Key Questions For Candidates 2010

Organizations that work on poverty issues may want to ask candidates for federal and state office what their positions are on poverty and publicize the answers to help generate public discussion about the issue. Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity has developed a number of questions that organizations can pose. If your organization decides to ask candidates to answer one or more of the questions, you should be careful to give all candidates for that office an opportunity to answer the same questions and to present all their answers in the same way on your website or in other publications. The questions themselves are designed to be even-handed and open-ended so that candidates can freely express their opinions.

1. RECESSION AND POVERTY.  The poverty data for 2009 that was recently released by the Census Bureau showed 46.3 million people living in poverty, the most since the Census Bureau began tracking poverty trend data in 1959. This reflects the breadth and depth of what has been called the Great Recession.

In what way do you think the magnitude of poverty today changes the public will and political interest to tackle the problem and what do you see as the policy implications?

2. RECESSIONS IMPACT ON CHILDREN.  Research indicates that children who enter poverty during recessions often experience negative outcomes long after the recession ends. One analysis found that children forced into poverty by a recession are three times more likely to be poor as adults than their more affluent peers.

How does this information shape your views on policy or budget choices?

3. POVERTY PROJECTIONS for DISADVANTAGED GROUPS.  Researchers project that high unemployment will translate into a continuing climb in poverty rates. Poverty rates would increase even more for the most disadvantaged groups: already 20 percent of children, 25.8 percent of blacks and over 38.5 percent for single-mother families were poor in 2009.

What concrete steps, if any, would you take to hasten a return to lower poverty rates, particularly for disadvantaged populations?

4. TEEN EMPLOYMENT.  Unemployment rates among teens in 2009 and 2010 averaged about 25 percent most months; among black teens unemployment has been at about 40 percent.

Are there program models or particular strategies that you would pursue to address the risk of poverty for unemployed youth?

5. LONG TERM UNEMPLOYMENT and POVERTY.  In 2009 the number of people who had been unemployed more than six months, as a share of all unemployed, was the highest proportion recorded since data were first collected in 1948. Of the 15.3 million unemployed in 2009, 6.1 million had been jobless for 27 weeks or more.

What is your top policy priority for cutting long term unemployment?

6. DEFICIT.  The bi-partisan, 18-member National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is charged with recommending ways to reduce the federal deficit. Its report is expected in December.

What approach would you take to balance the need to reduce the deficit with the need to make social investments that help the short- and long-term well-being of vulnerable families?

7. SAFETY NET.  In the 1990's, the social safety net became more of a work-based system. Some have argued that the safety net for families needs to be updated to reflect the lack of jobs created by the recession.

How do you think the safety net has performed during the recession and what changes, if any, would you recommend to the social safety net?

8. HUNGER.  Over the last decade studies have shown a growing incidence of households with “very low food security” which means one or more people in the household were hungry over the course of the year because of the inability to afford enough food. In 2000, 8.5 million people lived in households with very low food security; by 2008 17.3 million people, including 5.2 million children lived in such households.

How do you think the safety net has performed during the recession and what changes, if any, would you recommend to the social safety net?

9. POVERTY and TANF.  The federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a work-based cash assistance program designed to help parents and children facing extreme hardship. During the recession, TANF has not expanded the number of people it serves as much as other programs. For example, the number of people helped through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, grew by 27 percent compared with 10 percent for people assisted through TANF.

What do you think is an appropriate measure of TANF success and responsiveness during recessions, and how, if at all, would you change TANF or other social programs to function well during recessions?

10. BI-PARTISANSHIP.  Across party lines, the vast majority of Americans (81 percent) believe that Congress is gridlocked. Efforts to tackle poverty and provide opportunity may or may not benefit from bipartisan action.

Can you give an example of a policy that reduces poverty which you think could secure bi-partisan support? Would you personally be interested in reaching across the aisle to promote this policy?

11. MEASURES of POVERTY.  The Census Bureau has announced that in 2011 it plans to release a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) alongside the current official poverty measure. The SPM is adapted from recommendations made by the National Academy of Sciences in 1995.

What do you think of this proposal and what, if any, other poverty measures do you think would be useful to policymakers?

12. WORKING POOR.  Three million American workers live in poverty while working full time year round. One third of poor children in America have a parent who works full-time, year-round.

What steps do you think government should take to address poverty among workers and working families? Should we be asking more of business?

13. INEQUALITY.  Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke has said “[R]ising inequality is a concern in the American economy. It's important for our society that everyone feels that they have an opportunity to participate in the opportunities that the economy is creating.”

Do you agree with Chairman Bernanke’s point? If so, what concrete actions would you pursue to address inequality? If not, what is your view?

14. RACE.  Blacks who graduate from high school suffered the same unemployment rates as whites who drop out of high school (14 percent v. 13.9 percent in 2009)

What, in your view, explains this statistic and what if anything would your Administration do about it?

15. MARRIAGE.  Some people think that strengthening marriage is an important step in any effort to reduce poverty. Yet we know too little about what actually works to support healthy marriages.

What role would marriage policies play in your efforts to reduce child poverty and what specific policies would you pursue?

16. CONCENTRATED URBAN POVERTY.  A growing body of research shows that low-income families that live in high poverty areas (more than 30 percent of the population is poor) in urban neighborhoods have worse long-term life chances because they are cut off from social and economic opportunities.

Would your approach to concentrated urban poverty be to emphasize improvements within the city, improvements in enabling the poor to leave the city, or another approach?

17. GOVERNMENT ROLE.  

What role should personal responsibility play in contributing to reducing poverty in America and what role should the government play? Given your understanding of the role of the government and the individual in moving out of poverty, how does that affect your policy proposals?

18. RURAL POVERTY.  More than 7 million people still live in poverty in rural areas of the United States, including more than 2.5 million children. Although poverty is not limited to rural America, the highest rates of child poverty exist in counties in the most rural areas. These communities have very little resources to address poverty and its consequences.

What are your proposals to strengthen their economies and build a brighter future for Rural America?

19. WORK SUPPORTS.   Working families who are eligible for government benefits such as food stamps, child care, Medicaid, and the EITC sometimes do not get them.

What changes to current work support policies would you pursue to help provide work supports to working families who struggle to make ends meet?

20. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.  According to a number of anti-poverty initiatives and researchers, reducing poverty can promote economic growth. Their position is that if the poor face barriers to work then they cannot contribute to productivity and instead, pose a drain on resources.

If you share this perspective, what would you do to reduce poverty as a tool for economic growth? If you disagree with this perspective, what is your understanding of the relationship between poverty and economic growth and what policies would you pursue as a result of that perspective?

21. WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT AND OPPORTUNITY.   Many business leaders express concern over the lack of skilled labor. Business leaders are increasingly involved in efforts to develop the skilled workforce they need.

What role do you think the government should play in promoting a more skilled workforce?

22. HIGH COST OF BEING POOR.  The Brookings Institution reports that the poor pay more for goods and services such as for food, financial services, and mortgages. If the cost of living for lower income families were reduced by just one percent, that would translate into over $6.5 billion in new spending power for these families.

What role do you see for the federal government in driving down these costs, and what role do you see for state and local governments or private entities in reducing these costs?

23. INTERNATIONAL STATURE.  The United States is the most powerful nation on the globe. Yet American children fare among the worst among 21 developed nations on measures of health, safety and relative poverty.

Why do you think child poverty is higher in the U.S. than in other developed nations and what consequences do you think that has for our future?

24. ASSETS ENCOURAGING WORK.  Working full time substantially lowers a person’s probability of being poor. Among persons in the labor force for 27 weeks or more, the poverty rate for those usually employed full time was 3.5 percent, compared with 10.2 percent for part-time workers.

What would you do to promote work among the poor? How would you change government programs to promote work?

25. WOMEN AND POVERTY.  Women in the United States are more vulnerable to poverty than men. 60 percent of adults in poverty are women; the poverty rate for women is 45 percent higher than it is for men. Many poor women have the additional burden of caring for children, which further constrains their opportunities for sustainable employment.

What steps would you take to tackle the problem of female poverty? Would you direct any policies specifically toward women?

26. EXTREME POVERTY.  Nearly one in ten U.S. children—6 million—lives in extreme poverty (below 50 percent of the official poverty level, or just over $11,000 for a family of four).

What actions do you think are or would be most effective at addressing extreme poverty?

27. THE COSTS OF CHILD POVERTY.  The impact of persistent childhood poverty on adult opportunities costs the U.S. economy $500 billion a year, according to a recent Urban Institute study.

What policies, if any, would you pursue that particularly focus on reducing the likelihood of children being in persistent poverty?

28. HOMELESSNESS.  The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty estimates that about three and half million people are likely to experience homelessness each year, and that about one and a third million of those are children. About one in 10 poor people experience homelessness each year.

What would be your priority actions to address homelessness in America?