A bipartisan group of Missouri lawmakers have proposed evidence-based policy that will help close to half of Missouri’s growing families. They seek to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to a full year – to give one year of uninterrupted access to healthcare after a person’s pregnancy ends.   Despite the fact that the bills...Read More

Food Insecurity in the U.S. and Here at Home in Missouri More than 34 million people experience food insecurity in the United States. That includes 9 million children and more than 5 million adults aged 60 and older.   That is 10.2% of Americans in total.  Imagine a room of people randomly selected from any...Read More

Among Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are the lowest and arguably most important necessities humans require to exist; physiological needs. These include basic essentials such as air, water, food, sleep and shelter. Required needs. Not optional. Required. Housing is required for humans to survive, so why do we treat it as a luxury for those privileged...Read More

The pandemic and its impact on our economy hit all of us hard, and illuminated the struggles low-wage workers face in ways that we had not seen for a long time. Workers with low incomes were less able to stay home, less likely to have sick leave to care for themselves and their families, and...Read More

Missouri has a severe affordable housing shortage. Our partners at the National Low Income Housing Coalition show 72% of very low income households in Missouri overpay for their housing, and are housing cost burdened. Cost burden occurs when a household pays more than 30% of their income towards housing costs alone, leaving very little for...Read More

Last year, we advocated against HB 2085, a bill that would prevent households which receive TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) from withdrawing those benefits in cash. This bill has been re-filed this year as HB 338, despite the fact that cash is a necessary resource, especially for households in poverty. This bill will increase...Read More

On Tuesday evening, I went to the prison in Bonne Terre to stand in solidarity with our colleagues at Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty in opposing the execution of Kevin Johnson. I honestly didn’t attend in my official capacity as a staff member at Empower Missouri. As I had learned the details of...Read More

Empower Missouri started over 100 years ago as an annual conference, making the job of planning and executing our annual Anti-Poverty Summit even more significant. Ask any nonprofit staff and they’ll tell you that conference execution is no joke. I have to uplift our team and give them a round of applause: 2022’s return to...Read More

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...Read More

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...Read More