IV 111th CONGRESS 1st Session H. CON. RES. 102 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES April 21, 2009 Ms. Lee of California (for herself, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Butterfield, Mr. Honda, Mr. Baca, Mr. McDermott, Ms. Velázquez, Mr. Hinchey, Mr. Olver, Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Corrine Brown of Florida, Mr. Gonzalez, Mr. Bishop of Georgia, Mr. Ellison, Ms. Norton, Mr. Sires, Mr. Abercrombie, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Rush, Ms. Woolsey, Mr. Al Green of Texas, Mr. Kucinich, Mr. McGovern, and Mr. Schiff) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform CONCURRENT RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States has a moral responsibility to meet the needs of those persons, groups, and communities that are impoverished, disadvantaged, or otherwise in poverty.

Whereas poverty can be seen as a deep, structural problem that implicates our value system and our educational and economic institutions; Whereas poverty may be defined as the lack of basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, clothing, health care, education, security, and opportunity; Whereas policy initiatives addressing poverty have not kept pace with the growing needs of millions of Americans; Whereas many experts believe that the lack of an equitable distribution of housing choices across the country leads to isolation and concentrated poverty; Whereas there were 37,300,000 people living in poverty in 2007; Whereas experts estimate that between 7,000,000 to 10,000,000 people in the United States will fall below the Federal poverty line as a result of the current recession; Whereas even during a period of economic growth between 2001 and 2007, an additional 4,000,000 people in the United States fell into poverty; Whereas in 2007, 13,300,000 children under the age of 18 lived in poverty; Whereas in 2007, 15,600,000 persons lived in extreme poverty, defined as people with incomes lower than one-half of the established Federal poverty guideline; Whereas 45,700,000 Americans were living without health insurance in 2007; and Whereas in 2009, a family of 4 was considered poor under the United States Census Bureau's official measure if the family's income was below $21,834: Now, therefore, be it

That it is the sense of Congress that the United States should set a national goal of cutting poverty in half over the next 10 years.