FRANKFORT, Ky. - Kentucky continues to have one of the highest poverty rates in the nation, showing only slight improvement in 2015. New Census Bureau figures show 18.5 percent of Kentuckians lived in poverty last year, down six-tenths of a percent from 2014, but still higher than just before the recession hit.
Jason Bailey, the executive director for the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said there's a lot of work left to do to address the core challenges of poverty.
"We need to be raising the minimum wage, so families have more to live on," he said. "We need to be making college more affordable, so folks can get the credentials they need to move up. We need to be investing in Eastern Kentucky more at the federal level, so that that region can transition to new opportunities."
Kentucky's poverty rate is even worse among children and African Americans. The Census Bureau estimates one-fourth of children (25.5%) live in poverty and nearly a third (30.8%) of the state's black population.
Adrienne Bush, executive director of Community Ministries is on the front lines in Hazard, where her group provides child care and other services. She said while improvements have been made to address childhood poverty and expand child-care assistance, it's still hard to "move the needle."
"There is reason for optimism, because we are doing some really cool things in Kentucky, but at the same time, we are under-investing in these programs that we know work," she said.
Danielle Bozarth is the programs director with God's Pantry, which distributes food to the hungry in 50 eastern and central Kentucky counties. She said they see firsthand the cycle of generational poverty.
"Things definitely haven't gotten slower in regards to feeding people," she said. "Children and seniors are the two most vulnerable."
On the positive side, Bailey said the census numbers show wages are growing and unemployment is going down as median household incomes in Kentucky rose by over $2,000 last year. But there's still a "regional divide."
"The more urban parts of the state, their economies have recovered, they're growing quickly, wages are growing, folks are better off; in the more rural parts of the state, there's been job loss and nothing has come in to replace those jobs," Bailey said.
The report also found Kentucky is one of eight states where income inequality increased last year.
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By Katie Fleischer for Ms. Magazine.
Broadcast version by Lily Böhlke for West Virginia News Service reporting for the Ms. Magazine-Public News Service Collaboration
COVID-19 and the unprecedented economic crisis it caused made 2020 one of the most economically challenging years for communities across the country. Almost two-thirds of Americans lived paycheck to paycheck during the pandemic, with women and people of color facing additional hardships like increased unemployment and disproportionate childcare burdens.
Yet 2020 was also a revolutionary year, with necessity becoming a driving force towards increased awareness of the challenges facing low-income Americans and transformative new policies-such as Biden's child tax credit expansion (CTC) and the stimulus checks provided by the CARES Act.
A recent U.S. Census Bureau study showed the $1,200 (plus $500 per child) stimulus checks distributed during the pandemic led to the lowest U.S. poverty rate on record-9.1 percent in 2020, down from 11.8 percent in 2019-and lifted 8.5 million people out of poverty. (The poverty line is about $26,496 per year for a family of four.) Without the stimulus checks, the poverty rate would have instead jumped to 12.7 percent, the Census Bureau estimates.
And the expanded CTC, which provides parents $3,000 to $3,600 per child during 2021, is expected to show similar results: Experts estimate the plan will decrease child poverty by 40 percent, lifting more than four million children out of poverty.
Now, advocates hope the successes of those economic interventions will provide momentum for the continuation of these policies and implementation of new federal programs like a guaranteed income. While transformational for all Americans battling poverty (over 37 million Americans), these economic interventions would especially help working moms, low-income women and women of color.
Despite widespread bipartisan support for both provisions, neither the stimulus payments nor the CTC were designed to be permanent solutions. Stimulus checks were intended to be one-time offers to help Americans during the worst of the pandemic, and Biden's expansion of the CTC will end in December-though a majority of voters want it to become a permanent policy.
A more permanent solution could come from the Build Back Better Act (BBB), Biden's signature bill working its way through Congress, that would provide funding for childcare and free education, extend the CTC, require 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave and implement many other transformative feminist policies. But the bill will require approval from every Democratic senator, and Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (W.V.) have been reluctant to agree.
While policymakers negotiate over Build Back Better, poverty rates have already started increasing again, signaling the urgent need for more permanent stimulus policies. This uptick in the poverty rate will have very real consequences for low-income people, especially parents and women of color.
One mom, Johnnie (last name withheld for anonymity), receives guaranteed income through the Magnolia Mother's Trust (MMT) program, which provides low-income Black mothers $1,000 per month for a year. Johnnie worked as an essential worker during the pandemic, but was forced to quit her job to care for her daughter.
In the Front and Center series, she shared the impact the stimulus check had on her life:
"The first stimulus check helped me catch up on back rent since I didn't have any income while I was ill in early 2020, which really helped me. If I would've had some assistance from my employer, I also wouldn't have been behind on my rent. Not having any income during the time I was out sick was really challenging; my car also got repossessed. So it took until getting my stimulus check that I was able to catch up on my car payments and insurance and get my car back, which was the way I got to work.
"I really think the government needs to have some kind of program to make sure that essential workers are taken care of if there's another pandemic. I really just think that employers and the government need to be prepared better for something like this-have supplies, have support programs, have a plan in place. I just think of all of the people who lost their lives and it makes me so sorry all of this happened the way it did."
Another MMT mom, I'esha, contracted COVID-19 last summer as she worked multiple customer service jobs, and was later unable to work due to a high-risk pregnancy. Along with her guaranteed income payments, the CTC helped keep her family afloat:
"To get the child tax credit payments that started coming last month has been a huge help. I was able to use the first payment in July to get prepared and buy my children their school things-there's so much to get. The clothes, the shoes, the school supplies. I swear that list gets longer every year.
"If I could talk to President Biden, I would tell him that he should make the child tax credit permanent, because so many people are still unemployed and the pandemic is not over. And people need help even without a pandemic going on."
Even one-time cash payments helped low-income families escape cycles of debt and poverty, and plan for future hardships. But while the stimulus checks were an important stopgap measure, true economic justice will require addressing poverty's root causes. Even with the reduction of poverty during 2020, the racial disparities were stark: 8.1 percent of white Americans were below the poverty line, compared to 14.6 percent of Black Americans.
Any effective plan designed to reduce poverty must focus on those most affected. One strategy economic justice experts are advocating for is guaranteed income, which involves recurring payments directed to specific groups. By focusing on marginalized communities, guaranteed income can address economic issues caused by systemic racism and sexism, and can give struggling Americans a way to meet their basic needs and invest in their futures.
The MMT program puts this policy into action, demonstrating that giving women an economic safety net leads to families escaping poverty and having the ability to set themselves and their families up for success. One mom participating in the program, Roneisha, has been able to use the guaranteed income to escape a crushing cycle of debt and poverty:
"The struggle with the job hunt makes the child tax credit payments and the guaranteed income I get through the Magnolia Mother's Trust even more important this year as I work to find a job that pays an even semi-livable wage. It really helped me when I was preparing for my baby to come, I was able to get pretty much everything he needed. At the baby shower all we needed was just a few diapers and things.
"Before I got that call that I was selected to be part of the program, I was really struggling to keep on top of my bills and responsibilities. And now that I'm on this fixed income, it's helped me get really good at managing my money and making sure I'm staying on top of everything and using this opportunity wisely. I'm hopeful that I can only go up from here."
Tia agreed, adding:
"I know people say that if you have programs like these, people will stop working. I don't personally understand that-I mean, I think it's fine if someone made that choice, but for me I'll always want to be working, I want to be adding to my money, not decreasing it. It's not about not working; it's about just being able to take a little time off-to take a week and spend it with your kids, then go back to work. I wasn't able to do that before, to have that time off without being worried about covering the bills.
"And the things I was able to do in that year, I'm still benefiting from now. And I really don't think I would've been able to do those things otherwise, or it would've taken so much longer. So just being able to accomplish things faster, that was huge. For me, being able to get out of affordable housing was such a big step."
On an individual level, guaranteed income, even for just a year, made a tremendous difference in the lives of these women and their families. And the results speak for themselves-the percentage of MMT participants able to pay all their bills without additional support soared from 37 percent to 80 percent during the program.
Similarly, after receiving guaranteed payments for a year, 85 percent of participating moms had completed their high school education, compared to 63 percent at the beginning of the program. MMT mothers were also 20 percent more likely to have children performing at or above grade level, and were 27 percent more likely to seek needed medical care than other moms not receiving guaranteed income.
A federal guaranteed income could decimate poverty rates and help marginalized communities grow and recover from generations of economic challenges. Like the stimulus checks, guaranteed income puts cash directly into the hands of people who need it most, without requiring people to use it in specific ways. This economic freedom allows recipients to make the best decisions for their families, and gives them the freedom to save, spend or invest in their long term goals.
By trusting low-income people and giving them the opportunity to develop a safety net, a federal guaranteed income policy would help address poverty in the U.S., prioritize the most vulnerable communities and help the country recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Katie Fleischer wrote this article for Ms. Magazine.
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By Katie Fleischer for Ms. Magazine. Broadcast version by Lily Bohlke for California News Service. Reporting for the Ms. Magazine-Public News Service Collaboration
Despite children younger than 12 still being unable to get vaccinated and the Delta variant surging across the country, most schools are opting to reopen in-person classes this month.
In states and localities without mask mandates for students, teachers or staff, youths are at an even higher risk of contracting COVID and transmitting it to vulnerable family members, and as children get sick, parents will be forced to leave their jobs to stay home. In two-parent heterosexual households, data shows mothers are still 10 times more likely than fathers to stay home with a sick child. For moms who are primary or sole caregivers, this creates an acute crisis.
Of course, a second year of remote schooling also presents challenges and its own set of gendered impacts, not only for children but for the caregiver who must stay home with them. During the first year of the pandemic, as schools and day-care centers closed, a disproportionate number of women left the workforce in order to take on child care and schooling responsibilities, averaging 15 hours more than dads per week.
Also complicating this year's return to school are low vaccination rates and rampant vaccine misinformation, leading to increased hesitancy and distrust of COVID vaccines. Even though the Food and Drug Administration has now granted the Pfizer vaccine full approval, more than half (52%) of Americans are fully vaccinated. For many, it can be hard to tell if sources are providing accurate scientific information or peddling an anti-vax agenda, contributing to uncertainty and fear surrounding the vaccines.
In particular, people of color tend to be more hesitant than white Americans to receive the vaccine, and along with women and low-income people, they are also more likely to face logistical problems preventing them from accessing it. Negative experiences with racism and sexism from medical professionals may be contributing to the hesitancy, as well as gendered misinformation such as false allegations of the vaccines affecting fertility. (Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now are actively encouraging people who are pregnant or breastfeeding to get vaccinated).
I'esha (last name withheld), a pregnant mother of two and recipient of guaranteed income from Magnolia Mother's Trust, said she was hesitant at first about getting vaccinated during her pregnancy.
"I was very hesitant about the vaccine initially, but I got my first Pfizer shot a few weeks ago, and then I'll get my second shot next week, right before I deliver my baby," she said. "I made the choice to get it because my doctor had a patient who was not vaccinated and contracted COVID, and it really complicated her delivery. I decided getting the vaccine was worth any potential risk to protect me and my baby from getting sick."
Now, as schools scramble to deal with the Delta variant, moms -- especially in districts lacking mask and vaccine mandates -- are being forced to make a tough choice: Send their kids to school, knowing that they are likely to be exposed to unvaccinated students, teachers and adults; or continue remote schooling, which contributes to financial stress and inequities.
"I joke that I'm excited for them to go back to school, because my power bill when they started doing remote school went way up since they were home all the time," I'esha wrote in Ms. "But really I am scared about the Delta variant, and the high rates here in Mississippi and how the virus is affecting children. I would rather pay a high power bill than have them at school, honestly. But they are required to be back in school, even though I would love for them to continue to be schooled virtually." (Mississippi now ranks second in the country, behind New Jersey, for most COVID deaths per capita.)
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education issued a formal warning to leaders in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah, all states with statewide bans on mask mandates. The department's Office for Civil Rights is investigating whether their bans are discriminatory against students with disabilities, who may be more at risk from COVID-19.
Virtual schooling comes with its own built-in inequities for low-income students and students of color, setting them back in terms of curriculum and increasing existing education disparities. On average, K-12 students now are five months behind in math and four months behind in reading. But majority Black schools are six months behind and low-income schools are seven. One analysis suggested that this learning gap may result in students earning $49,000 to $61,000 less over their lifetime.
During the 2020-21 school year, as both teachers and kids struggled to adjust to virtual schooling, moms disproportionately carried the burden of helping their kids learn. Virtual classes added to their responsibilities at home, leading some moms, such as Chephirah, to leave the workforce permanently to ensure their children could still be successful at school.
"The pandemic really hurt my ability to work," she wrote. "I just couldn't get enough hours. I was getting maybe two days a week, then not getting anything for a week, or I'd get shifts that were just two or three hours. It wasn't enough to pay the bills and it was also during the pandemic, so I decided it was just better to stay at home with my daughter since she was doing online school. She really had a hard time with switching to virtual learning; she is much better and happier doing face-to-face in the classroom."
Similarly, Johnnie was forced to make the tough decision to leave her job in order to keep her family safe.
"When the pandemic first hit, I was working at Koch Foods as an office clerk," she said. "It was stressful during the pandemic, because drivers were coming from all over the country and we stayed open because the food-service industry were deemed essential workers. I ended up leaving my job because it was not safe and my daughter was not able to continue with school without my help. If I could've had somewhere to take her where she could get help with her online school, then that would've allowed me to keep my job. But I didn't have any options, so I had to quit my job to help my baby. I want her to have an education and I couldn't let her fall behind."
For families who dealt with the repercussions of remote schooling last year, programs such as the Magnolia Mother's Trust, which provides $1,000 per month in guaranteed income to Black women-led households living in extreme poverty, have made a huge difference. Guaranteed income involves payments directed to specific groups, such as women living in poverty, in order to address economic inequities.
During the pandemic and beyond, guaranteed income can help impacted communities overcome economic issues caused by systemic racism and sexism, and give low-income women the ability to set themselves and their children up for success. Johnnie explains how a federal guaranteed-income policy would make a huge difference for working moms:
"During the pandemic, it was really hard for me because it was mandatory for me to go to work, but then my daughter was home from school and I didn't have anyone to be there to help her," she said. "I also didn't have internet at home, so I had to pay to get that so that she could do her school work online.
"If I would've had some assistance from my employer, I also wouldn't have been behind on my rent," she said. "I really think the government needs to have some kind of program to make sure that essential workers are taken care of if there's another pandemic. I really just think that employers and the government need to be prepared better for something like this -- have supplies, have support programs, have a plan in place."
As schools reopen, combating vaccine misinformation is essential to keep families safe and prevent the spread of COVID-19 variants. But vaccinations on their own are not enough to help the country fully recover from the pandemic. The past year of virtual schooling will have a lasting impact -- for the women leaving the workforce in droves, kids falling behind in school and families forced to juggle work, child care and household tasks with lowered incomes.
Instead of continuing to force low-income moms to choose between putting their children's health at risk or being forced to leave the workforce, federal policies such as guaranteed income can provide a financial cushion that empowers recipients to make decisions not out of life-or-death desperation, but instead to protect their health, support their children's education and do what's best for their families in their specific circumstances.
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This story was produced with original reporting from Katie Fleischer for
Ms. Magazine.
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CONCORD, N.H. -- A court hearing this week will determine whether thousands of Granite Staters can access some federal unemployment benefits that Gov. Chris Sununu cut off early.
Four people who were receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) prior to the June 19 cutoff are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last week to reinstate the benefit.
Stephanie McKay, moderator of a Facebook groups called NH Unemployment During COVID-19, said if people were able to file back claims for the past three months since the cutoff, it would make a big difference, even though the program is ending at the federal level this week.
"The unemployed are being villainized," McKay contended. "They're being told you're lazy, you get a job. And I can assure you that the people that were relying on unemployment actually need it. They're struggling to keep up with just day-to-day expenses and looking for work and not finding it."
While New Hampshire was among the states that cut off benefits early in an effort to get people back into the workforce, studies so far have shown no increase in employment.
While the state cut off all the emergency federal benefits, this lawsuit is specifically regarding PUA.
McKay pointed out there is a lot of frustration for people who have not been able to find child care, or work that pays well enough to cover their expenses.
"It's hard for them to take a lower-paying job, or two or three lower-paying jobs, and still not be able to pay the bills," McKay explained. "[The] cost of living in New Hampshire is astronomical."
Mike Perez, attorney for the plaintiffs, said providing retroactive PUA payments would not cost the state anything; it is fully funded by the CARES Act, including administrative costs.
He noted what makes PUA unique is it was specifically created to help people struggling during the pandemic who otherwise wouldn't qualify for unemployment insurance.
"So these are people who are self-employed, gig workers, independent contractors, or people who started a job soon before the beginning of the shutdown, and then stopped working but hadn't been at the job long enough to qualify for typical unemployment insurance," Perez outlined.
He encouraged Granite Staters who were relying on PUA to keep an eye out for the decision, and be ready to file back claims. The suit follows similar cases in other states that cut off benefits early, some of which already have resulted in court orders telling the state to reinstate the program.
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