Most states have started using their share of the $195 billion Fiscal Recovery Funds (FRF), created under the federal American Rescue Plan to help states and localities address the...

The federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system helps many people who have lost their jobs by temporarily replacing part of their wages. (See “Policy Basics: Unemployment Insurance.”) Under...

The House vote brings us a critical step closer to delivering policy advances that help families meet everyday challenges such as paying rent and putting food on the table, affording child care and preschool, securing health coverage, and paying for college.

Many communities across the United States are considering new approaches to public safety that go beyond traditional policing, and the federal American Rescue Plan has given them a unique opportunity...

Build Back Better’s proposed $24 billion voucher program investment, once fully phased in, would help make homes affordable for an estimated 300,000 households with low incomes — including about 274,000 children.

When President Trump took office in January 2017, he inherited an economy in its 91st month of economic expansion following the end of the Great Recession in June 2009. That expansion continued into 2020, becoming the longest on record, but a sharp contraction in economic activity arising from COVID-19 ended it.

Safe, stable, accessible, and affordable housing remains out of reach for millions of women and girls in the U.S., which can undermine their health, safety, and economic opportunity. To address these...

Policymakers have committed to offsetting the costs of the bill’s new investments and have proposed a series of sound measures to do so.

The House Build Back Better legislation would ensure that families continue to get a significantly expanded Child Tax Credit via monthly payments through 2022.

The Build Back Better legislation would take major steps to reduce the number of people living in poverty, improve the quality of life for low- and moderate-income people, and create opportunity so that children growing up in poverty have better health, complete more education, and earn higher salaries as adults.

Millions report that their households did not get enough to eat or are not caught up on rent payments.

In every state, thousands of low-income veterans use SNAP to help put food on the table.

The Build Back Better legislation being considered by the House includes historic investments in proven child nutrition programs that would transform nutrition assistance for our nation’s low-income schoolchildren.

In addition to creating a pathway to coverage for more than 2 million people in the Medicaid coverage gap, the House Build Back Better legislation would strengthen Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage for parents and children, people leaving jails and prisons, and people with disabilities and older people who need home- and community-based services (HCBS).

The legislation would raise revenue in three main ways: requiring people with high incomes to pay a fairer amount of tax, reducing unwarranted tax advantages for profitable corporations, and improving enforcement of the nation’s tax laws.

The new House Build Back Better legislation would make meaningful progress in covering millions of people who lack health coverage by closing the Medicaid coverage gap and reducing premiums for...

Congress has an opportunity in the economic recovery bill under consideration to make recent coverage gains even more meaningful and long-lasting, by extending the premium tax credit enhancements, which end after 2022, and closing the Medicaid coverage gap.

When families are able to meet basic needs such as food, housing, and medical care, parents and other caregivers[2] experience less stress, which allows them to provide the critical support that...

The framework would represent one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in a generation.

Access to cash assistance programs like TANF can help survivors build the financial stability necessary to leave abusive relationships and rebuild their lives.

Debates in Puerto Rico about the impact of economic security programs — particularly the Nutrition Assistance Program (NAP, or PAN for Programa de Asistencia Nutricional) — on participants’...

Some 5 million children with veteran or active-duty parents will lose out after this year unless Congress extends the American Rescue Plan's expansion of the Child Tax Credit.

Federal, State EITCs Can Ease Hardship, Promote Opportunity Thirty states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico have adopted state EITCs to boost family income. (See map.) Most state EITCs are...

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan adopted in March 2021 provides a historic opportunity for states to jumpstart transformative investments in a stronger and more equitable future.

Across the country, large numbers of families who need help to afford housing sit on long waiting lists for assistance. Among the 44 housing agencies for which we have data, nearly all have more than 1,000 families on their waiting lists and many have more than 10,000.

The map and charts below illustrate changes in WIC, Medicaid, and SNAP participation between February 2020 and February 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes are discussed in Eligible...

Recent participation varies widely by state but lags behind Medicaid and SNAP.