Stephen Pimpare
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stephenpimpare.bsky.social
Stephen Pimpare
@stephenpimpare.bsky.social
1.6K followers 4.2K following 260 posts
Poverty and US social welfare policy, hovering awkwardly between the fields of political science and social work.

Host, New Books in Public Policy: https://newbooksnetwork.com/hosts/profile/aba1b96c-5ec5-4ab6-940e-08f426f74a37
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stephenpimpare.bsky.social
What's going on in this very last line in the VA?

30% increase to "Electronic Health Record Modernization"?

Anyone have insight?
dense chart showing personnel cuts to various agencies
October 1, 2025 at 9:43 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
"SNAP Changes Will Upend State Budgets" www.georgetownpoverty.org/issues/snap-...
interactive state-by-state map of SNAP cut effects
September 29, 2025 at 2:33 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
"Children Left Behind by the H.R.1 “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” Child Tax Credit" povertycenter.columbia.edu/publication/...
Key Findings We estimate that in 2025, more than 1 in 4 children (28%) under age 17 will be ineligible for the full Child Tax Credit under OBBBA because their family income is not high enough to qualify. This represents 19 million children left behind: 17 million children previously ineligible for the full credit who see no gains under OBBBA and remain ineligible for the full credit plus roughly two million children in moderate-income families newly ineligible for the full credit. In 2025, a two-parent family with two children will need a minimum of $41,500 in income to be eligible for the full credit under OBBBA. Disproportionately ineligible for the full credit under OBBBA will be: 48% of American Indian or Alaska Native children; 45% of Black children; 39% of Latino children; 60% of children with a female single parent; 30% of children under age six; 36% of children in large families; and 35% of children in rural areas. In 2025, we estimate that there will be 14 states—most located in the South—where more than 30% of children will be ineligible for the full Child Tax Credit outlined in OBBBA because their family income is not high enough to qualify fully, including Mississippi (45%), New Mexico (44%), and Louisiana (43%). There will also be 163 congressional districts where more than 30% of children are ineligible for the full credit for this reason.
August 13, 2025 at 9:44 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
The first step must be to drive MAGA out of politics just as Germany drove the Nazis out after World War II, just as we should have tried the Confederates for treason and driven them permanently out of politics after our Civil War. Instead, President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis, after only two years in prison, was pardoned and later died peacefully in bed at age 81. That is: We must contemplate the destruction of the Republican Party as it is currently constituted—we need to learn from our failure to cast out the traitors after the Civil War (and our failure to hold Trump accountable for his first insurrection).
June 11, 2025 at 9:25 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
June 5, 2025 at 7:02 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
Poverty kills. via davebrady72.bsky.social and colleagues

"Novel Estimates of Mortality Associated With Poverty in the US"

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
April 30, 2025 at 12:50 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
"More importantly, the Government cannot be permitted to ignore the Fifth Amendment, deny due process of law, and remove anyone it wants, simply because it claims the victims of its lawlessness are members of a gang. Nor can the Government be permitted to disclaim any ability to return those it has wrongfully removed by citing their physical presence in a foreign jurisdiction. This is a slippery -- and dangerous -- constitutional slope. If due process is of no moment, what is stopping the Government from removing and refusing to return a lawful permanent resident or even a natural born citizen? "
April 7, 2025 at 3:18 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
"In half of all Republican congressional districts, 21% or more of the population is enrolled in Medicaid; and in half of all Democratic districts, 26% or more of the population is enrolled in Medicaid." www.kff.org/medicaid/iss...
color-coded map of medicaid enrollment across US
March 19, 2025 at 7:04 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
We've still got room if you want to join me Monday as I try to make sense of this moment and help you think through what you can DO www.eventbrite.com/e/social-wor...
February 7, 2025 at 5:29 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
Sure, everything is weird and unsettling and kind of terrifying right now, but do you all have a dude at your gym who is carrying around a large Chuckie doll during his workout?
Very large (2-3 foot tall?) Chuckie doll carefully positioned next to a purple leg machine as a man dressed entirely in black begin to do a workout
January 30, 2025 at 3:41 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
"2024 Crossover House Seats" centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...
Table 2 lists the crossover districts in 2024. Notably, while all of these districts voted for one party for president and the other for House, none of them were strongly Democratic or Republican at the presidential level: The presidential margin in all of them was less than 10 points, although Rep. Jared Golden’s (D, ME-2) district came within about half a point of being a double-digit Trump district. Among all members, Golden holds the district that is most hostile to his party, at least based on 2024 presidential voting (and Trump won the electoral vote from this district in all 3 of his elections). Table 1 shows the crossover districts after each election since 2000. The general trend is toward fewer of these crossover districts. In the 2000s, there were consistently about five dozen or more of these districts each election cycle, whereas since the 2012 redistricting cycle/election, the total has never eclipsed three dozen.
January 16, 2025 at 1:09 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
Food Pantry use in NYC is more common than people likely think robinhood.org/reports/pove...
Chart showing Rates of single-year and three-year pantry use among adults. It's 31% from 2020-2023 Chart showing Rates of single-year and three-year pantry use among families with children. It's 40% over the same period
November 27, 2024 at 7:09 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
Did the thing before heading off to Rhode Island College to talk with students about the election and, most important, what we do after. Regardless of the outcome, there is urgent work to do.
Middle aged white dude in red glasses with an I Voted sticker on a blue sweater
November 5, 2024 at 12:39 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
Today I am doing my small part to redeem the reputation of Reviewer 2:
shows a manuscript reviewer submission screen with "accept as is" as the recommendation from me, identified in red a Reviewer 2
October 12, 2024 at 2:30 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
"Former President Donald Trump has proposed a wide variety of tax policy changes. Taken together, these proposals would, on average, lead to a tax cut for the richest 5 percent of Americans and a tax increase for all other income groups." itep.org/a-distributi...
If these proposals were in effect in 2026, the richest 1 percent would receive an average tax cut of about $36,300 and the next richest 4 percent would receive an average tax cut of about $7,200. All other groups would see a tax increase with the hike on the middle 20 percent at about $1,500 and the increase on the lowest-income 20 percent of Americans at about $800. As illustrated in Figure 2, some of Trump’s proposals cut taxes dramatically, particularly his proposal to extend the temporary 2017 tax provisions. But his proposed tariffs, which would be largely passed onto consumers as increased prices, would more than offset those tax cuts for all income groups outside the richest 5 percent. As illustrated in Figure 3, the middle 20 percent of Americans would face a tax increase equal to 2.1 percent of their income, while the poorest 20 percent of Americans would face a tax increase equal to 4.8 percent of their income – all while the top 5 percent get a tax cut.
October 7, 2024 at 3:40 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
"nihilism is completely useless. . . the light at the end of the tunnel. . . is that there are activists making small, incremental progress on the ground, and that progress is really, really important." www.nytimes.com/2024/09/28/m...
You feel rage? Yeah, because things are so much worse than you thought they were, and you thought they were pretty bad. Then you have to work through that. Because nihilism is completely useless. The coward’s way out. So you work through that. And I have found, generally, that the light at the end of the tunnel — albeit that light might be smaller than you would like it to be ideally — is that there are activists making small, incremental progress on the ground, and that progress is really, really important.
September 28, 2024 at 12:58 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23p...
Perhaps even more troubling, while Congress (the branch of our Government most accountable to the People) is the entity our Constitution tasks with deciding, as a general matter, what conduct is on or off limits, the Court has now arrogated that power unto itself when that question pertains to the President. In essence, the Court has now imposed its own preclearance requirement on the application of Congress’s laws to a former President alleged to have committed crimes while in office. Who will be responsible for drawing the crucial “‘line between [the President’s] personal and official affairs’”? Ante, at 29. To ask the question is to know the answer. A majority of this Court, applying an indeterminate test, will pick and choose which laws apply to which Presidents, by labeling his various allegedly criminal acts as “core,” “official,” or “manifestly or palpably” beyond the President’s authority.
July 1, 2024 at 2:58 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
The core immunity that the majority creates will insulate a considerably larger sphere of conduct than the narrow core of “conclusive and preclusive” powers that the Court previously has recognized. The first indication comes when the majority includes the President’s broad duty to “‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’” among the core functions for which a former President supposedly enjoys absolute immunity. Ante, at 20 (quoting Art. II, §3). That expansive view of core power will effectively insulate all sorts of noncore conduct from criminal prosecution. Were there any question, consider how the majority applies its newly minted core immunity to the allegations in this case. It concludes that “Trump is . . . absolutely immune from prosecution for” any “conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.” Ante, at 21. That conception of core immunity expands the “conclusive and preclusive” category beyond recognition, foreclosing the possibility of prosec
July 1, 2024 at 2:47 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23p...
It does not hide the majority’s embrace of the most far-reaching view of Presidential immunity on offer. In fact, the majority’s dividing line between “official” and “unofficial” conduct narrows the conduct considered “unofficial” almost to a nullity. It says that whenever the President acts in a way that is “‘not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority,’” he is taking official action. Ante, at 17 (quoting Blassingame v. Trump, 87 F. 4th 1, 13 (CADC 2023)). It then goes a step further: “In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.” Ante, at 18. It is one thing to say that motive is irrelevant to questions regarding the scope of civil liability, but it is quite another to make it irrelevant to questions regarding criminal liability. Under that rule, any use of official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt purpose indicated by objective evidence of the most corrupt motives and intent, remains official and immune. Under t
July 1, 2024 at 2:40 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America apps.urban.org/features/wea...
chart showing distribution of family wealth skewed toward richest households chart showing racial disparities in wealth chart showing retirement savings by race chart showing benefits of tax subsidies by income
April 25, 2024 at 6:36 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
"Ignorance of critical race theory predicts White Americans’ opposition to it"

spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Journal abstract: "Ignorance of critical race theory predicts White Americans’ opposition to it"
March 27, 2024 at 4:39 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
I wrote a bit about in in my book about poverty on film:
. .
January 21, 2024 at 8:53 PM
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
September 21, 2023 at 6:07 PM