These resources are made available to help you and your community:

• learn more about poverty and
• address issues related to poverty.

Learn More about Poverty

Iowa Food Security, Insecurity, and Hunger

Offers resources for community leaders to learn about hunger, identify factors that affect hunger, create profiles of Iowa communities, and find additional resources.

 

US Census Bureau

Resources, research, and information about poverty in the United States
Extended Measures of Well Being: Meeting Basic Needs (PDF)

Take the Poverty Tour

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development has created this site to raise awareness about poverty.

 

Poverty Guidelines, Research and Measurement  

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, publishes the Poverty Guidlines, information contacts and references on the Poverty Guidelines, the Poverty Thresholds, and the development and history of the U.S. Poverty Lines.

2007 DHHS Poverty Guidelines 

Each year the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issues the Poverty Guidelines in the Federal Register. The guidelines are a simplification of the poverty thresholds (US Census Bureau) for use for administrative purposes — for instance, determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs.

 

The National Poverty Center

The National Poverty Center (NCP) at the University of Michigan was established in the fall of 2002 as a university-based, nonpartisan research center to conduct and promote multidisciplinary, policy-relevant research on the causes and consequences of poverty and provide mentoring and training to young scholars. Located within the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the NPC benefits from close proximity to an extensive and diverse group of University of Michigan-based scholars from such units as the Institute for Social Research; the Department of Economics; and the Schools of Education, Public Health, and Social Work.

 

The RUPRI Rural Poverty Research Center

The Center was founded in 2002 as part of the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI), RPRC is housed at the University of Missouri-Columbia and Oregon State University. Initial funding was provided under a three-year grant from the US Department of Health & Human Services' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning & Evaluation.

The Joint Institute for Poverty Research

The Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research is a national and interdisciplinary community of researchers whose work advances the understanding of what it means to be poor and live in America. The Poverty Research Center focuses on the causes of poverty and the effectiveness of policies aimed at reducing poverty. The Center also facilitates the collection of new data, including state administrative data sets, that will be critical for advances in poverty research over the next several years.

Institute for Research on Poverty  

The Institute for Research on Poverty is a national, university-based center for research into the causes and consequences of poverty and social inequality in the United States. It is non-profit and nonpartisan and is one of the two centers designated as a National Poverty Research Center by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Institute is located at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Addressing Poverty Issues

The Northwest Area Foundation

The Northwest Area Foundation is committed to helping communities reduce poverty for the long term. Through three programs - Ventures, Connections, and Horizons - they work with rural, urban, American Indian, and rural Latino communities in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. We also help our communties through program-related investment and mission-related investments.

 

Study Circles

The Study Circles Resource Center is the primary project of The Paul J. Aicher Foundation, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. They help communities develop their own ability to solve problems by bringing lots of people together in dialogue across divides of race, income, age, and political viewpoints. Sound principles and effective process design are the keys to achieving social and political changes in people, organizations, communities, and institutions.

National Issues Forum

National Issues Forums (NIF) is a nonpartisan, nationwide network of locally sponsored public forums for the consideration of public policy issues. It is rooted in the simple notion that people need to come together to reason and talk — to deliberate about common problems. Indeed, democracy requires an ongoing deliberative public dialogue. Two discussion guide options:
* Making Ends Meet: Is There a Way to Help Working Americans?
* From Welfare to Work: Who Should We Help and How?