Pam Fessler
Pam Fessler is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where she covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues.
In her reporting at NPR, Fessler does stories on homelessness, hunger, affordable housing, and income inequality. She reports on what non-profit groups, the government, and others are doing to reduce poverty and how those efforts are working. Her poverty reporting was recognized with a 2011 First Place National Headliner Award.
Fessler also covers elections and voting, including efforts to make voting more accessible, accurate, and secure. She has done countless stories on everything from the debate over state voter identification laws to Russian hacking attempts and long lines at the polls.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Fessler became NPR's first Homeland Security correspondent. For seven years, she reported on efforts to tighten security at ports, airports, and borders, and the debate over the impact on privacy and civil rights. She also reported on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, The 9/11 Commission Report, Social Security, and the Census. Fessler was one of NPR's White House reporters during the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Before becoming a correspondent, Fessler was the acting senior editor on the Washington Desk and NPR's chief election editor. She coordinated all network coverage of the presidential, congressional, and state elections in 1996 and 1998. In her more than 25 years at NPR, Fessler has also been deputy Washington Desk editor and Midwest National Desk editor.
Earlier in her career, she was a senior writer at Congressional Quarterly magazine. Fessler worked there for 13 years as both a reporter and editor, covering tax, budget, and other news. She also worked as a budget specialist at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and was a reporter at The Record newspaper in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Fessler has a master's of public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a bachelor's degree from Douglass College in New Jersey.
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A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine lays out how to cut child poverty in half in 10 years.
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Simeon Peterson lived 83 of his 89 years in institutions because of a misguided belief that leprosy was highly contagious. Many would consider it a tragic life, but he did not.
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Some countries, such as France, Austria and Poland, prohibit removing people from their homes during cold weather but that's not the case in the United States.
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The panel has faced credibility problems right from the start and the concerns have only grown after it asked all 50 states to send detailed voter registration records.
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Pantries in southwest Virginia — where poverty is rampant and coal jobs are vanishing — will take whatever they can get to stock bare shelves. Some also offer help with health care and job training.
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Groups that help low-income families get food aid report a big drop in the number of immigrants seeking help. Some are canceling government benefits for fear it will affect their immigration status.
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Among those who benefited from Obamacare are many homeless people who were able to get Medicaid for the first time. Some are worried about what a repeal of the Affordable Care Act could mean.
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More than 35 million eligible voters in the U.S. have a disability. And in the last presidential election, almost a third of voters with disabilities reported having trouble casting their ballots.
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The government says there was a big drop last year in the number of Americans struggling to get enough to eat, especially children. The USDA credits food aid like the school lunch program and SNAP.
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Most low-income tenants who end up in court are extremely poor; many of them are women with children. With a lack of housing aid and limited legal help, they often lose their cases and face eviction.