When you lift from the bottom everybody rises: A Just and Moral PA Budget

As part of a nationally coordinated effort by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, the Pennsylvania Poor People’s Campaign (PA-PPC) held actions in both Pittsburgh and Harrisburg on June 7th.

These actions demanded that state lawmakers center and benefit the over 5 million poor and low-wealth Pennsylvanians in the state budget, and that federal lawmakers embrace the Third Reconstruction resolution to fully address poverty and low wages from the bottom up.


At the Capitol action speakers sounded off on the realities of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and militarism and how these evils show up in the state's budget priorities.

We called on the State Legislature to enact a budget that centers the over 5 million poor and dispossessed working class people in Pennsylvania by enacting the following priorities for a Just and Moral PA budget:

  • Restore the adult dental benefit in Medicaid
  • Shift the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to an Affordable Housing Acquisition Fund and increase the allocation
  • Re-instate and expand General Assistance
  • Increase TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) benefits and end work requirements and time limits
  • Institute fare relief for low income transit riders
  • Redirect appropriations from the Department of Corrections and Board of Probation and Parole to housing, healthcare, food and other essential needs
  • Fully fund and make elections accessible through public campaign financing and other measures
  • Institute and fund an office of the Public Healthcare Advocate
  • Hire 1,000 additional unemployment staffers
  • Restore water to the Woodlands Community and all communities whose water has been contaminated by fracking and environmental devastation
  • Increase the state minimum wage to at least $15/hr
  • Fully funded and equitable public education at all levels
  • Driver's licenses for all

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