Taking on Poverty

Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Rangel Join CAP at Event to Release the Task Force on Poverty’s New Report

April 25, 2007

Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Charles Rangel spoke at the Center for American Progress today at an event highlighting the release of “From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half,” a report by the Center’s Task Force on Poverty that outlines a strategy for cutting poverty in half in the next 10 years.

“The goal to cut poverty in half over the next [10] years is not an overly ambitious task when you look at what other industrialized countries are doing,” Kennedy said. Pointing to the minimum wage, he showed how Great Britain and Ireland have achieved great results in reducing poverty as a direct result of raising their minimum wages to $9.78/hr and $9.60/hr respectively.

In the United States, Kennedy said, “education and health care have an enormous resonance ... we have to tie those into poverty.” This means increasing funding for each of these policy areas. The 2.5 billion dollars a week being spent on the war in Iraq, Kennedy said, may be causing some barriers to progress in the areas that affect poverty.

Rep. Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, also spoke passionately about the goals laid out in CAP’s poverty report. “I came to the conclusion that poverty is a threat to national security,” Rangel said. “Poverty is expensive, poverty causes [such national disasters as] Katrina.”

“With the exception of getting the hell out of the Middle East, I can’t think of anything more patriotic that Americans can do than to eliminate poverty,” he said. This is why we need to fund poverty reduction with the same vigor with which we are funding the Iraq war, the congressman said.

Much of Rangel’s focus was on the importance of strengthening education in this country. “To me, the best way to get out of poverty is to never get in it. And the best way to never get in it is to have an education [that prevents it],” he said. “We have to start investing in youngsters ... Don’t say they can’t be educated. They just can’t be educated under the system we have today.”

When asked about the role of youth leadership training in reducing poverty, Rangel pointed to self-esteem as the foundation for success in America’s young people. “Without self-esteem, without a dream, without knowing what’s out there, there’s nothing you can do,” he said. “When a kid can’t dream, that’s the saddest thing in this country.”

“The [Ways and Means Committee] is dedicated to our national security, getting rid of poverty ... income tax credits, social security benefits, social security benefits, [and] health care benefits ...” Rangel said, making it clear that reducing poverty means attacking the problem on all fronts.

Following the speakers, panelists Angela Glover Blackwell, President and CEO of PolicyLink, and Peter Edelman, Professor of Law at Georgetown University, both co-chairs of the Task Force on Poverty, participated in a discussion on the report.

Blackwell explained that the Task Force was established when Hurricane Katrina forced Americans to face the socio-economic injustices persistent in this country. “From Poverty to Prosperity” lays out a viable strategy, said Blackwell, because it introduces a multi-faceted approach in order to address the multi-faceted nature of poverty. The report, she said, calls for both personal and social responsibility, and urges that action be taken at the local, state, and national levels.

“[The report’s] focus is on ... full social inclusion for everyone in this country who has a tough time making ends meet,” Edelman said. Given how wealthy the U.S. is, he said, no one in this country should be living in poverty, and what’s more, no one in this country should be having trouble making ends meet. The CAP report concentrates its efforts on both eliminating poverty and sustaining economic stability for the middle class in this country.

For more information on the report:

• From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half
• Research Model (PDF)
• Watch Task Force members discuss the report

To speak with our experts on this issue, please contact:

For TV, Sean Gibbons, Director of Media Strategy
202.682.1611 or sgibbons@americanprogress.org
For radio, Theo LeCompte, Media Strategy Manager
202.741.6268 or tlecompte@americanprogress.org
For print, John Neurohr, Press Assistant
202.481.8182 or jneurohr@americanprogress.org
For web, Erin Lindsay, Online Marketing Manager
202.741.6397 or elindsay@americanprogress.org