Today on Sojourner Truth:
On Tuesday, August 11, the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival released a groundbreaking report titled, Unleashing the Power of Poor and Low-Income Americans. The report was produced by Robert Paul Hartley, an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Columbia University, and included a foreword by Shailly Gupta Barnes, Policy Director of the Poor Peoples Campaign. The report uses nationally representative data to illustrate the potential voting power of low-income people in the United States, who were reported to be as high as 140 million prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, amid rising unemployment and economic crises resulting from the pandemic, that figure is expected to be much higher.
The report found that organizing among the poor, around an agenda that represents the concerns of the poor, can fundamentally change the political map of the United States and lead to policies that are just and representative for all people. This is backed up by several key findings. In the 2016 presidential election, for example, there were 138 million voters out of 225 million eligible voters. 29 million of these voters were poor or low-income and there were an additional 34 million poor or low-income people who were eligible, but who did not vote. Also, looking at data from the 2016 presidential election, the report found that low-income eligible nonvoters make up 1/5th or more of the electorate in 7 states. If these potential low-income voters voted at a similar voting rate as higher income voters in the 2016 election, then they would match or exceed the presidential election margin of victory in 15 states.
There were several groundbreaking findings in the report, but the conclusion is clear: poor and low-income people have the power to change the country with their voices and votes, if their full voting potential is unleashed. Coinciding with the release of the report, the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival hosted a webinar, in which first-time voters laid out why they're casting a ballot this year. Today, we bring you audio from that webinar, in which you will hear more key findings from the study as well as commentary from impacted speakers.
