Pam Fessler

Like her own mother was, Desiree Metcalf is a young, single mom living in poverty. She doesn't have just one or two problems, but a whole pile of them.

Many American families living in or right above the poverty line have flat-screen TVs, cars and cellphones — so what does living in poverty mean today?

Voters in eight states are required to show photo IDs. Some experts say the tide is turning toward striking down ID requirements. Others say not so fast.

Thirty-seven percent of New Yorkers faced severe material hardship last year, but the city's official poverty rate is only 21 percent. Researchers are trying to find a better way to measure poverty.

Voting rights activists say they're seeing a change in the debate this year — fewer new restrictions and, in some places, a hint of bipartisanship.

Congress planned to shave $8.6 billion from the food stamps program by closing a loophole, cutting benefits to 850,000 households. But it left states an out to avoid the cuts, and many are taking it.

In Ukraine, a dangerous "information war" is being waged by volunteers who are trying to win support in Crimea, where there is a near-total information blackout of pro-Ukrainian opinions.

Organizations are trying to find ways to get people with lower incomes to save more. One program urges families to set aside a part of their tax refunds so they have money for emergencies.

A federal commission to prevent children's deaths from abuse and neglect held its first meeting on Monday. Figuring out the extent of the problem is just one challenge facing the new commission.

The Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., is known for many things, among them huge public housing projects, extremely high poverty and crime. Last summer, a one-year-old boy was shot in the head and killed as he sat in a stroller in the neighborhood.

But that's one side of life in ...

The commission President Obama appointed last year to figure out how to fix long lines at the polls and other election problems has sought to steer clear of the many partisan land mines surrounding how Americans vote.

The two co-chairmen of the panel continued to that navigation Wednesday as ...

President Lyndon B. Johnson went to eastern Kentucky in 1964 to promote his War on Poverty. But when he did, he opened a wound that remains raw today. People in the region say they're tired of always being depicted as poor, so when NPR's Pam Fessler went to Appalachia to ...

In the debate over whether to cut the food stamp program, members of Congress are looking at two pretty arcane provisions in the law. People who want to cut food stamps call the provisions loopholes. People who don't want to cut food stamps say they're efficient ways to get benefits ...

On TV this summer, you might have seen this ad with a smiling young woman offering help for all those troublesome bills.

"The problem-solver from Western Sky. Get up to $10,000 without collateral. Enough to pay off your payday advances, once and for all," she says.

There's a beating drum ...

As we reported earlier this year, there are some big problems with the way poverty is measured in this country. So we were interested to see a Census report out today based on the "supplemental poverty measure" — a newer, unofficial method that figures in the ...

Payday lenders made about $49 billion in high-interest loans last year. More than a third of those loans were made online. I wondered what happens when you apply for such a loan, so I decided to find out.

In the course of reporting a story earlier this year, I logged ...

A college student getting help from his parents may be below the poverty line. The mother who earns $23,000 a year is not.

Food banks around the country face growing demand, despite improvements in the economy. Many families are still underemployed and struggling. So some food banks are looking for more permanent ways to address hunger, beyond handing out food.

One of them is the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, based ...

Get Howard Buffett into the cab of a big ole' farm tractor and he's like a kid — albeit a 58-year-old, gray-haired one. He's especially excited when it comes to the tractor's elaborate GPS system, which he describes as "very cool."

"I'm driving hands-free," says Buffett, the son of billionaire ...