Shawn Fremstad
Shawn Fremstad is a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress and a Senior Research Associate with the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Articles by this author
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Views Wednesday, December 04, 2019 Modern Family Progressive Values Put Conservatives to Shame In a recent New York Times’ column , Thomas Edsall defends progressives against Attorney General William Barr and other social conservatives who charge them with wanton destruction of the family. Edsall is right to call out Barr and others for “marketing apocalyptic hogwash” to get Trump reelected... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, November 06, 2019 Inflation Inequality and the Poverty Measure For over half a century, the United States has measured income poverty by comparing a family’s income to a standardized dollar amount (a “poverty line”) that varies by family size. For a family of four, this poverty line was initially set at $3,104 in 1963. The current official poverty line—$25,701... Read more |
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Views Thursday, August 15, 2019 Trump’s Contempt for Working-Class Expressed in New Expanded Public Charge Rule This week the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officially published regulations that radically expand the definition of an archaic immigration law term, public charge, to include various non-cash benefits that supplement earnings and other income, but are impossible to live on in the absence... Read more |
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Views Friday, January 19, 2018 No, Forced Labor Is Not Good for Your Health The Trump administration announced last week that it will allow states to deny Medicaid to people who are not meeting work or other daily activity requirements imposed by state officials. As my colleagues have shown, more than 6 million people are at risk of losing health insurance under the new... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, September 14, 2016 The Federal Poverty Line is Too Damn Low The U.S. Census Bureau’s announcement today that the number of Americans living below the poverty line fell between 2014 and 2015 is good news. But before we get too excited, it is worth noting that the federal poverty line was a meager $12,000 for a single person living alone in 2015 (and only... Read more |
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Views Saturday, September 20, 2014 Disability is a Cause and Consequence of Poverty Disability is both a cause and consequence of poverty. It is a cause because it can lead to job loss and reduced earnings, barriers to education and skills development, significant additional expenses, and many other challenges that can lead to economic hardship. It is also a consequence because... Read more |
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Views Monday, June 16, 2014 If We Want to Build a Powerful Movement for Economic Justice, Our Work on Poverty Can’t Be a “Separate Thing” Fifty years after President Johnson declared war on poverty, it’s time to reimagine anti-poverty work for the next fifty years. In doing so, one thing seems central: the need to build a broad-based progressive movement for economic justice and security. This movement needs to encompass not just the... Read more |
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Views Friday, August 24, 2012 NewtAid at 16: The Failure of TANF and Conservative Social Policy Sixteen years ago on Wednesday, President Bill Clinton surrendered to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and signed NewtAid, legislation that replaced the Social Security Act's Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with a right-wing block grant scheme called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). NewtAid/TANF was prematurely lauded as a success before it had even been fully implemented. Read more |