The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the nation’s largest anti-hunger program and helps millions of people who are at risk for food insecurity every month. Specifically, SNAP is vitally important to low income seniors across our nation.  In 2020, more than 5 million adults ages 60 and older were food-insecure, meaning they had limited...Lee mas

In just over two weeks, Missouri voters will head to polls for the midterm elections. In addition to voting for federal, state, and, in some cases, local leaders, Missouri voters will weigh in on four constitutional amendments. Three of these amendments were proposed by the Missouri legislature, and one, Amendment 3, was proposed by the...Lee mas

In 2018, I read Peter Temin’s book The Vanishing Middle Class. He got a lot of press coverage when the book was released, in large part because of his thesis that households who are working to escape poverty really need about 20 years without catastrophe. He theorized that on an individual level, it is sometimes...Lee mas

Just a few weeks into the new school year, many families are learning that after two years of all Missouri public school children receiving free school lunches, the School Lunch Program has returned to pre-pandemic form. Back in March of 2020, many Federal child nutrition waivers were offered as a form of COVID-19 relief. These...Lee mas

The governor has called a special session next week for the legislature to debate the largest income tax cut in Missouri’s history. The governor’s proposal would:  Reduce the top rate of income tax from the current 5.3% to 4.8%. Increase the standard deduction by $2,000 for single filers and $4,000 for joint filers. Eliminate the...Lee mas

This past spring, as the school year was winding down, nonprofits across the country began working on plans to implement their summer feeding programs for kids. Planning was harder than usual though, as nonprofits were unsure what this summer would look like. The waivers that were put into place in March 2020 in light of...Lee mas

At Empower Missouri, we know that we can change lives through effective and targeted policy change. Too many of our neighbors struggle to get their everyday needs met. Housing insecurity, hunger, over policing, historical exclusion: these negative outcomes we see today are a result of intentional, targeted, often racist policy decisions made generations ago. We...Lee mas

While the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in financial instability and economic hardship for many households, unprecedented supports – including a national emergency rental assistance program and eviction moratorium – were enacted to reduce suffering among the country’s lowest-income renters. As these temporary supports come to an end, renters are facing a troubling landscape, with rising rental...Lee mas

In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), sometimes known as the welfare reform bill. Buried deep within that sweeping legislation was a provision that hardly received any debate, but has had lifelong implications for millions of Americans. This provision imposed a lifetime ban on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program...Lee mas

The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s newly released report, The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes, documents a shortage of 7 million affordable and available rental homes for our nation’s lowest-income renters, who make up one quarter of all renters in the U.S. This severe shortage forces 71% of our poorest families – seniors, people...Lee mas