{"id":5059376,"date":"2024-06-17T14:10:27","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T18:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malatinonews.com\/?p=5059376"},"modified":"2024-06-17T14:10:27","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T18:10:27","slug":"massachusetts-commission-on-poverty-tackles-historic-wealth-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/2024\/06\/17\/massachusetts-commission-on-poverty-tackles-historic-wealth-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts Commission on Poverty tackles historic wealth gap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Legislature-backed Commission on Poverty in Massachusetts<\/a> aims to address the state’s historic wealth gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commission will study demographic disparities and existing programs to reduce poverty over the next decade, and has been holding public hearings to gather feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State Sen. Sal DiDomenico – D-Everett – said Massachusetts has the highest median wage for workers in the nation, but one of the greatest gaps<\/a> between wealthy and low-income individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So we know we have much work to be done in this commission,” said DiDomenico, “to bring more equity to the table when it comes to residents across the Commonwealth.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
According to a 2022 report, about 24.2% of Latinos in Massachusetts live in poverty, which is almost 5 percentage points higher than the national Latino rate.\u00a0This is also more than 6 percentage points higher than the state’s Black poverty rate and more than three times higher than the state’s white poverty rate.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

DiDomenico said it’s unacceptable that roughly 70,000 Massachusetts children live in what’s considered “deep poverty” – or 50% below the federal poverty level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said efforts to undo those numbers should be a top legislative priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sixty years after the launch of President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” community action agencies in Massachusetts say data reveal which policies are most effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expanded tax credits and stimulus payments were shown to help cut childhood poverty in half during the pandemic, and efforts continue to grow guaranteed basic income programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura Meisenhelter is board president of the Massachusetts Association for Community Action (MASSCAP), a coalition of more than twenty community action agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said they’re responding to local needs while working for systemic change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We confirmed,” said Meisenhelter, “both large and small changes to public policy and programs and practices can have an enormous impact.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meisenhelter said agency staff visit clients at nursing homes, aid parents in buying Christmas gifts, and help ensure that people’s basic needs such as food, clothing and diapers are met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said that need is increasing as the poverty line set decades ago has not kept pace with the increasing standard of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commission on Poverty’s next public hearing will take place later this year in the Fall River and New Bedford area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Publisher’s Notes: MA Commission on Poverty tackles historic wealth gap <\/a><\/strong><\/em>was first published by <\/a>Public News Service<\/a><\/strong> and was republished with permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of LNN\u2019s mission is to amplify the work of others in providing greater visibility and voice to Hispanic, Latino communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About 24% of Latinos in Massachusetts live in poverty, which is almost 5 percentage points higher than the national Latino rate.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5059377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,120],"tags":[23,25,4811,4818],"ppma_author":[6216],"class_list":["post-5059376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-featured","tag-hispanics","tag-latinos","tag-poor","tag-poverty"],"acf":[],"mb":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/06\/gr-90858-1-1-scaled-1.jpg",2560,1708,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/06\/gr-90858-1-1-scaled-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/06\/gr-90858-1-1-scaled-1-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/06\/gr-90858-1-1-scaled-1-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/06\/gr-90858-1-1-scaled-1-1024x683.jpg",1024,683,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/06\/gr-90858-1-1-scaled-1-1536x1025.jpg",1536,1025,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/06\/gr-90858-1-1-scaled-1-2048x1366.jpg",2048,1366,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jermaine Smith","author_link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/author\/jay\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"About 24% of Latinos in Massachusetts live in poverty, which is almost 5 percentage points higher than the national Latino rate.\u00a0","authors":[{"term_id":6216,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"kathryn-carley-public-news-service","display_name":"Kathryn Carley, Public News Service","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"mfb_rest_fields":["title","uagb_featured_image_src","uagb_author_info","uagb_comment_info","uagb_excerpt","authors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5059376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5059377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5059376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5059376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5059376"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/maln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5059376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}