362 posts categorized "Advocacy"

This week, many folks will be scurrying to finish up their taxes, but what many don't know is that for some low-income families, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) boost household earnings and lift millions of people out of poverty each year. 

The Earned Income Tax Credit is a refundable tax credit that supplements the wages of low-income workers. The more wages people earn, the more benefits their families receive until a certain point when the benefits begin to decline and finally disappear. People apply for this tax credit when they complete their income tax returns. In 2010, this credit lifted 5.4 million people out of poverty — including 3 million children.

The Child Tax Credit provides financial support for working families with children. The credit is available for children under age 17 to families earning at least $3,000. Families can receive a refund of 15 percent of their earnings above $3,000 up to $1,000 per child. The CTC is a partially refundable tax credit families apply for when they complete their income tax returns. In 2009, the CTC lifted 2.3 million people, including 1.3 million children, out of poverty.

Millions of Americans continue to feel the effects of the recession — and an alarming number are poor and hungry. Nearly one in six people lived in poverty in 2010 ($22,113 for a family of four), including 22 percent of children and more than one in four children under age 5. More than one-third of the U.S. population was poor or near poor in 2010 (living below twice the poverty level).

Unfortunately, a job doesn’t guard against poverty. In 2010, 10.7 million people with jobs lived below the poverty line. A full-time minimum-wage earner makes only about $14,500 a year. We need a growing economy, more good jobs, and measures—such as these tax credits—that ensure working families can support their families.

When times get tough in low-income households, the food budget is usually the first thing families cut. We can’t end hunger as long as people lack the financial resources they need to put food on the table. Join us this week as we learn about the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, and call on Congress to create a circle of protection around critical tax credits for low-income working families.

Molly Marsh is managing editor at Bread for the World.

Photo caption: Heather Rude-Turner depends on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to help support her family: Mark Diamond, 32; Naomi, 5; and Isaac, 3. They live in northern Virginia, where Heather works as a teacher at a Child Development Center. Mark drives limos and works in construction. Heather recently graduated from Kaplan University with a B.S. in child psychology. She would like to become a school teacher. Photograph by Laura Elizabeth Pohl

+Learn more about our mini-campaign on tax credits for low-income families.

Photo by Flickr user nicolasnova

Next week, the House and the Senate will decide on funding levels for critical anti-hunger and anti-poverty programs for fiscal year (FY) 2013. Sens. Richard Durbin and Mark Kirk sit on the committee that will make these decisions.

Please call today and tell them to:

• Protect poverty-focused foreign assistance by supporting the highest level of funding for the FY 2013 State and Foreign Operations bill, and
• Protect international food aid and domestic nutrition programs by supporting the highest level of funding for the FY 2013 Agriculture Appropriations bill.

The overall funding for these bills must be as high as possible.

• Poverty-focused foreign assistance programs comprise less than 1 percent of the federal budget, but they help people in developing countries lift themselves out of poverty.
• The Food for Peace Program and the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, funded in the agriculture bill, are vital to alleviating global malnutrition and hunger. In one year, as many as 46.5 million people—including 5 million children—received their only daily meal through these programs.
• The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), also funded by the agriculture bill, currently provides food to nearly 9 million low-income women, infants, and children up to age 5.

The pressure to cut these programs will be immense. We need your voice.

Call Sens. Durbin and Kirk, using this toll-free number: 1-800-326-4941. Tell them to protect poverty-focused foreign assistance, international food aid, and WIC by supporting the highest levels of funding for the FY 2013 State and Foreign Operations bill and the FY 2013 Agriculture Appropriations bill. Thank you.

David Beckmann is president of Bread for the World.

Children gather in Jombo village, Malawi, where a well provides clean water for drinking, cooking, and sanitation needs. The village is part of the USAID-funded Wellness and Agriculture of Life Advancement (WALA) project designed by Catholic Relief Services. Village residents learn how to prepare nutritious meals for their families and the importance of good hygiene. Photographed in October 2011 by June Kim.

"It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let [them] suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to [their] assistance."

-Simone Weil

Miami Bread Team members (left to right): Catherine Hibbitt, Sara Kelly, Alyn Cruz Higgins, and Betty Rice present hand-written letters to the in-district office of Senator Marco Rubio. Source: Recorriendo America News. 

I recently had the chance to speak with Catherine Hibbitt -- a member of the Miami-Dade Bread for the World Team -- about the local anti-hunger movement blossoming in Miami, FL.

Bread Teams are groups of local activists working together to build grassroots support at the local level to urge our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. The Miami-Dade Bread Team is one of many new Bread Teams across the country. Catherine shared her thoughts on Bread Team involvement and described some of the unique qualities of the team in Miami.

Kelsey Lalman: Why did you choose to be involved in the Bread Team?

Catherine Hibbitt: I attended the National Gathering last year in DC. I thought, ‘Wow, this is where I belong as far as advocacy and lobbying are concerned.’ I was pleasantly shocked that something like this existed. When I came back [to Florida] I wanted to get involved and knew they were starting a Miami-Dade group. It was a way to get involved locally. It’s one thing to go to DC and lobby for a few days, but another to take action in your local community.

What are the goals of the Miami Bread Team?

To get as many people exposed to Bread for the World and effective hunger advocacy in the Miami-Dade county area. It’s not just saying, "Hey, you should know about hunger advocacy," but providing a way for citizens to be involved – to write letters and contact legislators. I see this as a very attainable goal.

What are the challenges of being a Bread Team?

Because Miami-Dade is a gigantic area it has been great to break up the work. Some people know people in “this area” and some know people “over here.” It really defines grassroots, but it hasn’t been easy to break up areas and have [cohesive] leadership.

What unique qualities do you see in the Miami team?

Hunger issues are reflected in the diversity and population in Miami. With the focus on foreign aid, it resonates here very well because there are people from many, many different countries. They’ve often benefitted from the aid. They have a very real connection with the idea of foreign assistance and realize that a lot of people, including their families, rely on these programs. It’s a very personal connection.

My conversation with Catherine revealed to me that Bread Teams are as unique as the people and places that create them. But what weaves the teams’ efforts together is that they are each committed to anti-hunger advocacy. Through outreach, Offering of Letters events, visits to local congressional offices (see the Miami-Dade Team at one of their own), and other team actions, Bread Teams are growing the movement to end hunger in a big way.

To learn more about starting or joining a Bread Team in your local community, contact your Regional Organizer.

Kelsey Lalman is an organizing intern at Bread for the World.

Heather Rude-Turner, 31, of northern Virginia, was once a single mom receiving WIC, SNAP, and EITC. Because of this, she said she can relate to some of the low-income families who bring their children to the childcare center where she works as a teacher. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World.

We’ve been saying it repeatedly over the last several years: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) is successful in keeping poverty in check or even reducing it in our country. Now, a new U.S. Department of Agriculture study confirms this, saying that SNAP reduced the poverty rate by nearly 8 percent in 2009. The USDA studied nine years of SNAP data, the latest year being 2009.

The New York Times writes that the reduction of poverty in the U.S. due to SNAP is “a significant impact for a social program whose effects often go unnoticed by policy makers.”

Currently, more than 46 million Americans benefit from SNAP -- which is the highest number of participants since the program was first piloted in 1961. More than half of today’s beneficiaries are children, most of whom are likely to be poor.

The Times writes: “The program lifted the average poor person’s income up about six percent closer to the line over the length of the study, making poverty less severe. When the benefits were included in the income of families with children, the result was that children below the threshold moved about 11 percent closer to the line.”

If you want to help us create a circle of protection around programs such as SNAP -- which are vital to hungry and poor people -- write your member of Congress today.

Adlai Amor is director of communications at Bread for the World.

+Join us in calling policymakers to protect funding for SNAP and other programs that help poor and hungry people!

Photo by Flickr user  Daehyun Park

"I am my brother’s keeper, and he’s sleeping pretty rough these days."

-Archbishop Derek Worlock, British Roman Catholic Cleric, London Observer

"The freedom of [hu]mans, I contend, is the freedom to eat."

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Photo caption: Mother and daughter shell peas from their garden in Nicaragua/Bread for the World.

The crowd at Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Washington, DC, from March 23 to 26, 2012. Photo courtesy of the United Church of Christ.

There was an extra air of excitement on Capitol Hill last weekend. That’s because more than 700 passionate faith advocates descended upon Washington, DC, to attend Ecumenical Advocacy Days, from March 23 to 26. Through worship, theological reflection, and education, this annual conference seeks to train and mobilize Christians to be effective advocates for justice. This year, the event brought together faith leaders and citizen advocates of varying Christian denominations to promote a faithful federal budget. Bread for the World was honored to sponsor the conference, which had a theme that echoed Bread’s 2012 Offering of Letters campaign. The four-day event culminated when attendees met with their respective Representatives and Senators to say: “As people of faith, we urge you defend people struggling to live in dignity by funding programs that protect vulnerable populations here and abroad. Enact a faithful federal budget that serves the common good, provides robust funding for people struggling to overcome poverty, and exercises proper care of the earth.”

New York residents meet with Senator Kristen Gillibrand's office for Ecumenical Advocacy Days. Photo by Beth Begley.

The discussions I had and the people I met at Ecumenical Advocacy Days deepened my sense of hope in faith advocacy. I'm encouraged to know that there is such a powerful movement of faith advocates calling on Congress to protect programs essential to those most in need. With this magnitude of faithful citizens supporting such decisions, I believe that we are well on our way to building the political will to end hunger, but we can’t stop now. 

This week, the House of Representatives approved a 2013 budget that makes drastic and disproportionate cuts to programs essential for poor and hungry people.  As the budget talks continue, it is important to make our voices heard loud and clear now, before it is too late.

Act now to oppose the proposed House budget, and find out more about planning an Offering of Letters.

Kelsey Lalman is an organizing intern at Bread for the World.

Photo by Flickr user wolfgangfoto

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during Lent, we offer reflections from Bread staff and others who faithfully work to end hunger.

Lectionary readings (from the Revised Common Lectionary):

Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 36:5-11
Hebrews 9:11-15
John 12:1-11

[This Lenten reflection is taken from a meditation offered to First Presbyterian Church of Cedar Rapids, IA.]

Many Americans assume that the “separation of church and state” means that religious organizations should not attempt to influence government policy. But I believe that both American history and the Bible strongly challenge this assumption, and a vital part of my Christian witness involves efforts to influence public policy on issues like hunger and the environment.

There are abundant examples of such action in American history, and in the history of this congregation. Before the founding of this nation, colonial clergy were a major force in arousing the spirit of independence, and churches of nearly every major persuasion joined in the battle for independence. In the 19th century, churches were at the forefront in the struggle to abolish slavery and clergy provided an estimated two-thirds of the leadership. Several of the charter members of my congregation, First Presbyterian Church of Cedar Rapids, IA, including Alexander and Mary Weare Ely, were active abolitionists. More recently, churches and synagogues were at the center of the civil rights movement. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey often stated that the Civil Rights Act would never have passed without the energetic, well-organized, and courageous support of religious groups, both black and white. And our senior pastor in the 1960s, Dr. Francis Pritchard, and numerous members of our congregation publicly supported that legislation.

Today, many congregations in our city provide programs and services for poor persons in our community, and we can be proud of First Presbyterian’s leadership on issues like food distribution and refugee resettlement. And yet, the U.S. government can do some things on a scale that charities cannot. Ronald Sider, the head of Evangelicals for Social Action, has stated, “If religious congregations were to try to replace the federal government’s support for just the most basic programs for the poor, such as SNAP [formerly food stamps], each one of the 325,000 religious congregations in America would have to raise more than a million dollars a year to provide comparable assistance to the needy.”

The biblical mandate that we care for the poor appears more than 2,000 times throughout the Scriptures, both in the works of the Hebrew prophets and in Jesus’ ministry to “the least of these” and his admonition that we are to serve him by doing likewise. As Ronald Sider again states, “God judges societies by what they do to the people at the bottom. One thing is crystal clear from the biblical texts: God and God’s faithful people have a great concern for the poor.” For me, that concern must take the form of political action, as well as support for private charity. 

Al Fisher is a sociology professor at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, IA, and an active member of Bread for the World. 

+Read all of our Lent reflections.

Children enjoy a snack at an after-school program in Washington, DC. Photo by Mark Fenton.

"America is the richest country in the world. And yet tonight, thousands of your neighbors will go to bed hungry. It may be your child's schoolmate who is undernourished and has difficulty learning on an empty stomach. Or it could be a co-worker, a working mother whose low-wage job doesn't make ends meet. Perhaps it's an elderly neighbor who has to make a decision whether to delay filling a prescription or buying groceries. The faces of hunger are as broad as the faces of America."

-David Nasby, retired vice president of the General Mills Foundation