Ask the Expert: Melissa Boteach and Joy Moses on the New U.S. Poverty Data

What does the new data show about poverty in the United States?

MB: The data reveal that about 1 in 7 Americans lived in poverty last year, or 43.6 million. It also showed widening racial disparities. The child poverty rates were particularly alarming, with over 1 in 5 kids living in poverty last year. However, the data also showed that the Recovery Act and other provisions helped to reduce the poverty that would have been otherwise.

JM: Many experts including those at CAP are particularly alarmed because these are the highest poverty numbers we've seen since we began counting them in 1959. Further, we haven't seen a ratio approaching this high since 1994. It is a concern for those who are focused on poverty, but also, of course, for every American who is touched by the issue.

MB: However, the Recovery Act did include several provisions which stemmed the tide. For example, a study done last year by Center on Budget and Policy Priorities revealed that just seven targeted provisions of the Recovery Act kept more than 7 million Americans out of poverty using an alternative measure. In addition, although our poverty measure only includes essentially your income before taxes, but if you look at benefits like SNAP you can see they kept 3.6 million Americans out of poverty last year if you were to include them in the families' resources, and a program like the earned income tax credit, which received a boost last year, kept 3 million children out of poverty in 2009. These programs work.

JM: And there are certainly a number of other activities that have been generated by progressives and the Obama administration hat have helped people who are poor that aren't reflected in those numbers, such as expanding access to quality education, expanding access to financial aid so people can get necessary job training There is a broad range of activities that have been going on, but there is certainly much more to do.

What can we do to reduce poverty?

JM: Well there are going to be a lot of opportunities for Congress to address issues related to poverty this fall and in the coming days. For instance, the question of unemployment insurance is always prevalent and what at to do about people who have exhausted benefits. Another big issue that they'll be tackling is the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, which could expand access to meals for millions of low income children and they will need to grapple with how to ensure that it gets through with all the concerns related to the deficit, etc.

MB: Two other opportunities that Congress has that are timely, first is the TANF emergency fund, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families emergency fund. This is a job creation engine that was passed last year as part of the Recovery Act and since then has allowed states to partner with the private sector to create more than 250,000 jobs for low income workers and long-term unemployed workers. But it is set to expire on September 30 if congress doesn't act to extend it and with that would go thousands of jobs as well as the extra funding states have had to address things like youth homelessness summer feeding for hungry children in the summer months and other kinds of successful innovation they've used the fund for. In addition, in the upcoming tax debate there are two credits, the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit, which is an opportunity really for Congress to make the tax code work for low-income working families. Congress should act to extend those provisions in the coming months.

Why should we focus on cutting poverty and other domestic priorities?

MB: We should tackle poverty not only because of our shared American value of equal opportunity, but also because it's costly to our economy. We recently released a paper by Dr. Harry Holzer which revealed that child poverty is costing our economy more than 500 billion dollars a year in lost productivity and in increased health care and criminal justice expenditures. We can't afford not to act.

JM: The other reason we have to address poverty is it's affecting a growing number of Americans. We can't ignore that millions more are in poverty in 2009 than in 2008, and the income gaps between the rich and the poor are growing exponentially each year. With this we know that it's affecting more of us and if it's affecting more of us, it becomes more of an issue for the nation.