The Nation
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
March 20, 2020
The experiences and organizing efforts of the homeless can teach us all about taking action together in this unprecedented time.
Early last week, Americans woke to news of the largest one day oil price drop in history. Since then, stocks on Wall Street have continued to plummet and the Fed has materialized, overnight, $1.5 trillion for investors.
Sojourners
By Liz Theoharis
March 18, 2020
As the current public health emergency deepens, it is revealing and worsening broader economic and social emergencies that we have been confronted with for many years. These are emergencies caused by the lack of health care, affordable housing, living wages, labor rights, voting rights, and environmental protection, by war, police violence, the criminal justice system, and policy violence of all kinds.
CNN
by William J. Barber and Liz Theoharis
February 17, 2020
As the primaries turn towards Nevada and South Carolina, there is ongoing discussion about how voter turnout impacted the outcome in New Hampshire. To understand voter participation in 2020, we need to go back and take a look at what happened in 2016.That year was the first election without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.
The Boston Review
By Liz Theoharis
February 13, 2020
The Trump administration’s sanctions against Iran and cuts to SNAP benefits are two sides of the same war that the rich are waging against the global poor.
The Nation
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and Joyce Ajlouny
December 11, 2019
Faith leaders are calling on presidential candidates to reallocate money away from the military and toward housing and food-aid programs.
By William J Barber II and Liz Theoharis
The Hill
June 16, 2019
With President Trump’s official announcement of his 2020 campaign scheduled for June 18 and dozens of Democratic candidates running for their party’s nomination, the next 18 months promise a level of political campaigning that will exhaust even the most engaged voters. But another campaign cycle that simply engages the normal political fault lines of left versus right cannot address the moral and economic crisis of the present moment.
The Guardian
Reverend William Barber, Dr Liz Theoharis and Lindsay Koshgarian
March 27, 2019
Donald Trump recently unleashed his dark vision for our nation and our world, in the form of his budget request to Congress.
A budget shows our values more clearly than any tweet, campaign speech or political slogan. It’s what marries detailed, dollar-and-cents policy decisions to deeper political – and moral – priorities.
In today’s America, the real emergency is that a quarter of a million people die from poverty each year
The Guardian
Reverend William Barber and Dr Liz Theoharis
February 25, 2019
In declaring a national emergency to fund an unnecessary border wall this month, Donald Trump has provoked a conversation about what the word “emergency” actually means.
Forget the manufactured border crisis, let’s talk about the real emergencies facing the nation today. Right now in America, there are 140 million people living in poverty or just one paycheck or emergency away from poverty. Thirty-seven million people live without healthcare and 62 million are paid less than a living wage. Fourteen million families cannot afford water and millions are living with poisoned water and without sanitation services. We suffer under an impoverished democracy that has less voting rights today than it did after the 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed.
Voter suppression and gerrymandering have created unfair elections that keep poor people out of the democratic process
The Guardian
Reverend William Barber and Dr Liz Theoharis
September 16, 2018
This week, the US Census Bureau released 2017 poverty data, reporting that 12.3% live below the federal poverty line. This means that about 40 million people are “officially” poor. It also reported that, according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, 13.9% or about 45 million are poor.
This data is not much different than in 2016, nor is it a complete picture of the deep economic insecurity plaguing tens of millions of people in the United States.
This data also reports that another 29.4% of the population or another 95 million people are “low-income” and struggling to meet their daily needs. Taken together, this means that 43.3% or about 140 million people are living in precarious conditions, either poor or one emergency away from severe economic hardship.
How a new Poor People’s Campaign is mobilizing, organizing, and building power nationwide.
The Nation
By Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
August 8, 2018
The President’s Council of Economic Advisers recently declared that the War on Poverty “is largely over and a success,” in an effort to justify new work requirements for public safety-net programs. This is more than just untrue. It is a willful act of violence at a time when there are 140 million poor and low-income people in the richest country in the history of the world. Since 2010, there has been an onslaught of attacks on voting rights in state legislatures and racialized voter suppression and gerrymandering have helped to smuggle state leaders into office who then turn around and pass policies that hurt the poor and marginalized.
