New Report from NJPP calls for increasing TANF funding to address issue
(TRENTON) — Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson) and Assemblywoman Elizabeth Maher Muoio (D-Mercer) issued a multimedia package Thursday of excerpts from a New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) news conference they participated in to unveil a new report on child poverty in New Jersey.
The report, and some of the common-sense solutions it presents, reinforces the Speaker’s ongoing effort to have the General Assembly focus on ways to lift New Jersey residents out of poverty, rebuild the middle-class and make New Jersey more affordable.
According to the NJPP report, “Lost Opportunities for New Jersey’s Children” the failure by the state to increase the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) for almost three decades has harmed the state’s poorest children. Too many New Jersey children are part of families with incomes less than half of the federal poverty level — approximately $10,000 for a family of three. And child poverty in the state has risen by 25 percent during the economic recovery following the Great Recession.
The multimedia package consists of a video of excerpts from the news conference and audio of same.
The video can be accessed directly via our website — www.assemblydems.com — or by clicking here.
The audio file is available upon request.
The NJPP report, “Lost Opportunities for New Jersey’s Children,” can be read in full here.
The NJPP news release on the findings of the report can be viewed here.