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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NPR got an early look at data showing vastly different opportunities for children of different races across the U.S. living just neighborhoods apart. Albany, N.Y., has some of the greatest inequities. -
Studies show poor children living in "high opportunity" areas have a better chance at success. A program in the Seattle area to help families move to better neighborhoods has seen promising results.
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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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The police shooting in New York occurred outside a public housing project that's had an increase in crime. Some are trying to reduce violence and debunk myths about those who live in public housing.
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Residents of Martin County, Ky., where President Johnson traveled to promote his War on Poverty in 1964, say they need jobs more than government aid.
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The Obama administration's Social Innovation Fund has spent millions to help scores of nonprofits develop innovative solutions to pressing social problems. While participating groups say they're helping thousands of people, it's not yet clear what the government is getting for its money.
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The number of poor people living in America's suburbs now surpasses those in cities or rural areas. Long focused on the urban poor, social service agencies are now trying to respond to the basic needs of a much more far-flung population.
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If you're homeless, you can be on your feet for hours, forced to sleep in the frigid cold, or seriously ill with no place to go. But increasingly, the nation's homeless population is aging — more than half of single homeless adults are 47 or older. Linwood Hearne, 64, and his wife have been homeless for four years, sleeping near Interstate 83 in Baltimore.
