Calling on her fellow lawmakers to pass legislation she put forward last year to better recognize—and move to eradicate—poverty in the United States, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez testified before her own House committee Wednesday about the U.S. government’s willful failure to understand how many Americans are living in destitution.
Ocasio-Cortez joined several anti-poverty campaigners in testifying at a hearing regarding the effects of Trump administration policies on child poverty, hunger, homelessness, and healthcare. The first-term New York Democrat argued that the government’s formula for calculating poverty—used long before President Donald Trump was in office—makes it impossible to account for the financial devastation millions of Americans face.