Some 1.5 million Pennsylvanians live in poverty. They live in cities, rural communities and suburban areas. It’s a lingering problem that House Republicans want to explore over the next several months in hopes of finding better ways to address this problem.

House Majority Policy Chairman Dave Reed announced at a Capitol Rotunda news conference on Monday his committee's plans to investigate impacts of poverty in Pennsylvania communities in hopes of arriving at solutions to help address the problem.

At a Capitol news conference on Monday, House Majority Policy Committee Chairman Dave Reed announced the committee's plan to visit places around the commonwealth to see what poverty looks like and assess what programs work and don't work.

Noting it was a half-century ago when President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty, Reed said the percentage of Americans struggling to make ends meet has changed little, despite the $1 trillion the nation invests annually on anti-poverty programs.

“There has got be a better way in America in the 21st century to use our tax dollars more effectively to impact the lives of our citizens and to keep people from going into poverty and get those in poverty out of poverty immediately,” Reed said.

This “Empowering Opportunities: Gateways Out of Poverty” initiative will take the House Republican policy committee to places around the state as they work on developing and refining ideas for legislation to address the issue.

They will be working with and meeting with representatives of community groups like Palmyra Circles of Lebanon County to learn more about their ways to give a helping hand to move families out of poverty.

In the afternoon, legislators will participate in a poverty simulation at the Capitol hosted by the Community Action Association of Pennsylvania that simulates for them the daily challenges faced by those living in poverty.

Representatives from the Interfaith Justice Coalition, Community Action Association and Palmyra Circles applauded the committee’s attention to addressing the problem that one said “diminishes all of us and tolerating it is a moral failure.”