The Human Needs Report: November 22, 2021

View the complete report here (HTML) or here (PDF).

Dear John,

CHN just released another edition of the Human Needs Report. Read on for the latest on the Build Back Better Act, the infrastructure bill, FY22 spending bills, a blocked effort to protect voting rights, and more. ? ?

In This Edition

Historic Build Back Better Act passes House ?
Advocates celebrated the House passage of the historic Build Back Better Act on Nov. 19. The bill will make major investments to reduce child poverty by 40 percent, expand access to health care, expand affordable housing, and promote broadly shared economic security, with special attention to the needs of people with low incomes, communities of color, and immigrant families. Here are just a few of the celebrated provisions in the bill. READ MORE ?

Major infrastructure investments signed into law
On Nov. 15, President Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion bipartisan bill. The law includes money to make high-speed internet more accessible and affordable, help guarantee safe drinking water, modernize public transit, upgrade the nation's power grid, and more. READ MORE ?

Advocates push for FY22 spending bills over long stopgap measures
Nearly two months into the fiscal year, and with less than two weeks to go until government funding runs out, Congress is still nowhere close to passing FY22 spending bills. But flat funding from a long-term stopgap measure would fail people with low incomes by not providing needed increases in human needs programs. READ MORE ?

Mid-December debt ceiling deadline approaches
It remains unclear how another debt ceiling increase will happen. Economists and business leaders overwhelmingly agree that failure to raise the debt ceiling would do catastrophic damage to the U.S. and to economies and markets worldwide. READ MORE ?

Senate Republicans block voting rights bill - again
Republican Senators on Nov. 3 blocked the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill that would have restored key provisions stripped from the Voting Rights Act. The vote came two weeks after Senate Republicans blocked another voting rights bill, the Freedom to Vote Act. READ MORE ?