2026 U.S. Poverty Laser Talks
Please invest in housing and homelessness assistance in the FY27 budget
Engage: Housing affordability and homelessness are urgent challenges. Working families across the country are doing everything right and still can’t afford a place to live.
Problem: Nearly half of all renters are rent-burdened, spending over 30 percent of their income on housing. Rising costs for food, health care, and other essentials are pushing too many families toward housing instability and homelessness.
Inform: This crisis is solvable. Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs) and other special purpose vouchers currently help 2.4 million households stay stably housed and move toward economic security. The program provides flexible supports like rental assistance, landlord incentives, and help with move-in costs. However, chronic underfunding means only one in four eligible households receive assistance.
Call to Action: Congress can strengthen housing stability nationwide. Will you urge appropriators to increase funding for Housing Choice Vouchers and other housing and homelessness programs in Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27)?
Protect children and families by delaying devasting cuts to SNAP
Engage: Imagine the nation’s most effective anti-hunger program being quietly dismantled while wealthy corporations receive tax cuts. That’s exactly what is happening.
Problem: Under last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R.1), states will now be required to pay a share of SNAP benefit costs. This is an unprecedented cost-shift putting millions nationwide at risk of losing nutrition assistance.
Inform: These cuts come as food prices rise and state budgets shrink. States now face an impossible choice: absorb massive federal cost shifts that threaten other important services or cut SNAP. The consequences will be severe. An estimated 2.4 million people could lose SNAP benefits. Rural communities, low-wage workers, children, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities will be hit hardest. A few states have received a temporary delay of the rules until 2030, but most did not.
Call to Action: Everyone deserves access to nutritious food and a chance to live healthy lives. If Congress will not repeal these devastating SNAP cuts, they must delay them for all states. We cannot allow this fundamental assault on food security to stand.
Improve the Child Tax Credit for families with low wages
Engage: The “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act passed by Congress in July 2025 missed a crucial opportunity to protect children from poverty.
Problem: Congress declined to help 16 million children in families with low wages by expanding the Child Tax Credit (CTC).
Inform: Congress must fix this discrepancy as soon as possible. Here’s how:
- Change the “phase-in” of the CTC so it is available to more families who are paid the lowest wages.
- Narrow the widening gap between families who get the full credit and those who don’t.
- Remove the CTC refundability cap. Many parents working in low-wage jobs have low tax liability. Removing the “refundability cap” would allow them to receive the full benefit of the CTC.
- Family expenses typically come due on a monthly basis; we should pay the credit monthly as well.
Call to action: Investing in our families and workforce is the best way to achieve our shared goal of healthy and prosperous communities. In any tax legislation this year, will you support these much-needed improvements to the CTC?