Tucson’s poverty rates remained among the nation’s highest last year, with one in five living below the poverty threshold. Although Pima County’s poverty rate held steady in 2012 at 20 percent, the poverty rate among children was 29 percent. Many elderly, veterans, and single mothers in Pima County are struggling each and every day to survive; even while working one, two, sometimes three jobs. They just might be your neighbor, or a family member. How does one become part of the ‘working poor’? Who is doing what to help? Is it working? How does one escape poverty? Talking won’t solve the problem but perhaps by bringing people and ideas together we can move the needle towards sustained, positive change.
Neal Conan, award-winning journalist, producer, and former host of NPR's Talk of the Nation, will moderate the first Community Interactive: POVERTY :The Working Poor. Joining him will be a panel of educators, researchers, social service professionals, and others working every day to help people in need.