• During his campaign in 2008, Barack Obama voiced a firm commitment to reduce poverty by
announcing that it is through the conjoined efforts of everyone involved that poverty could be
reduced to half its actual figure during the next ten years. 

• Assigning poverty the status of being a national priority, Barack Obama has supported the
introduction of a new Federal measure of poverty which is supposed to be more accurate and helpful
in tackling its after-effects on the following generations. Hence, the modern guidelines of federal
poverty are meant to reflect the costs of living and study the various sources due to which the
American families face economic pressure.

• In order to translate his statements to reality, Barack Obama outlined a plan consisting of
various proposals in a bid to fight rural poverty. Some of the salient points of his proposals were
development of telecommunication technology in rural America, improving the infrastructure by
investing in water and sewer system and building small city airports.

• In his urban poverty program, Obama vowed to create twenty dream neighborhoods in various
cities across the country based on the lines of the Harlem Children's Zone in New York City.

• The urban poverty program has also been designed by Obama to fight concentrated poverty in
American cities by creating more economic opportunities, recruiting more teachers and making the
profession of teaching attractive by augmenting the salary and providing support services. 

• A noteworthy proposal made by Obama in the direction of reducing urban poverty was the
creation of 'Affordable Housing Trust Fund' as a result of which 112,000 new affordable units would
be added in the mixed income neighborhood.