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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Poverty among single mothers is an astounding 66 percent in Reading, Pa., where Jennifer Stepp is raising three children by herself. To survive, she relies on a safety net of support. -
Tens of millions of Americans are still struggling, despite the slow economic recovery. In Reading, Pa., the nation's poorest city, local nonprofit Opportunity House provides a lifeline for families trying to stay afloat by offering day care, housing and other assistance. But many in Reading are still left behind.
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The department says Florida is violating federal law as it tries to remove noncitizens from its voter registration rolls. In turn, Florida officials say the federal government is partly to blame. -
Participation is down at some of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure events which raise money for breast cancer research and treatment. The foundation may be suffering from the fallout of its decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood programs. The decision was quickly reversed.
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New voter ID laws and other voting restrictions have been enacted in a number of states since the last major election. And that's raised special concerns among African Americans, who feel they're being targeted. Black church leaders and the Congressional Black Caucus met in Washington Wednesday to find ways African-American voters aren't discouraged from turning out in November.
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Campaigns, political parties, interest groups — they're all ramping up to register millions of potential voters. The Pew Center on the States estimates there are 51 million unregistered Americans who are eligible to vote. The belief is that even a small number of them could swing the results.
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A listener shares his experience with a formerly homeless veteran featured in a recent NPR story. -
Last year, the number of homeless U.S. veterans on a given night fell 12 percent from the year before. But tens of thousands were still on the streets, and more could soon join them as troops return home. President Obama has vowed to end veterans' homelessness by 2015. -
Cities are struggling to figure out how to deal with a cut of about $1 billion over the past two years in federal community development block grants. Critics say a complicated funding formula has hit some cities especially hard, with cuts of more than 40 percent from last year.
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The nation's poverty rate rose last year to 15.1 percent, the highest level in 17 years, according to new data from the Census Bureau. The agency's latest poverty report, released Tuesday, shows that the median income dropped last year by more than 2 percent to about $49,445.
