Take Action to End Child Poverty Now!
Take action to end child poverty now with urgency and persistence in your own communities and states and with your elected officials at home and in Congress.
- Share What You Know: Use CDF’s State Fact Sheets and other materials above to update others in your community—families, friends, co-workers, faith organizations and others—about the numbers of poor children in your community and those who live in extreme poverty, and the harms poverty causes for children. Share work being done on behalf of children in poverty in your community and let others know how they can be engaged.
- Serve: Join others in your community who are directly serving children in poor families or advocating for them when they are in the child welfare or youth justice systems. Bring other colleagues with you to serve meals, distribute clothing, join projects that play with the children, or offer tutoring and mentoring services. Remember to move beyond charity and seek justice. Engage in broader policy campaigns and commit for the long haul.
- Fight Back Against the Challenges Poor Children Face: Children who are poor are more likely to suffer hunger and homelessness. Attention to these problems has a documented positive effect on reducing child poverty. By getting more children nutritious food—not only during the school year but during the summer months—you can help reduce child poverty. Addressing homelessness and creating more affordable housing are also important policy campaigns.
- Pursue and Support Policies at the State and National Levels that Can Help End Child Poverty: You can make progress toward ending child poverty by urging your elected officials to take steps to help more parents work, make work pay, and address children’s basic necessities. Some of the reforms needed can be incorporated in both federal and state laws, such as increases in the minimum wage and in the Earned Income Tax Credit and the establishment of subsidized jobs programs.
- Encourage Your Policymakers to Make Long-Term Investments to Break the Cycle of Poverty: In addition to the modest improvements described above which are essential but not sufficient, investments also are needed that can help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. These investments are needed to ensure everyone access to comprehensive health coverage and care, promote quality early childhood development and learning and create a level education playing field so children can succeed in school and in life.