Catholic Charities aims to cut poverty in America in half by 2020

Published: 2007-01-10

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Catholic Charities USA Jan. 10 launched an ambitious campaign to cut poverty in America in half by 2020. "The poor do belong to us. ... They are our brothers and sisters," Father Larry Snyder, Catholic Charities USA president, told an overflow crowd at a Capitol Hill briefing announcing the Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America. Noting that 37 million Americans -- 12.6 percent of the population -- currently live below the poverty line, he said Catholic Charities USA and its affiliates, working in partnership with government, the private sector and other nonprofits, will launch "a concentrated, systematic effort to cut poverty in half by 2020." Briefing participants received the newly released Catholic Charities USA policy paper, "Poverty in America: A Threat to the Common Good." It sets the moral and analytic framework for the campaign and spells out specific policy proposals for a sustained drive to reverse the growth of poverty in the United States. The briefing was held as the U.S. House was debating a bill to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour by 2009.

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