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...Read More

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...Read More

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...Read More

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...Read More

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...Read More

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...Read More

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...Read More

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...Read More

First coined by sociologist Ruth Glass in the 1960s, gentrification has been part of the lexicon for those working in both economics and the affordable housing sector. Gentrification as an idea has changed over the years. For Glass it was the process wherein middle-class workers moved into the working-class neighborhoods of London, resulting in the...Read More

This past week Empower Missouri held its Annual Week of Action. In addition to 3 virtual days, this year we were able to be back in the Capitol for the first time in over 2 years! It was so good to be back.  On each of our virtual days attendees were able to learn about...Read More