Mobilization to End Poverty April 26-29

From Associated Baptist Press:

More than 1,000 faith leaders and activists are expected to descend on Washington this month in what planners say is one of largest and most diverse coalitions ever to fight against domestic and global poverty.

Jim Wallis, president and founders of Sojourners, a lead sponsor the Mobilization to End Poverty initiative scheduled April 26-29, said Christians of all stripes have been coming together for some time around the issue of reducing poverty.

"This is now a unifying call for many of us," Wallis told reporters in a conference call April 1. "This is a concern that brings us all together." Aidsand Wright-Riggins heads National Ministries for American Baptist Churches, USA, a lead sponsor.

Wallis said the coalition will ask Congress to preserve priorities in President Obama's budget that assist low-income communities in the United States, with emphasis on health care, energy and education. It will also call on Obama, who has been invited to speak, to renew his commitment to implement the Millennium Development Goals aimed at cutting extreme global poverty in half by 2015.

Wallis said the coalition is deeply concerned about debate over the budget -- the first in a long time that puts reducing poverty at center stage. He said it is time for the "faith community to be heard" in the national debate over budget priorities.

"We're all unified that what happens to poor people is for us a matter of faith," Wallis said. "The moral authority of the faith community is on the line here, and we're getting behind the effort to put poor people back on the agenda."

http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3968&Itemid=53

Just The Facts About Poverty In America

*Faulty poverty measure. The current outdated poverty measure is based on patterns of consumption from the 1950s and does not account for the rising costs of energy, housing, and health care.

*Work doesn't work. 9.6 million working families, and a total of 21 million children are considered low-income (earning less than 200 percent of the poverty income threshold).

*Rising numbers. The number of low-income working families increased by 350,000 between 2002 and 2006.

*The growing income gap. In 2005, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans saw their incomes increase by 14 percent, but the average income of the bottom 90 percent dropped 0.6 percent.

*A lack of opportunity. Only 1 in 10 children from low-income communities will graduate from college.

*What safety net? 36 percent of workers 55 and older have less than $25,000 saved for retirement.

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=events.M2EP&item=M2EP-home