C'Artis Harris, walking with her children in 2017, was searching for housing that would accept her Section 8 voucher when NPR began following her in 2016. Today, Harris and her family still live in an area of high poverty.
Brandon Thibodeaux for NPR
Poverty is a growing global concern, here’s a resource to help those experiencing it
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Aniya Faulcon
Brandon Thibodeaux for NPR
C'Artis Harris, walking with her children in 2017, was searching for housing that would accept her Section 8 voucher when NPR began following her in 2016. Today, Harris and her family still live in an area of high poverty.
Airdate: Tuesday, October 11, 2022
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According to Census data, the official poverty rate in 2021 was over 11%, with almost 38 million people in poverty. Neither the rate nor the number in poverty was significantly different from 2020.
Recent data shows, almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
Robin Rohrbaugh, president of the Community Progress Council joined us on Tuesday’s Smart Talk to discuss the poverty crises and resources to support families on their path toward self-sufficiency.
Rohrbaugh said people experiencing poverty face challenges with employment, income, housing, transportation, health insurance, education, childcare, and food and nutrition.
To combat these challenges the Community Progress Council offers a Self-Sufficiency program, which aims to empower and coach low-income families to attain a family sustaining wage in order to achieve and maintain economic self-sufficiency and live free of public assistance.
Rohrbaugh said, she doesn’t believe poverty is too large of an issue to try to eliminate.
“I believe as a society we have a moral obligation to look at how our government programs are organized and how we let people off of services before maybe they’re stable enough to be cut off,” Rohrbaugh said. “If we’re not addressing multiple issues, I believe that people will continue to fall backwards. And so it’s a complex problem to solve, but we put people on the moon, I think we could solve this problem.”
For more information about the Self-Sufficiency program visit yorkcpc.org/self-sufficiency-program.
The Associated Press and WITF’s democracy reporter Jordan Wilkie are partnering to tell stories about how Pennsylvania elections work, and to debunk misinformation surrounding elections.
