Uncovering the Affordability Crisis; World Contraception Day; Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month; Reshaping Birth Industry Myths

I'm so excited and delighted to have a special guest, Wendy Chun Hoon, who is president of the Center for Law and Social Policy, also known as CLASP, join us today.

Welcome, Wendy.

Thank you, it's good to be here.

I'm so excited that you're here and I'm excited that you are leading across the nation.

So I'm wondering if you can lead us into the conversation with a little bit of a background on what does CLASP focus on in terms of area of expertise, area of advocacy, area of awesome?

I hear you have awesome.

I agree.

Well, CLASP is almost 60 years old as a national anti-poverty policy advocacy organization.

We're based out of DC.

And for the last, you know, almost 60 years, we've been fighting poverty and trying to make life a little bit easier through policy change.

Started out doing a lot of work on public interest law and then shifted to the lever of policy over time.

And so now work on things that are right in front of us today in this conversation about affordability, like access to food and food security and access to health insurance and things like a living wage and access to paid leave and childcare, all the things that I know you care about too.

Yeah.

And so does the majority of the American public.

I mean, we are not alone, Wendy.

Me and you are backed by bazillions of people.

Yes, I made up a number.

And CLASP has also been studying the trends of the affordability crisis.

What's happening with people who are not making enough to make ends meet? What's happening with income? What's happening with health coverage? And you just put out A new census report.

Can you walk us through what everyone should know about what's going on in America? I mean, I think sometimes we see what's going on or always we see what's going on around us.

We look at the grocery store and look at the prices on the shelves.

Oh my gosh, I almost fainted when I put gas in my car.

You all.

There were three digits on the dial that I had to pay.

I don't know that that's ever happened in my lifetime.