Inequality remains at historic heights, with the 20 richest Americans now holding more of the nation’s wealth than the bottom half of the population. Meanwhile, two branches of the nation’s government are now run by people who are committed to fighting for the wealthiest among us—instead of the 1 in 3 Americans struggling to make ends meet.

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A white nationalist president is sitting in the White House, hell-bent on further marginalizing anyone who doesn’t look or pray or love like him, and proclaiming a “mandate” to advance hateful policies despite having won just one-quarter of Americans’ votes.

Nearly every day we wake up, there’s a new assault on our civil rights. The president has declared war on the media, in favor of “alternative facts.” And the Supreme Court may soon hold five votes to overturn Roe v. Wade.

But momentum is growing every day to resist the new administration’s dangerous and divisive agenda.

Women’s marches across the globe the day after his inauguration drew crowds that dwarfed Trump’s own the day before. “Indivisible” groups modeling the Tea Party’s tactics in service of progressive resistance have sprung up in all 50 states and all 435 Congressional districts, descending upon town halls and demanding meetings with their members of Congress to ensure their voices are heard.

People of all colors and faiths have taken to the streets to stand with immigrants and Muslims, in opposition to hateful and xenophobic policies telling them they’re not welcome here. And earlier this week, protests broke out in cities across the U.S. just minutes after the administration announced that it would be reversing protections to enable transgender students to use the correct bathroom for their gender, as Americans called to #protecttranskids.

For those of us who believe in a level playing field; in protection from discrimination on the basis of color, creed, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity; in a safe and healthy environment; in a free press; in high-quality education for all students, whether rich or poor; in women’s rights to control our own bodies; and in health care as a right—for the next four years, resistance is our only option.

That’s why, starting today, TalkPoverty Radio—which launched two years ago as the only weekly radio show dedicated to covering poverty and inequality—will become Off-Kilter, a radio show and podcast by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Devoted TalkPoverty Radio listeners: Don’t worry, the show will be more of what you already know and love—just with an extra dose of resistance (and snark). You’ll still be able to find us in all the same places—We Act Radio, the Progressive Voices Network, and as a podcast on iTunes—plus a few new outlets as well. And I’ll still be hosting each week.

To kick off our first episode right, we’re joined by Sarah Jaffe, Nation Institute Fellow and author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt (a history of American resistance movements, and required reading for the moment we’re living in); Ezra Levin, Executive Director of Indivisible and one of the authors of the Indivisible Guide; and Dorian Warren, President of Center for Community Change Action.

Thank you for listening so far. We hope you’ll join us moving forward.

Editor’s Note: Listen to the first show here, and find new episodes of Off-Kilter on Soundcloud, and follow the show on Facebook and Twitter. 

Caregivers like Sara should not have to sacrifice dignity in their own retirement to take care of family – be it an aging parent, a child, or a relative with disabilities.

Today, New York Congresswoman Nita Lowey is introducing a bill in Congress that would address this injustice.  Groups across the country like the Center for Community Change Action, the National Council of Women’s Organizations, and others, are rallying around the bill which would provide an earnings credit in the Social Security benefit calculation while an individual is caring for a child under a certain age, a disabled family member, or a senior in need of care.

Tonight you can hear from Rep. Lowey and others about this important issue by joining a teletown hall that starts at 7:30pm ET.

Family comes first – whether it’s your aging Mom who gets more opinionated every day or the newborn you swear already smiles, providing for your family is not negotiable.  When it becomes necessary to stay home and care for someone then our Social Security system should honor family by taking into account some of that lost time from the paid work force.

We are long overdue to recognize the largely female workforce of caregivers for the time, energy and effort required to care for loved ones outside of the paid workforce.  The hidden cost of caregiving is in the impact it has on working families who have to struggle to survive without a wage.  Millions of Americans like Sara Moore are doing the essential work of caregiving, and that number is growing. A caregiver credit is about honoring the time, effort and love that people put towards caregiving as work.  As more and more people in our country step up to do right by family as caregivers, it’s only right that their work be recognized in our Social Security system through a caregiver credit.

Even in a fractured Congress, Rep. Lowey’s bill should be something that garners supporters from both sides of the aisle.  Every one of us knows someone who has sacrificed to care for a loved one.  It’s time to truly honor those caregivers by lifting up women’s issues, expanding Social Security… and sponsoring Rep. Lowey’s bill.

UPDATE: Click to listen to Representative Lowey’s tele-town hall on this topic.

Under the now defunct Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, states were not permitted to restrict eligibility in this way unless they obtained a waiver from the federal government.  Nevertheless, before the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996 (PRWORA)—otherwise known as “welfare reform”—20 states were granted waivers to exclude infants and children from receiving AFDC benefits.

But California received only a provisional waiver for its MFG rule because then-Director of the California social services department, Eloise Anderson, refused to comply with two of the federal requirements: to exempt teen parents from the rule; and to evaluate the impact of the rule on out-of-wedlock births and child neglect.

However, when welfare reform was passed—ending AFDC and creating the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program—states were no longer required to obtain waivers in order to deny aid to children.  Director Anderson wrote a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services asserting that neither the waiver nor the impact studies were now necessary.  But the fact is California state law did still require compliance with those same AFDC provisions and also that a certificate declaring that the requirements had been met be issued and kept on file.

During the massive overhaul that followed passage of welfare reform, no one noticed that Anderson—who now serves as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Secretary of the Department of Children and Families—didn’t conduct the impact studies or issue the certificate as required.   The California Department of Social Services has no record of either the certificate or studies.I e-mailed Secretary Anderson for comment but she declined.  The contact number listed on her Department’s website transferred me to a disconnected line—twice—the kind of frustrating experience that happens to low-income people all of the time.

Today, the California child exclusion rule is still in existence, denying newborns and children needed assistance which would help them meet their basic needs and promote better health and economic outcomes.

While I’m confident that this shortsighted and regressive policy will be repealed—an effort currently led by California Senator Holly J. Mitchell, chairperson of the Legislative Black Caucus—I am deeply disturbed by the 20 years of harm we have done to children and families.

How could it possibly make sense—to anyone on either side of the aisle—that welfare reform simply stopped requiring states to evaluate the impact of their policy decisions?  Had California conducted an impact study on its child exclusion policy, it would have learned that it had no impact on out-of-wedlock births and increased the likelihood of neglect for already very vulnerable children.  Further, welfare reform only allows a minimal role, if any, for the Department of Health and Human Services to call these outdated and dangerous state-based policies into question.

Today, nearly every child served by TANF lives in deep poverty—on less than half of the federal poverty line, or less than about $9,000 annually for a family of three.  Their lives are very tenuous, their hopes for the future dim.  And yet dramatic policy shifts under TANF still don’t need to be evaluated for their impact, and TANF policies that have failed people in poverty for decades are allowed to continue on unchallenged.

This July 4^th, I hope California will celebrate the repeal of our TANF child exclusion law, and that it marks the beginning of a broader reexamination of welfare reform.  It is long overdue.

In April 1929, six months before the Crash, Paul Blanshard reported from Greenville, S.C., letting millworker Gladys Caldwell (a pseudonym) explain to readers how she keeps her family alive in “How to Live on Forty-six Cents a Day.”

While running for Governor of California in September 1934, Upton Sinclair wrote “End Poverty in Civilization,” urging Nation readers to support his West Coast crusade.

And in “Poor, Proud, and Primitive,” from May 1959—several years before the region’s plight became a national issue—Harry W. Ernst and Charles H. Drake visited West Virginia’s coal country, discovering, “in this sweet land of liberty… the shaggy, shoeless children of the unwanted—the ‘hillbilly’ coal miners who have been displaced by machines and largely left to rot on surplus government food and the small doles of a half-hearted welfare state.”

We’re proud that, in keeping with this tradition, we worked with Greg Kaufmann in late 2011—when coverage in much of the media was sorely lacking—to develop This Week in Poverty, a weekly blog designed to keep the issue front and center for our readers. “We Can Reduce Poverty,” Kaufmann declared in his first entry, a hopeful note on which to begin his exploration of failed policy, public indifference, and political ineptitude. We were determined to examine poverty, and to make sure that the voices of low-income people themselves were represented.

It was also important for us to show readers how to get involved. “It’s time to stop bemoaning ‘the lack of political will’ to take on poverty and focus on what we are doing to create that political will,” Greg wrote last October. “[T]here will be no significant change without a truly broad-based movement….” In last year’s post on the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Greg explained how the CIW had indeed created that political will: Its Campaign for Fair Food “forg[ed] an alliance between consumers and farmworkers” and drew non-activists (that is, anyone who shopped for food and vegetables) into the fight against illegal employment practices (including rampant sexual harassment) and criminally low wages (including involuntary servitude).

Turning on the bullhorn, Greg included at the end of his This Week in Poverty posts a digest that comprised ways to get involved (“Tell Wendy’s to join the Fair Food Program”); clips and other resources (“This map shows where the world’s 30 million slaves live. There are 60,000 in the U.S.”); and vital statistics (“Poverty-level wages, 2011: 28 percent of workers”). This Week in Poverty represented some of the best examples of The Nation’s mission of bringing reportorial attention to issues while also drawing attention to solutions; of highlighting individuals working to alleviate or end poverty; propagating new and creative initiatives; and celebrating those sweet victories when values and change align.

Greg’s effort to push poverty into the 2012 presidential campaign included a series called #TalkPoverty. “Thirteen Questions for the First Presidential Debate” was a real highlight. Not only did it garner a response from the Obama campaign, but #TalkPoverty also took off on Twitter, where it still thrives today. We were thrilled when the Half in Ten campaign and its activists used #TalkPoverty to push their own questions at debate moderators and built a social media campaign around it.

Although I have mixed feelings about Greg’s decision to be a full-time activist instead of a full-time reporter, I am excited for this new project. (I am also pleased he will continue to write a monthly column for TheNation.com, beginning in June.)

I believe TalkPoverty.org will succeed in bringing to the forefront important voices in the fight against poverty. I have always believed that many of the solutions to poverty are found by the people who have worked on this issue for years in virtual anonymity, and also in the experiences of people struggling in poverty themselves. While media coverage of poverty has improved since we launched This Week in Poverty, there still needs to be much, much more. I hope TalkPoverty.org will be a resource for reporters who are looking for stories, and I wish it success. The Nation and I look forward to supporting this important and exciting effort.