A landmark bill aiming to lift 1 million California children out of poverty seeks support in Sacramento and beyond

California has the highest rate of child poverty in the nation. Join us to end child it.

LOS ANGELES, April 3, 2017  —  Assembly Bill 1520, the Lifting Children and Families Out of Poverty Act, challenges the California State Legislature to cut child poverty in half statewide over the next two decades. It’s a tall order—California’s poverty rate among children is, by many measures, the nation’s highest. But thanks to a comprehensive framework of research-backed solutions that form the foundation of AB 1520, communities across the Golden State are beginning to rally behind the legislation.

L.A.-based Assemblymember Autumn R. Burke represents the 62nd Assembly District and introduced AB 1520, which traces the state’s child poverty problem back to its root causes.

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Contact your assemblymember and voice your support for AB 1520.

“It is frankly embarrassing to know that we have the sixth largest economy in the world, yet we have so many children living under the conditions of poor schools, unsafe neighborhoods, and a lack of economic mobility,” Burke said. “No child should face these odds.”

That fact of the matter is that two million of California’s children, one-third of whom are African American and another third Latino, do face such odds. That means one in five California children is marginalized every day because they’ve been cut off from access to receiving the resources they need to ascend above the poverty line and succeed.

 It is frankly embarrassing to know that we have the sixth largest economy in the world, yet we have so many children living under the conditions of poor schools, unsafe neighborhoods, and a lack of economic mobility. No child should face these odds.

AB 1520 calls for an examination of how the state funds programs designed to reduce poverty while sustaining current investment streams that have proved successful in preventing the spread of childhood poverty. The bill would require the California Department of Finance to monitor and measure progress through annual reports detailing how a proposed state budget might impact the child poverty rate. AB 1520 also mandates a biennial report on the efficacy of both available and potential funding streams, in addition to joint legislative hearings.

There’s no excuse for such a high poverty rate in one of the nation’s wealthiest states. All of California’s children deserve a fair shot. Cutting childhood poverty 50 percent statewide by 2037 is up to all of us. We must press the California State Assembly to pass AB 1520. 

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