Blog
Find our latest articles, reports, and weekly editions at Children's Defense Fund.
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Child Poverty
New Analysis from CDF: Congress Must Act Now to Ensure Children Can Stay Fed and Focused This School Year
We must ensure every child has consistent, safe, and equitable access to nutritious meals during this crisis and beyond. That starts with the Senate passing and the White House signing into law H.R. 8337 for temporary relief, but it doesn’t end with it. Congress must meet this moment urgently with a robust COVID-19 relief package to also boost SNAP benefits and make investments in a variety of basic needs programs that help our children and families thrive.
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Early Childhood
New Legislation Offers Long-Term Child Care Investment Children and Families Need
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that child care providers are not only essential for the development and education of our next generation, they’re also essential for parents who need to continue working to keep food on the table; essential for healthcare workers, USPS workers, and other workers providing essential services; and essential to ensure businesses can stay open and the economy can recover. The Rebuilding a Better Child Care Infrastructure Act will provide the immediate and long-term funding needed to keep child care providers afloat amid the pandemic and reconstruct a child care infrastructure that will better serve all families.
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Child Health
Introducing our 2020 Voter Guides
To help make voting more accessible, CDF has released its 2020 voter guides. Our guides explain why voting matters at every level of government (the presidential election is not the only election on the ballot!), highlight the children’s issues that are at stake in this election, and help you make a plan to vote smartly and safely, especially within the context of COVID-19.
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Child Health
What the Supreme Court Means for Children
The Supreme Court will continue to be one of the most powerful forces shaping the lives of children and the world we are leaving for them. In a time of growing polarization, we continue to see more cases decided on close margins, giving a single Justice the power to profoundly impact the health, safety, and well-being of millions of children for generations to come. Confirming a new Justice is one of the most consequential actions that a Senator can take and as with any vote they take, CDF believes it is imperative they do so with the interests of children in mind.
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Immigration
TPS Protects Families. A New Ruling This Week Puts the Program at Risk.
This week, in a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Trump administration has the discretion to end TPS protection for 300,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan. This means thousands of immigrants could be forced out of their homes of decades, separated from their families, and deported to countries where they would be unsafe. This family separation - and even the threat of separation - will have devastating effects on the health, well-being, and economic security of TPS holders and their children.
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Education
CDF Applauds the House for Passing the Strength in Diversity Act to Address School Segregation
More than 66 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, our public schools are more segregated today than they were in the 1960s. Yesterday, the House of Representatives took a promising step to address this by passing the Strength in Diversity Act (HR 2639) with bipartisan support.
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Child Health
New Census Data Shows Children Continued Losing Health Insurance Before the Pandemic Hit
After decades of hard-fought progress bringing the rate of uninsured children to an historic low, today the Census Bureau reported that an estimated 5.7 percent of children under age 19 were uninsured in 2019—an increase of 320,000 more children without health insurance since 2018. This data also confirms what we feared: millions of children and families lacked health insurance even before the COVID-19 crisis hit. And we know loss of health insurance has only worsened in recent months, as high unemployment rates mean many families are losing access to job-based health insurance.
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Featured Blog Series
For Our Children
From the desk of President and CEO Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson, discover a new take on child well-being and advocacy. Read to learn more about shaping conversations, policies, and actions for improving the lives of our nation's children and youth.
Learn More