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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Pennsylvania and other states are working through grants from Congress to upgrade their voting machines and other equipment. Advocates say more work is needed — and billions more dollars. -
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. -
A new study looks at efforts to break up pockets of poverty by using housing vouchers to encourage low-income families to move to "high opportunity" neighborhoods.
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The administration wants to close what it calls a "loophole" that allows states to give benefits to those who would not otherwise be eligible by raising or eliminating income and asset limits. -
Public housing officials estimate that it would cost $50 billion to fix up buildings that have fallen into disrepair nationwide. The Trump administration is calling for more private investment. -
The possible change involves a different inflation measure to adjust the poverty threshold annually. Anti-poverty groups worry that many low-income people would be pushed off assistance programs. -
Close ties between vendors and election officials are getting extra attention as states plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new voting machines by next year. -
The Trump administration has proposed changing food stamp rules to require able-bodied adults without children to work 20 hours or more a week or lose benefits. -
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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Claims of massive illegal voting by noncitizens have routinely been disproved, but some noncitizens end up on the voter rolls, often by accident. Now, states are trying to fix that.
