Announcing Half in Ten

The Center for American Progress (CAP) is leading a new campaign to cut poverty in half within ten years. The campaign is called Half in Ten and the frontman for it is none other than John Edwards, former Democratic presidential candidate and senator from North Carolina. Edwards was also the only candidate in both parties to raise poverty to the top of his issues agenda.

The Half-in-Ten campaign is promoting four main solutions:

• Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit;
• Raising both state and federal minimum wages;
• Increasing the number of low-income families receiving child care assistance;
• Increasing eligibility for unemployment insurance.

These are spot on and should be on anybody’s list of what to do to reduce poverty. We promoted these policies in Working Harder for Working Families, and I have used this blog recently to write about the importance of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.

Half-in-Ten will be promoting other solutions, and I suspect they will sound a lot like what was in CAP’s terrific report from last year, From Poverty to Prosperity. Broadly, that report emphasized four principles:

“Promote Decent Work. People should work and work should pay enough to ensure that workers and their families can avoid poverty, meet basic needs, and save for the future.

“Provide Opportunity for All. Children should grow up in conditions that maximize their opportunities for success; adults should have opportunities throughout their lives to connect to work, get more education, live in a good neighborhood, and move up in the workforce.

“Ensure Economic Security. Americans should not fall into poverty when they cannot work or work is unavailable, unstable, or pays so little that they cannot make ends meet.

“Help People Build Wealth. All Americans should have the opportunity to build assets that allow them to weather periods of flux and volatility, and to have the resources that may be essential to advancement and upward mobility.”

Half-in-Ten is just getting underway, so I have nothing presently to report on what events are planned or how the campaign intends to engage the presidential candidates or influence the debate over the months ahead, but I would expect with Senator Edwards on board it will be out there getting attention. And that’s good news for all of us who believe government should be doing far more to address domestic poverty.