Greg Kaufmann on January 18, 2013 - 12:03 PM ET

Students line up for lunch in Waterbury, Vermont. (AP/Toby Talbot)

This past year I’ve had the opportunity to cover the anti-poverty movement—and I do believe it’s a movement—it’s just a little too much of a well-kept secret right now.

This Week in Poverty: Smiley Calls for White House Conference on US Poverty

Greg Kaufmann on January 11, 2013 - 1:22 PM ET

Tavis Smiley (left) and Cornel West (center) visit the DC Central Kitchen on August 10, 2011. (Flickr/DC Central Kitchen)

Next Thursday, at George Washington University in the nation’s capital—just four days before President Obama’s inauguration—broadcaster Tavis Smiley will bring together a bipartisan panel and an array of poverty experts in a nationally televised event, “Vision for A New America: A Future Without Poverty.”

Expect a heated debate, as a panel that includes Newt Gingrich, Cornel West, and Michael Moore discusses Smiley’s call for a national plan to cut poverty in half in ten years and to eradicate it in twenty-five.

A White House Meeting With Low-Income Americans

Greg Kaufmann on January 8, 2013 - 12:25 PM ET

A boy dirt bikes in Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood. (AP Photos/Dan Loh)

Throughout these budget talks, the Obama administration has projected an image that it is open to good ideas from anyone, and interested in the prosperity of everyone.

This Week in Poverty: Responses to the ‘Cliff’ Deal

Greg Kaufmann on January 4, 2013 - 9:32 AM ET

My post today lacks any of my own writing because my kids—little walking Petri dishes that they are—passed along their latest bug as a New Year’s gift.

Fortunately, I received many great, informed responses to my post on Wednesday regarding the “cliff” deal. They run the gamut—from strong agreement to politely telling me that I have no idea in hell what I’m talking about. This is exactly the kind of conversation that I hoped would occur when we launched This Week in Poverty almost one year ago to the day.

The people below have kindly agreed to let me post their comments. They were given the option to expand on the ideas they originally e-mailed to me—some did, some didn’t. The opinions expressed are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of their respective organizations—titles and affiliations are for identification purposes only.

‘Cliff’ Deal is a Decent Start for Low-Income Americans

Greg Kaufmann on January 2, 2013 - 5:16 PM ET

If you had told me in recent months that on January 2, 2013, we would have unemployment insurance extended for a year, an improved child tax credit and earned income tax credit extended for five years and no cuts to food stamps (SNAP), Medicaid or Social Security—I would have told you that you were out of your mind.

I understand that the criticism coming from the left about this deal is based largely on where things stand for the next round of negotiations, and also a concern that the deal didn’t raise sufficient revenues to avert substantial cuts down the road. But I’m troubled by the lack of attention being paid to how this deal benefits the more than one in three Americans living below twice the poverty line—earning less than $36,000 annually for a family of three, and the 46 million Americans living below the poverty line (less than $18,000 annually for a family of three).

I’m reminded today of a politically active homeless woman I spoke with earlier this year, who—although she is disgusted with Republican policies—was even more frustrated with “so-called progressives” (her words) whom she said talk about caring about poor people but fail to sufficiently speak up about their issues, bring them into their advocacy work and address their concerns in an ongoing and substantive way.

This Week in Poverty: US Single Mothers—'The Worst Off'

Greg Kaufmann on December 21, 2012 - 10:35 AM ET

In my work covering poverty this past year, I’d be hard pressed to come up with anyone who is doing more to shatter the myths about single mothers in the United States than Tim Casey, senior staff attorney at Legal Momentum, the nation’s oldest organization advocating on behalf of the legal rights of women and girls.

Casey himself was raised by a single mother, and he is relentless in his pursuit of the facts about the real lives and living conditions of single-parent families in America—especially critical at a moment when women are demonized for being unmarried and blamed for their circumstances.

Yesterday, Casey and his colleague, Laurie Maldonado, research associate of the Luxembourg Income Study Center at the Graduate Center City University of New York, released an exhaustive new report, “Worst Off—Single-Parent Families in the United States, A Cross-National Comparison of Single Parenthood in the US and Sixteen Other High-Income Countries.”

Today in Poverty: An Education Wish List

Greg Kaufmann on December 19, 2012 - 12:37 PM ET

A Broader, Bolder Christmas: Top Ten “Gifts” for Under the (Education Policy) Tree

Co-authored with Elaine Weiss

10. A Roof Over Every Student’s Head: Children who lack stable homes are more anxious and less focused than their peers who have adequate housing. They are also at higher risk for poor health and developmental problems, and have lower educational attainment. There is no reason why any child in the United States should not enjoy stable housing. Moreover, we end up paying more for children to sleep in cars or in shelters than we would to provide their families with apartments. It’s time to fund the National Housing Trust Fund that was signed into law by President George W. Bush but never funded.