FACTBOX: White House candidates' proposals on poverty

(Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidates are focusing their attention on poverty as food prices rise and American voters struggle with a sputtering economy.

Below are some elements of the anti-poverty proposals put forward by Republican John McCain and Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

OBAMA

The Illinois senator has pledged to fight poverty by:

- expanding transitional jobs programs

- ensuring the freedom for workers to form unions

- strengthening programs that provide capital to businesses owned by minorities

- expanding the earned income tax credit and raising the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011

- expanding a program that provides home visits by trained registered nurses to low-income expectant mothers

- requiring employers to provide seven paid sick days a year

- expanding early childhood education programs so poor children do not have a disadvantage in school

CLINTON

The New York senator has promised to fight poverty by:

- Raising the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011 and expanding the earned income tax credit

- investing $1 billion to create affordable housing trust funds nationwide

- providing new job training opportunities for 1.5 Million at-risk youth

- creating some 5 million new "green collar" jobs in environmental fields

- helping former prisoners become productive members of their communities

- working to reduce homelessness, especially among U.S. veterans

- investing $10 billion in universal pre-kindergarten and early education programs

MCCAIN

The Arizona senator's pledges to fight poverty include:

- keeping taxes low so businesses can compete and create jobs

- focusing on education, including reducing the number of high school drop-outs and creating competition by allowing parents to choose the school best suited for their child

- bringing better Internet connections to small town communities

- reducing government spending on individual "pork-barrel" projects so savings can be used to fund training programs for unemployed workers

- After voting in 2007 to increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over a 26-month period, he opposes indexing it to inflation because of the consequences to small businesses

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Bill Trott)