2007 Poverty Scorecard

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Members of Congress in States with Highest Poverty
Least Likely to Support Anti-Poverty Measures

(CHICAGO)- Members of Congress from states with high rates of poverty are less likely to support anti-poverty measures than other members of Congress, according to the only national analysis that ranks Members of Congress solely on their performance in fighting poverty, released today.

"Poverty is everywhere in America, but it is interesting that in states with the highest concentrations of poverty, the Congressional delegations seem least interested in supporting initiatives that fight poverty," said John Bouman, president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, which released the study. "This appears deeper than simply opposing spending. A member could have opposed any of the measures we analyzed that called for new spending and still could have voted to support half of the poverty-fighting measures on our list."

The 2007 Poverty Scorecard: Rating Members of Congress assigns letter grades to each member of the United States Senate and House of Representatives according to their voting records on the most important poverty-related issues that came to a vote in 2007, including legislation on affordable housing, health care, education, labor, tax policy and immigrants' rights. With the help of a national advisory board and other anti-poverty experts, the Shriver Center identified and analyzed fourteen critical Senate votes and fifteen critical House votes.

In general, states whose Congressional delegations generally opposed anti-poverty measures are clustered in the south and western parts of the country. States whose delegations had the worst voting records and highest poverty rates were South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona.

"Thirty-seven million Americans live in the State of Poverty, the largest state in the nation," Bouman continued. "This number can only be substantially reduced if our nation's political leadership--the President and Congress--take aggressive action to address the complex, structural causes of poverty.

"While about 2/3 of the members got good grades on the Scorecard, their votes were not enough to pass most of the measures. Moreover, the votes recorded in the Scorecard would suggest that a significant number of legislators do not believe in taking aggressive action to address poverty. Given the high rates of poverty in many of their states, we are not convinced that they are paying attention to poverty, or that they have an effective, alternative strategy."

Download the press release (PDF format; 111K)

Download the Poverty Scorecard (PDF format)

Listen to the teleconference of the press release,
including remarks of former Sen. John Edwards
about the importance of the Scorecard. (WMA format)