poverty

March 9, 2017 - An immigration raid at a Mexican restaurant in West Virginia this week led to the arrest of three men who now face deportation. While some locals cheered the action as a solution to the state's economic crisis, facts show that's a delusion.

December 2, 2016 - The campaign that's been successfully winning minimum wage hikes held nationwide mass protests this week, signaling its intention to put pressure on Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who's made conflicting statements on wage policy.

October 6, 2016 - On what would have been the 99th birthday of Mississippi voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, we recall her untimely death from heart disease at the age of 59 — a testament that denying a group of people political power is literally hazardous to their health.

September 23, 2016 - The predominantly poor, African-American community in Alabama that became the dumping ground for coal ash spilled in the 2008 TVA disaster in Tennessee is embroiled in an ongoing fight for environmental justice — and there's now an opening for the public to weigh in.

July 22, 2016 - A multimillion-dollar settlement has been reached in a lawsuit over a Missouri community's jailing of poor people unable to pay court fines and fees. Similar lawsuits have been filed over debtors' prisons in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.

July 14, 2016 - Alton Sterling was shot to death by police outside a Baton Rouge convenience store while selling CDs to get by. With a felony conviction on his record, Sterling faced significant employment barriers — but efforts are underway in Louisiana and elsewhere to dismantle at least some of them through so-called "ban the box" laws.

May 19, 2016 - The creation of manufacturing jobs has been touted as a solution to the country's economic woes, but a new report finds that a surprisingly large number of manufacturing production workers' families rely on public safety-net programs to make ends meet — especially in Southern states.