Join the cause. Make your voice heard. Create real change.
Here at your local United Way, we are working hard on the front lines of our community, assessing needs, devising strategies, and mobilizing resources to improve people’s lives and build a stronger community. Through the work we do each day, the community relationships we maintain, and the close ties to those we serve, we here at Lubbock Area United Way have gained great experience in the needs of our community.
Lubbock Area United Way is a part of United Ways of Texas. UWT focuses on systems change through policy and advocacy. During the Legislative Session, UWT brings the United Way voice to the Texas Capitol through public policy and advocacy efforts. Likewise, UWT actively works with members during the interim to ensure their voices help inform lawmakers as well as the policy priorities of the next legislative session.
United Ways of Texas serves as the unified public policy voice of local United Ways like ours and many others from every corner of Texas. They translate the work local United Ways are leading in their communities into opportunities for systemic change through policy in the areas of education, health, financial stability, and nonprofit/community strengthening.
The approach to policy is non-partisan and issue-focused and United Ways of Texas aims to inform, educate, and build consensus.
The United Ways of Texas 2023 Public Policy Agenda highlights the collective priorities of the state network for the 88th Regular Session of the Texas Legislature.
Below you can download the agenda with the policy that most impacts our community bolded underneath each initiative.
Download the United Ways of Texas 2023 Public Policy Agenda here.
Your Representatives:
Current legislative priorities:
Expanding the Child Tax Credit
- The House has passed the bipartisan Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act―the tax package that includes a temporary expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), restores several business tax benefits―and now it is on to the Senate. This legislation is the best chance for this Congress to significantly reduce child poverty and help millions of struggling families. By expanding the CTC, the legislation would lift as many as 400,000 children above the poverty line and make life better for an additional three million children below the poverty line this year. Overall, 16 million low-income children in families with low earnings would receive a larger CTC with this bill, which will help local businesses. Here is an updated Child Tax Credit Resource Sheet. We know how to end child poverty. That is why we are fighting for this expansion right now, and why we will keep fighting to further improve the CTC.
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ACTION: Reach out to your Senators and ask them to call for the Senate to take up the bipartisan tax bill passed by the House and pass it in the Senate ASAP. Click here to take action today.
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
- Funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), including the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), runs out on March 1. For the past 25 years, Congress, on a bipartisan basis, has committed to fully funding WIC to serve every eligible pregnant woman, infant, mother, and child who applies. WIC provides families with wide-ranging benefits and services, including safer pregnancies, improved dietary outcomes, and the healthy growth and development of children. WIC costs are higher this year than last year, in part because more eligible people are signing up for the program – meaning more pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and children are getting access to nutritious food and important health resources they need to thrive. However, in the two recent Continuing Resolutions enacted, Congress did not provide the additional $1 billion in estimated funding needed to ensure WIC can serve all those who seek its services in fiscal year 2024.
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ACTION: Send and share United Way’s WIC email to Congress.