Jina Moore Wins November Sidney Award for Inquiry Into American Poverty | Hillman Foundation

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Jina Moore Wins November Sidney Award for Inquiry Into American Poverty

What does it mean to be poor in the richest nation on earth? Jina Moore explores this question in her Sidney Award-winning Christian Science Monitor story, Below The Line: Poverty In AmericaMoore juxtaposes official poverty statistics and academic constructs with the stories of real people. Full-time daycare attendant Linda Criswell has to take fruit from the snack bowl at work because she can’t afford to buy her own, but her income wouldn’t necessarily qualify her for food stamps or Medicaid. 

How we measure poverty reveals a lot about our values. Is poverty an absolute measure of material deprivation, or is it something more complicated? Moore and I explore these questions in this month’s Backstory.

[Photo credit: Nicola Moore.]