Even for women working full-time, the painfully slow economic "recovery" of the past five years has wrecked havoc on our wage growth.

It is therefore somewhat amazing that the last 40 years of experience, and the trillions and trillions of dollars spent, have done nothing to alleviate poverty. Which begs the question, have anti-poverty programs supported by Republicans and Democrats for decades been a colossal failure?

Our nation is making a treacherous tradeoff: wasteful spending on an ineffective "War on Drugs" at the expense of the youth, families, and working folks who are the engine of a thriving economy.

SNAP's growth shows that the program is working as designed -- to provide a temporary safety net to families struggling in a weak economy.

When the leading diplomat of the world's leading democratic nation describes his own government using the words "corruption" and "unrest," money in politics can no longer be considered a necessary political weapon but a weapon of mass destruction to democracy at home and abroad.

For significant numbers of poor children and families, programs like Medicaid, food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit are vital, but they are not sufficient by themselves to overcome the serious multiple barriers these individuals and families can come up against.

As we gear up for more deficit-reduction negotiations and potential across-the-board cuts to vital safety-net programs, our charge to President Obama is that he work with Congress to reduce the deficit in a way that strengthens protections around programs vital to vulnerable people.

We don't need a national discourse on poverty but a shift in attention away from disadvantage toward an examination of the concentrated advantages provided to those already flourishing in our society. It then becomes clear that it is not only poverty but inequality that plagues the poor.

WASHINGTON -- It takes just minutes to cross the bridge between downtown Washington and the impoverished, predominantly black neighborhood of Anacosti...

One of the most disappointing parts of this week's budget deal is its disparate treatment of a lavish estate tax break for the nation's wealthiest heirs as compared to several tax credit improvements for low-income working families.