Hoyer Remarks During Special Order Hour on the Need to Address Poverty in America

WASHINGTON, DC – House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) delivered remarks today during a Special Order hour on the need to address poverty in America. Below are his remarks and a link to the video.

Click here to watch the video.

“I thank the gentlelady from California for yielding. No one in this House more than Congresswoman Barbara Lee has been focused on how we lift those in poverty out of poverty, into the middle class. That, of course, as she so well says, will be good for those in poverty, but it will also be good for all of the rest of us. They will help build a better economy. They will help grow jobs, and they will help America be stronger.

“Mr. Speaker, I’m honored to join my friend, Chairwoman Barbara Lee of the Democratic Whip Task Force on Poverty, Income Inequality, and Opportunity for this special order. I also want to thank Chairman Cleaver of the Congressional Black Caucus’ Poverty and Economy Task Force on the work that it has done on this area.

“Mr. Speaker, poverty is bad for your health. Poverty is bad for your mental health. Poverty is bad for children. Poverty is bad for families. More than fifty years after President Johnson declared unconditional War on Poverty, forty-six million Americans are still struggling in poverty. That’s not to say we haven’t made some progress. There are programs we have adopted. Frankly, Medicare, a tremendous Medicare program, and our seniors are better off and far less of them are in poverty because of Medicare. Medicaid is a critical program to make sure that those who cannot afford it are nevertheless given health care. That is important for all of us to have healthy citizens with whom we deal on a daily basis.

“Ours, Mr. Speaker, may be the wealthiest nation on earth, but we can best measure America’s economic success not by how many are at the very top but how few are stuck at the bottom of the economic ladder. By that measure, we have a long way to go to fulfill America's promise as a land of equal opportunity and of success.

“Even in 2015, the lines between rich and poor trace the old divides of race and background with 29% of Native Americans, 26% of African-Americans, and 23% of Latinos living in poverty. Poverty also strikes, of course, our rural communities. And in fact, in many respects, there is more poverty in our rural communities than in our cities and urban communities. [It is] more visible in our cities, because they are aggregated and - though we ought not to forget that literally millions - and, we think, as I just mentioned - of minorities, but millions and millions of non-minorities struggle in poverty every day.

“Poverty strikes children at a higher rate, unfortunately, one in five children in America, as our leader says. The [Democratic Whip] Task Force [on Poverty, Income Inequality, and Opportunity] we launched and Barbara Lee chairs has been working hard to raise awareness in Congress of these very real and very difficult challenges of poverty in America and to promote policies that help alleviate poverty in the short-term while working to eradicate poverty over the long-term.

“Mr. Speaker, our Speaker has raised poverty as an issue on which he is focused, and he has visited areas of poverty in our country. We can recognize poverty. We can visit those in poverty, but what is important to do, Mr. Speaker, and what Barbara Lee is leading us to do is to adopt policies that will eliminate, reduce, empower those in poverty.

“The number one rule in the War on Poverty, of course, ought to be, first, do no harm. This means making sure that we refrain from disinvesting in the critical programs that serve the poor and help millions stave off hunger, homelessness, and disease. Mr. Speaker, we ought to have those criteria in mind when we consider the appropriations bills, tax bills, and other policies that affect our people.

“Thankfully, the recent bipartisan deal prevented the return of sequestration’s severe and painful automatic cuts, which would have disproportionately harmed the most vulnerable in our economy. And now Congress has the responsibility to follow that up by passing an omnibus [to] avert a shutdown.

“However, not doing further harm is not enough. Congress has a responsibility, first and foremost, to help create jobs to put Americans back to work and enable them to rise out of poverty, and as Congresswoman [Bonnie] Watson Coleman indicated, to ensure that when we ask people and give people the opportunity to work, that we value that work and pay them a living wage. We cannot enable people to rise out of poverty – [Congress] cannot do that if it keeps lurching from one manufactured-crisis to – when I say it, [I mean] our policies here in Congress, on budgets, on debt, on investment, on taxes. If we lurch from one crisis to another, we will not be able to succeed in the enabling and empowering of those currently in poverty.

“We need to work together to invest in education, workforce training, and innovation to make our workforce more competitive and open doors of opportunity for those looking to get hired. We also, Mr. Speaker, need to expand assistance for housing and nutrition, as well as access to health care, especially for children. Poverty need not be a cycle and should not be a cycle from generation to generation. That is debilitating certainly for them, but we ought to all recognize it is debilitating for us and our communities and our country.

“The promise of America has always been that this cycle can be broken. That's what we think about America: even if you are born in circumstances that are tough, if you work hard and play by the rules, you can rise above it. We need to make sure that we give them that opportunity. We need to take steps to make sure that hard work pays off, that those who have jobs earn enough to not only get by but to get ahead. This means making child care more affordable for working parents, enacting paid leave to care for sick loved ones, and raising the minimum wage.

“The new Speaker, Mr. Ryan, has indicated he takes very seriously the issue of poverty, as I said. I hope we can work together to address that problem in a serious and responsible and effective manner. Not to do so would be a grave disservice to the future of our country and its people. One area he has suggested we might find agreement is in expanding the earned income tax credit to childless adults, which could lift an additional half a million Americans out of poverty. And in addition to that, we ought to index the EITC. We ought to index the child tax credit. We ought to index the opportunities of tax credits so that we can empower and enable those who are working, those who have children we want well cared for and safe to be more productive citizens.

“I want to thank again Chairwoman Barbara Lee, all of the Members of the Democratic Whip Task Force on Poverty, Income Inequality, and Opportunity and the CBC’s Poverty and Economy Task Force led by my good friend, Representative Cleaver, for all the work they are doing to wage this War on Poverty with the determination and purpose this challenge requires. I thank the gentlelady for her leadership, and I want to thank her for yielding me the time.

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“I ask the gentlelady to yield again. I certainly hope she is correct [in saying Speaker Ryan will address these issues], and I believe she is absolutely correct that we can work in a bipartisan fashion. There is nobody in this House that wants to see people in poverty. We may have different views of how to achieve the objective of empowering all of our people to seize opportunity and be paid a living wage and to support themselves and their families in a way we want them to be supported. We can work together, I agree with the gentlelady, in a bipartisan fashion on that issue. And I thank her for her leadership in achieving that objective, and I yield back.”