Bio for WFC 2012 Conference Keynote Speaker, Jim Weill

JAMES D. WEILL

President

Food Research and Action Center

Jim Weill has been President of the Food Research and Action Center – FRAC – since February 1998.  FRAC is the leading anti-hunger public policy group in America, using research, lobbying, coalition-building and public education to combat hunger. 

FRAC leads national efforts to improve and expand the reach of programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), school lunch and breakfast, afterschool and summer food, child care food and the “WIC” (Women, Infants and Children) Program. FRAC focuses as well on strategies to improve the incomes of low-income families and to boost healthy eating in schools, afterschool and summer programs, child care, and low-income neighborhoods. Since 1994 FRAC has led the Campaign to End Childhood Hunger, the preeminent national, state and local effort to use federal nutrition programs to meet children’s needs. Congress Daily has described FRAC as “the premier anti-hunger group in Washington.”    

Jim has devoted his entire professional career to reducing hunger and poverty, protecting the legal rights of children and poor people, and expanding economic security, income and nutrition support programs and health insurance coverage for low-income people.

Prior to joining FRAC, he was at the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) as Program Director and General Counsel.  He led CDF’s efforts in 1985 that produced the first major expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and oversaw CDF’s health coverage expansion, child care, and child support enforcement reform efforts.

Before CDF, Jim was Deputy Director and Director of Federal Litigation at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago.  He litigated major law reform and class action cases in the federal court of appeals and Supreme Court on Social Security, Medicaid, AFDC, food stamps and other public benefits issues, and the rights of children born out of wedlock. 

Jim is chair of the board of directors of the Alliance for Justice Action Council and is a member of the boards of OMB Watch and the National Center for Youth Law.  He serves on the advisory council to the National League of Cities Institute for Youth, Education and Families. He has served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the UNICEF Executive Board and on the boards of the National Clearinghouse for Legal Services, the Illinois Civil Liberties Union and the Poverty and Race Research and Action Council.