A look at RESULTS campaigns in 2022

Turning an emergency response into a structural response

In 2021, RESULTS advocates won major victories against poverty in the emergency response to the pandemic: tax credit expansions helping cut child poverty in half, the largest increase in rental assistance in 50 years, the biggest-ever single investment in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and more.

Now as the world continues to grapple with COVID and all its fallout, we’re pushing not just for an emergency response, but a structural response. We need a new baseline for how our government responds to poverty and the forces of oppression that drive it.

What we’re trying to accomplish against poverty this year:

• Transform the fight against both old pandemics and new pandemics
• Take historic short-term changes to the U.S. tax code and make them permanent
• Push the U.S. to do its part in responding to the global malnutrition catastrophe
• Show Congress they must prioritize tackling the affordable housing crisis

What’s needed on Capitol Hill to make it happen:

• Broad, bipartisan support from Congress
• New congressional champions on each of these issues, from both parties
• Policymakers hearing directly from people with lived experience
• Grassroots-led advocacy and a swell of local media

To power all this work, we’ll be investing in anti-oppression training, new leadership development, growing our reach to influence more members of Congress, and building new partnerships.

What’s at stake

We know that the staggering inequities in global health today are rooted in the remnants of colonialism and predatory global monetary policies. We know that the housing crisis and unacceptable levels of poverty in this country are rooted in a history of racist and oppressive policies. With every issue, we see the ties to larger systems of oppression – and our advocacy has to respond accordingly. In each of our campaigns next year, we’re building on a breakthrough in 2021, and pushing Congress to use it to drive lasting change.

Will Congress let poverty skyrocket again because of inaction?

Transformational changes to the tax code in 2021 have slashed the poverty rate, but they’re set to expire after only a year. We worked to get emergency expansions of the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit passed into law, and we’ll do what it takes in 2022 to make them a lasting change to our tax code.

Will the White House do its part to end the old and new pandemics?

Next fall President Biden is hosting a major pledging summit for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the world’s most powerful tool for channeling donor resources to community-led responses to health. An ambitious pledge from the U.S. could help stop the world’s longstanding pandemics and prepare for the next one. A lackluster pledge could mean the devastating impact of COVID only gets worse.

Will the U.S. prioritize the ballooning crisis of global malnutrition?

Malnutrition is a major cause and consequence of poverty in countries battling the legacy of colonialism and resource extraction, and it’s the underlying cause of nearly half of child deaths. Yet political attention and funding for malnutrition has often been misplaced, or missing altogether. In 2022, we have the chance to pass groundbreaking, new bipartisan legislation and make a leap in U.S. funding for global malnutrition.

Will the federal government help undo the underlying housing crisis?

When COVID-19 hit, millions of Americans were already one crisis away from losing their homes, or struggling to find one in the first place. To sidestep an even bigger disaster, we worked to secure new emergency rental assistance and put a short-term halt to evictions. But the underlying housing crisis, built by decades of racist and exclusionary federal housing policies, hasn’t gone away. While much of housing policy happens at a local level, we’ll be pushing Congress to do its part nationally.