Poverty Awareness Month: What Progress Looks Like in Pennsylvania
Poverty Awareness Month is a chance to educate, yes.
But it’s also a chance to tell the truth about what families are facing right now, and what that means for the systems designed to support them.
During a recent meeting with the team, CEO Beck Moore shared what he’s hearing across the network. The takeaway was clear: the work has always moved fast. But right now, the pace and the uncertainty are creating a new level of strain for agencies and the communities they serve.
Poverty isn’t abstract. It’s daily math.
When we talk about poverty, we’re not talking about “other people,” people who can’t find jobs, are lazy, or who are somehow different from “us.”
We’re talking about Pennsylvanians who work—often two or three jobs—and still can’t make ends meet. We’re talking about households doing everything “right” and still getting squeezed by forces no amount of budgeting can fix.
As Beck put it: “You can’t budget out of poverty. Two dollars is only two dollars.”
What’s changing right now: faster timelines, less clarity
The conditions agencies operate within are no longer stable. Challenges that once impacted a single grant or program now affect Community Action across the board and have become the day-to-day norm.
Funding opportunities that used to allow months of planning are showing up with only days to respond. Guidance is delayed or incomplete. Agencies are left in a cycle that feels like “hurry up and wait.”
That constant reaction mode has a cost:
It drains capacity.
It forces short-term decision-making.
It leaves less room for proactive, community-rooted planning.
Four pressure points we’re watching closely
What is increasingly clear in poverty work is that multiple pressures are converging at the same time, each with real consequences for families living paycheck to paycheck. Some of these factors are still evolving, and CAAP is actively tracking the changes and their implications. But the direction is clear: the squeeze is intensifying.
Some areas under additional tension are:
Housing, including instability tied to shifts in permanent supportive housing funding.
Food access, especially as SNAP rules and reapplication processes change, and as local food systems face new strains.
Health insurance costs, with early projections indicating significant premium increases in some regions.
Utilities, with rate increases that force families to choose between heat, food, and rent.
And as always, one more thread runs through everything:
Child care. If families can’t access affordable child care—especially for non-traditional work hours—their options narrow fast. That isn’t just a domestic or household issue. It’s an economic issue.
After the budget impasse: reopening didn’t reset everything
One of the defining and frustrating realities of 2025 in Pennsylvania was the prolonged budget impasse that caused nonprofits to close temporarily, furlough staff, or close altogether. Services were delayed. Guidance was unclear. And the people who paid the price were not policymakers, but the most vulnerable populations.
The end of the impasse brought relief, but not instant stability.
Agencies are still navigating what comes next as they work to restore services for those who rely on them, including furloughed staff who found other work and may not be able to return, backlogged invoices, and payment delays that vary by county administration timelines.
In other words, systems cannot simply be turned back on and resumed as if nothing happened. Once again, the people with the fewest options are the ones absorbing the consequences. This is exactly why continued advocacy matters, and why it is critical to keep elevating the real, lived realities of poverty in Pennsylvania right now.
The human reality: capacity is being stretched thin
The most important part of poverty awareness isn’t just a policy point.
It’s a people point.
Families living paycheck to paycheck are navigating instability on multiple fronts and all at once. At the same time, the community-based staff who help them stay housed, fed, and connected to opportunity are being asked to carry growing uncertainty on top of already-full workloads, often without enough time or space to recalibrate.
That strain isn’t separate from service delivery. It directly affects how quickly, consistently, and sustainably families can get the support they need. Poverty cannot be addressed by burning out the very people tasked with responding to it, and that is exactly why advocacy matters.
CAAP keeps showing up
Poverty Awareness Month reminds us that poverty is shaped by systems. But so is progress.
Community Action was founded to ensure the causes and conditions of poverty are effectively addressed. Doing that requires clarity about what poverty looks like in reality, and a commitment to what our systems can do when they are designed and used for the good of all.
Community Action is economic impact. It is stability. It supports workforce participation and contributes to healthier communities. It is the infrastructure that helps people stay housed, stay fed, stay employed, and stay connected to opportunity.
Within CAAP, this month is like any other. We remain committed to education and advocacy, grounded in what agencies are seeing on the ground and what Pennsylvanians are experiencing in real time.
Want to understand what this looks like where you live?
Poverty doesn’t show up the same way in every community. One of the most powerful ways to learn more is to connect with your local Community Action Agency and explore their annual report or Community Needs Assessment.
These reports reflect the real conditions families are navigating—and the local strategies agencies are using to respond.
You can find your local agency through CAAP’s Find an Agency tool and see how Community Action is working in your community.
Awareness matters, but it can’t stop there.
What ultimately makes the difference is action that supports families today and builds momentum for communities tomorrow.
If you’d like to explore statewide poverty data directly, the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey offers a helpful snapshot:
👉 View the Pennsylvania poverty data here:
https://data.census.gov/all?q=poverty+in+pennsylvania
