Childhood poverty was cut nearly in half during the Covid pandemic due to expanded federal programs like the child tax credit, and stimulus payments, which also prevented some five million Americans from falling below the poverty line.

Advocates for the poor argued those gains are already being lost since the most helpful programs were not extended, and high inflation is now impacting families as well.

Joe Diamond, executive director of the Massachusetts Association for Community Action, a coalition of some 23 community action agencies, said advocates are using lessons learned during the pandemic to help improve peoples' lives.

"We were inspired by the resilience of the people that we served, and we also were inspired by what we found to be the effectiveness of the programs that were able to run during the pandemic," Diamond remarked. "We know that our mission now also includes doing our very best to sustain those programs and to continue to work as hard as we can towards of our goal of reducing poverty."

Advocates suggested strategies could include the creation of a state-funded child tax credit, providing an adequate guaranteed income, and supporting extensive outreach to ensure every family receives the benefits they need, and to which they're entitled.

Tax reform and public benefits are not the only answer.

Nancy Wagman, research and Kids Count director at the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, said people need good jobs, with growing wages.

"People who are poor are largely working," Wagman pointed out. "They're just working at jobs that either don't pay enough or are unstable, unpredictable hours, those sorts of things. So the kinds of policies that help support work for workers really can make a difference."

Wagman has updated a pre-pandemic report on the challenges faced by poor people in Massachusetts due to historic underinvestment in public transit, quality child care and affordable housing; challenges only made greater by the pandemic and institutional racism.

For example, Black veterans of World War II were denied the G.I. Bill, and today, Black workers and those of Latin descent have a harder time breaking out of low-wage jobs.

Wagman contended the state can play a crucial role in ensuring barriers to opportunity are dismantled, by revising the tax code, so as not to primarily benefit those on top.

Meanwhile, the need for help remains critical for people living on the margins. The coalition is hosting its first in-person gathering since the start of the pandemic today. They say member organizations are excited to implement the lessons learned these past two years, and they are even more committed to the challenge of ending poverty.

Laura Meisenhelter, executive director of North Shore Community Action Programs, said the need for help has only increased since federal pandemic aid ended.

"We've given out more gas cards to help put gas in their car, and gift cards to grocery stores, so they can feed their families," Meisenhelter outlined. "We've done that more than we ever have."

Anti-poverty advocates are honing in on Essex County, the state's third most populous county, and focusing on the challenges there related to housing, food insecurity and job development. They hope their work will serve as a model for other counties going forward.

Beth Francis, president and CEO of the Essex County Community Foundation, explained they are one of many charitable organizations supporting such efforts.

"These community action agencies are in all across the Commonwealth, and they do vitally important work," Francis stressed. "We are proud to fund them, and they work with our most vulnerable families and I think they need to have a little light shed on them."

The long-delayed Farm Bill could benefit Virginia farmers by renewing funding for climate-smart investments, but it's been held up for months in Congress.

Some lawmakers want this bill to expand funding for such programs as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP, which gives financial and technical help to farmers and ranchers to make conservation a priority. About $250 million was allocated for the program, but more than 9,000 applications were submitted, bringing it to $475 million.

Gabrielle Walton, federal campaign associate with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said these programs' popularity proves their necessity.

"This money allows them not only to practice more efficiently - and to preserve the environment that they love so much and they're so attached to - but it also saves them money that they can devote to other concerns," she said, "and provides them stability for their pocketbooks going forward."

One issue with the new Farm Bill is a proposed increase in so-called "reference pricing," which critics have said only benefits large farming operations and would come at the expense of more widely used social and climate-smart programs.

Walton said she thinks political divisiveness and competing priorities have held up the new Farm Bill.

The previous Farm Bill was extended to this September, but lawmakers have said they aim to have a bill ready by Memorial Day. Along with climate-smart investments, the Farm Bill also funds social safety-net programs.

Geoff Horsfield, a policy director at the Environmental Working Group, said people don't always know how helpful nutrition programs are to families.

"There's a misconception that things like SNAP only benefit urban communities," he said, "and we just know that that's not true - that folks in all counties rely on nutrition assistance programs, some of these social programs, to be able to make ends meet."

SNAP and other nutrition programs received 75% of funding in the 2018 Farm Bill. More than 876,000 Virginians use SNAP and EBT benefits, since food insecurity has been a longstanding issue in the state.

Today, groups working with lower-income families in Connecticut are raising awareness about the state's "benefits cliff" with a day of action.

The benefits cliff is when a person might get a raise, have a kid with a part-time job, or some other income increase which then makes them ineligible for certain benefits. The changes can have severe impacts on communities and disproportionately affect families with children.

Stephen Monroe Tomczak, professor of social work at Southern Connecticut State University, said it is part of a larger workforce problem.

"People, particularly people of low income, are in a sense disincentivized to participate in the labor force and denied adequate jobs and income when they try to do that," Tomczak explained.

Several General Assembly budget bills could have dealt with the issue but most failed, which inspired today's action, a mock funeral procession to the governor's office to eulogize the bills, including the refundable Child Tax Credit, a housing voucher funding boost bill, and a bill eliminating the asset limit on the HUSKY C medical insurance program.

Social service advocates know the bills will resurface in next year's budget process.

Rose Ferraro, program lead of health justice policy advocacy for the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, said people are taking alternate steps like going to food banks or avoiding medical care to cover lost benefits.

"Folks will lose their rental assistance and then, they will sort of have to make some tough decisions," Ferraro noted. "'Do I put food on my table or do I make sure to pay rent?' And, so it becomes a sort of untenable position."

Ferraro added interwoven state and federal funding makes it hard to reach the core of the issues leading to benefits cliffs. One eulogized bill would have established a benefits cliff pilot program. For two years, it would have provided subsistence for people who've reached the benefits cliff.

New York towns are reaping many benefits since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed.

Along with funds for larger clean energy projects, the state was awarded $158 million for the IRA's Home Energy Rebates program.

Smaller towns and villages use these grants to implement their climate action plans.

Brighton Town Councilmember Robin Wilt said an IRA grant they applied for will help upgrade the town's HVAC system.

"We will be implementing geothermal and then use a solar array to make the system close to net zero, not quite," said Wilt. "I think we'll get 55% of our energy back with the solar panels."

The bureaucratic process to access the funding was challenging, but some groups are working with the Department of Energy to improve it.

Wilt said feedback on the clean energy projects has been positive. Future projects using IRA funding include increasing walkability and sustainable redevelopment.

Critics have said the IRA includes multiple provisions to increase fossil fuel production.

Towns nationwide are using IRA grants to bolster clean energy projects.

Joel Hicks is a council member for the Borough of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

They've just applied for a grant to work on energy efficiency and solar projects with Harrisburg. He said this will have positive impacts beyond establishing clean energy.

"We were really excited at this potential," said Hicks, "because we saw that the cost savings we would have for putting in substantial solar projects on our public property would actually fund many of our other public municipal goals."

These include purchasing an electric vehicle fleet and having more efficient solid waste programs.

One thing Hicks said he wants to see in future is state and local governments helping small towns and municipalities with putting together their IRA grant proposals.