Poverty In America
Poverty In America
Deepen your understanding of poverty
Before you can successfully address poverty, you need to know what it is. These resources explain how poverty is defined and measured, whos poor and why, and some approaches being used to end poverty.

Dive deeper into income and poverty statistics for the U.S. with these reports prepared by the U.S. Census Bureau.

This New York Times profile of a Houston, Texas nonprofit highlights the role gathering community input plays in empowering and building the capacity of communities.

See how your home community or the one you are serving in compares to others in the areas of jobs and local economies, education, and community health and civic life.

Use the Urban Institute's dashboard to explore your county’s food insecurity levels, related risk factors, and cross-cutting opportunities for intervention.

In 2015, the AmeriCorps VISTA program celebrated its 50th anniversary through a national poverty summit and a series of regional spotlight events. Dr. Stephen Pimpare, author of A People's History of Poverty in America, delivered "Ted Talk"-style presentations at several of these events outlining the lessons learned during the first fifty years of the VISTA program. This video is an adaptation of those presentations, providing 13 powerful lessons in just 15 minutes.

In the fall of 2011 and early 2012, renowned poverty expert Stephen Pimpare, author of A People's History of Poverty in America, engaged VISTAs in a series of conversations about poverty in the United States that examined poverty using a variety of lenses and viewpoints.