IRP Poverty Dispatch

Computer issues cause Medicaid payment lags, By Patricia Anstett, November 5, 2009, Detroit Free Press: “Dozens of Michigan nursing homes, hospices, dental offices and hospitals have encountered problems with two new state Medicaid computer programs, including payment errors, lengthy reimbursement lags and delays enrolling patients in the Medicaid program. The problems coincide with large increases in people applying for Medicaid, a program that serves 1.8 million low-income Michigan children and adults…”

Program based on Harlem initiative shows promise, By Cassandra West, November 4, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton famously drew on an African proverb, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ to explain her vision for American children more than decade ago. Now the Obama administration is looking to another village — local urban communities — to serve the educational and social needs of children in poverty with its Promise Neighborhoods, an initiative modeled on the transformative and widely touted Harlem Children’s Zone. For two days next week representatives from the Chicago communities of Chicago Lawn, Logan Square and Woodlawn will be in New York attending the conference, ‘Changing the Odds: Learning from the Harlem Children’s Zone Model.’ The forum is a first step for advocates and community groups interested in replicating the New York City-based endeavor, which President Barack Obama has called ‘an all-encompassing, all-hands-on-deck anti-poverty effort…’”

• Unemployment rate rises above 10%; Obama signs jobless benefit extension, By Don Lee, November 6, 2009, Los Angeles Times: “As the nation’s unemployment rate surged to 10.2% in October, reaching double digits for the first time in 26 years, President Obama signed a measure today providing additional aid for the jobless as well as expanding and extending a home buyer tax credit to help spur economic growth. ‘The need for such a measure was made clear by the jobs report we just received this morning,’ Obama said at the White House. He called the Labor Department figure released today ‘a sobering number that underscores the economic challenges that lie ahead.’ The unexpectedly sharp increase in the unemployment rate, from 9.8% in September, came as employers dropped 190,000 workers from their payrolls last month. That was larger than the 175,000 job losses that most forecasters were expecting for the month, and it underscored just how dire the labor market remains despite the recent upturn in the nation’s economic output…”
• U.S. unemployment rate hits 10.2%, highest in 26 years, By Peter S. Goodman, November 6, 2009, New York Times: “The American unemployment rate surged to 10.2 percent in October, its highest level in 26 years, as the economy lost another 190,000 jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday. The jump into the realm of double-digit joblessness - from 9.8 percent in September - provided a sobering reminder that, despite the apparent end of the Great Recession, economic expansion has yet to translate into jobs, leaving tens of millions of people still struggling…”

Who’s poor? Proposal aims for better measurement, By Ruben Rosario, November 4, 2009, Pioneer Press: “I need to cut a piece of wood that is precisely 36 inches long and 5 inches wide. I have two measurement tools at my disposal. I already know the distance between the tips of my outstretched thumb and pinky - 9 inches. I also have a tape measure. Both will do the job, but one will provide a more accurate and efficient measurement. Which leads me to a bill in Congress that, if passed, will change the way we define and measure poverty in Minnesota and across the nation for policy-making and public assistance purposes. Whether the proposed change will be significant, increasing or decreasing who’s officially poor and who is not, is open to debate. The Measuring Poverty in America Act of 2009 seeks to replace the current federal poverty-level guideline used to determine the nation’s poverty rate as well as an individual’s or a family’s eligibility for public assistance benefits that can range from food stamps to state-subsidized health care…”

Study finds working poor hardest hit by income tax, By Phillip Rawls (AP), November 5, 2009, Montgomery Advertiser: “A national study released Wednesday showed Alaba­ma makes families living in poverty pay higher income taxes than any other state. The study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priori­ties comes a few days after a U.S. Census report showed Alabama residents and busi­nesses overall pay less in state and local taxes than their counterparts in any other state. In the 2007 fiscal year, the average of state and local taxes collected per person in Alabama was $2,909. Missis­sippi finished 49th at $2,989. The national median was $4,011. That doesn’t mean every­one in Alabama is enjoying low taxes…”

• Food stamp woes grow with need, By Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje, November 5, 2009, San Antonio Express-News: “Despite efforts to improve the system, food stamp applicants continue to face long delays in assistance amid a recession-fueled surge in demand. In Bexar County, the state processed 22,463 more applications from March to September than it did in 2008. More than 210,000 people received $26 million in food stamps in October in the county, with the average family getting $322 a month. In the vast majority of households receiving food assistance - 82 percent - at least one person is employed. Many have had to wait six months for their first food stamps…”
• Food stamp workers share frustrations, By Corrie MacLaggan, November 5, 2009, Austin American-Statesman: “When the new head of the agency responsible for the state’s backlogged food stamp applications sent an e-mail to employees asking for feedback about the agency, he got it. About 500 state workers replied to Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs, telling him about low morale and low pay, poor management, technology problems, insufficient training, long hours away from their families. They wrote about feeling frazzled, crying on the drive to work and actively looking for other jobs…”

Hospitals cite worry on fees in health bill, By Anemona Hartocollis, November 2, 2009, New York Times: “As Congress struggles to rein in health care costs as part of its sweeping reform efforts, hospitals in New York City and other urban areas that provide some of the most expensive care are among the primary targets. The issue pits hospitals in more rural states like Iowa and Minnesota, where spending tends to be lower, against those in areas like New York and Los Angeles, and revolves around a question that has bedeviled the medical establishment for decades: How much money do hospitals need to provide adequate care for patients, especially poor people who have not had regular access to health care…”

Tax refund loans cost Arkansans millions, By John Lyon, November 3, 2009, Fort Smith Times Record: “Arkansans spend about $100 million a year obtaining loans against anticipated tax refunds, according to a report released Monday by Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. The report also estimated that Arkansans miss out on as much as $110 million a year by failing to claim the federal earned income tax credit. ‘Low-income tax filers are paying tax preparation fees, in many cases exorbitant tax preparation fees to have their taxes done, when in fact most low-income families could receive free tax assistance through an existing VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) site,’ Rich Huddleston, executive director of Arkansas Advocates, said at a news conference to announce the report…”

Children slipping back into poverty, By Rachel Williams, November 3, 2009, The Guardian: “Children in affluent areas are sinking into poverty after a third of the gains made over the last eleven years in getting families into work were wiped out in just 12 months, a new study warned today. One in five - two million - British children now live in households where neither parent has a job, a rise of 170,000 since 2008, the Campaign to End Child Poverty said. If unemployment continued to rise as forecast, the number could return to levels of a decade ago, when Tony Blair made his flagship pledge to eradicate child poverty by 2020 and halve it by 2010. The number of children in jobless households, two thirds of whom face poverty, had fallen by a half a million - nearly a quarter - between 1997 and 2008…”

Wisconsin failing to approve Medicaid and food stamps applications in timely manner, By Jason Stein, November 2, 2009, Wisconsin State Journal: “Socked by tens of thousands of childless adults applying for a new state health plan, Wisconsin is failing to meet requirements in federal law for timely approvals of applications for both the Medicaid health coverage and food stamps. Since June 15, more than two-thirds of childless applicants with virtually no income - the highest priority cases - haven’t received food stamps within the federally required seven days, state figures show. Nearly two-thirds of all the childless adults seeking food stamps haven’t received them within the required 30 days. The same process is used to check whether applicants are eligible for both Medicaid and the federal FoodShare, or food stamps, program. Officials from the state Department of Health Services met Monday with federal officials to brief them on the delays and said they would seek to resolve the most pressing backlogged food stamp cases by the end of this week…”

More districts use income, not race, as basis for busing, By Jordan Schrader, November 2, 2009, USA Today: “Struggling to improve schools that have large populations of poor and minority students and under legal pressure to avoid racial busing, a small but growing group of school districts are integrating schools by income. More than 60 school systems now use socioeconomic status as a factor in school assignments, says Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, which studies income inequality. Students in Champaign, Ill.; Kalamazoo, Mich.; and Louisville have returned this year to income-based assignments…”

Ky. increases number of kids in health programs, By Beth Musgrave, November 3, 2009, Lexington Herald-Leader: “State officials said Monday that they are on target to enroll 35,000 children in two key public health programs by the end of 2009, six months ahead of schedule. In November 2008, Gov. Steve Beshear pledged to increase the number of children in Kentucky Children’s Health Insurance Program or Medicaid programs by decreasing some of the road blocks to the government health insurance program for low-income families. Currently, there are 32,000 new children enrolled in the two programs, Beshear said at a press conference Monday at Second Street School in Frankfort. But both programs combined have enrolled on average 2,600 children a month. Current rates indicate that the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which oversees the health insurance programs, will meet the 35,000 goal by December instead of June 2010, as originally projected…”

Half of US kids will get food stamps, study says, By Lindsey Tanner (AP), November 2, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say. The estimate comes from an analysis of 30 years of national data, and it bolsters other recent evidence on the pervasiveness of youngsters at economic risk. It suggests that almost everyone knows a family who has received food stamps, or will in the future, said lead author Mark Rank, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis. ‘Your neighbor may be using some of these programs but it’s not the kind of thing people want to talk about,’ Rank said. The analysis was released Monday in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The authors say it’s a medical issue pediatricians need to be aware of because children on food stamps are at risk for malnutrition and other ills linked with poverty…”

• Food stamp workers work longer hours and get less training, By Corrie MacLaggan, October 29, 2009, Austin American-Statesman: “As Texas begins hiring hundreds of food stamp workers to help erase an application backlog that has left families waiting months for aid, no one expects the problems to disappear any time soon. The new state workers are entering a system in crisis. They’ll have far fewer experienced colleagues than they would have five years ago. Training is shorter. Mentoring has mostly fallen by the wayside. And employees are working an average of 13 hours of overtime per week - which, in some cases, is mandatory…”
• Judge orders Indiana to improve Food Stamps processing, By Ken Kusmer (AP), October 28, 2009, Louisville Courier-Journal: “A federal judge has ordered Indiana’s partially privatized welfare intake system to speed up decisions on food stamp applications, but the state has a year to meet its first target. U.S. District Judge Robert Miller issued a preliminary injunction last week in a class-action lawsuit covering every food stamp applicant in Indiana over the past 19 months. The order represents the latest setback to one of nation’s most ambitious welfare privatization efforts and came just days after Gov. Mitch Daniels fired vendor IBM Corp. from its $1.34 billion contract to lead the project…”

• More people turn to state to fill basic need: food, By Angie Basiouny, November 2, 2009, Wilmington News Journal: “The number of Delawareans receiving food stamps has jumped by 27.5 percent in the past year, another sign of a recession cutting deeper into household budgets for the most basic of necessities. A total of 98,346 residents — 1 in 9 Delawareans — were enrolled in the food assistance program as of July. Officials said they expect that number to shoot up another 40 percent in the coming year as severance packages offered by many of the state’s biggest employers to laid-off workers expire…”
• Grand Forks County Social Services sees 30 percent spike in assistance, By Kevin Bonham, November 1, 2009, Grand Forks Herald: “North Dakota might not be feeling the full effects of the economic recession that has crippled the nation over the past year or so, but local taxpayers are feeling the pain. Some symptoms are surfacing in the Grand Forks County Social Services Department. The total number of households in Grand Forks County receiving some type of assistance has increased by nearly 30 percent in just two years. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps, represents the largest increase, with the number of households growing by 35 percent since 2007. In October 2009, 5,677 residents were receiving SNAP benefits. That’s about 8.5 percent of the county’s population, which the U.S. Census Bureau estimated at 66,585 in 2008…”

Eligibility for LIHEAP slashed; 20,000 families may be left out, By Rick Wills, November 2, 2009, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “With Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate at its highest in more than 20 years, fewer low-income residents will be able to receive help paying their heating bills this winter. That is largely because income eligibility for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, was reduced to $33,075 for a family of four - more than $11,000 less than last year’s maximum. At least 20,000 families who received assistance last year could be left in the cold this year because of the lower income limits, said Michael Love, president and CEO of the Energy Association of Pennsylvania, a trade association that represents the state’s utility companies…”

• Report: 1 in 4 Israelis poor, By Yael Branovsky, November 2, 2009, Ynetnews: “The beginning of the financial crisis did not affect the figures of poverty in Israel, which remained almost unchanged last year, according to the National Insurance Institute’s Poverty Report for 2008. Nonetheless, the data published Monday point to an extremely grim picture: There are 1,651,300 needy people living in Israel, including 783,600 children. The percentage of poor people in Israel dropped slightly to 23.7%. In other words, one in four Israelis is defined as needy. According to NII officials, the financial crisis’ influence, which was partly seen in the second half of 2008, compensated for the rise in income in the first half of the year. The results of the crisis erased the improvement in the dimensions of poverty among families and children. However, many families are now above the poverty line, thanks to allowances they are receiving…”
• Number of working poor grows, By Shay Niv, November 2, 2009, Globes: “The beginnings of a fall in the rate of poverty in Israel seen in the second half of 2007 and the first half of 2008 were wiped out in the second half of 2008, because of the economic crisis. This emerges from the 2008 Poverty Report, released by the National Insurance Institute of Israel today. The dimensions of poverty in 2008 were the same as in 2007, placing Israel at the head of the ladder of developed countries with especially high rates of poverty, alongside the US and Mexico. According to the data, 420,000 Israeli families lived in poverty in 2008. Poverty affected 1.65 million people, 783,000 of them children. In other words, one in every three Israeli children is poor…”

Illinois school test scores: Income-based gap proves hard to close, By Tara Malone and Darnell Little, October 30, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Surrounded by sports fields and suburban lawns, Hadley Junior High School could be the envy of the state. Nine of every 10 students at the Glen Ellyn school passed state exams in reading and math, according to the 2009 Illinois School Report Card made public Friday. But average scores belie a widespread problem the federal government has spent billions trying to fix nationwide: While at least 95 percent of Hadley’s well-off students passed the eighth-grade reading and math tests, about half of their low-income classmates met the same goals, revealing an achievement gap that is as persistent as it is pernicious. Seven years after the federal No Child Left Behind Law ambitiously pledged to eliminate such disparities and invested nearly $6.2 billion in Illinois schools alone, the progress has been modest and isolated. While the performance gap between advantaged and disadvantaged grade school children narrowed in Illinois since 2002 — in math, the margin shrunk by at least 13 percentage points in third, fifth and eighth grades — the divide among high school juniors actually widened slightly in math and reading…”

• Student ‘proficiency’: What is your state’s definition?, By Amanda Paulson, October 29, 2009, Christian Science Monitor: “How advanced a student is may have more to do with where he lives than how much he knows. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, states are under pressure to bring more students up to ‘proficiency’ every year. But each state can define what proficiency means differently. A new report shows just how widely these definitions vary. ‘A proficient reader in State A may be very different from a proficient reader in State B - even though those students may have the same academic skill,’ says Peggy Carr, associate commissioner for assessment at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which released the study Thursday…”
• Federal researchers find lower standards in schools, By Sam Dillon, October 29, 2009, New York Times: “A new federal study shows that nearly a third of the states lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years, a step that helps schools stay ahead of sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. But lowering standards also confuses parents about how children’s achievement compares with those in other states and countries. The study, released Thursday, was the first by the federal Department of Education’s research arm to use a statistical comparison between federal and state tests to analyze whether states had changed their testing standards. It found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards in fourth- or eighth-grade reading or math from 2005 to 2007. Three states, Maine, Oklahoma and Wyoming, lowered standards in both subjects at both grade levels, the study said…”
• Report: States set low bar for student achievement, By Libby Quaid (AP), October 29, 2009, Idaho Statesman: “Many states declare students to have grade-level mastery of reading and math when they do not, the Education Department reported Thursday. The agency compared state achievement standards to the more challenging standards behind the federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress. State standards were lower, and there were big differences in where each state set the bar…”

• Adjusted state unemployment rate hits 17.2%, By Howard Fischer, October 27, 2009, East Valley Tribune: “Arizonans have been told for months now that the state jobless rate is hovering in the low 9 percent range. But it turns out that’s pretty much only half the story - literally. New federal figures show Arizona’s real unemployment situation is already in double digits - 17.2 percent - when also accounting for people who are “underemployed” because they can’t find full-time work and discouraged Arizonans who have given up their job search…”
• State snafu stiffs unemployed, By Edward Mason, October 30, 2009, Boston Herald: “Thousands of desperate jobless Bay Staters - at the end of their ropes and unemployment benefits - thought the state had tossed them a lifeline when new checks arrived in the mail, only to learn it was all a big mistake and now they have to give the money back. The state Division of Unemployment Assistance mistakenly sent checks totaling $3.4 million to 4,159 out-of-work residents who’d exhausted their benefits, thanks to a glitch in the office’s archaic computer system, the Herald has learned…”
• Poor Unemployment Insurance planning adds extra burden to Conn., South Dakota employers, By Olga Pierce, October 26, 2009, ProPublica: “Employers in Connecticut and South Dakota face hefty tax increases in the midst of a recession because their states’ unemployment insurance trust funds ran dry last week. The two states, like many others, have solvency taxes — a special tax increase that kicks in when their trust fund balance goes below a set amount…”
• Benefit checks are on the way, By Yvonne Wenger, October 29, 2009, Charleston Post and Courier: “It’s official: the state Legislature fixed an oversight Wednesday that will send tens of millions of dollars to unemployed workers. Gov. Mark Sanford will sign the bill today and residents could receive a check within a week. The Legislature returned in special session this week to change wording in a law that will allow federal stimulus funds to provide an additional five months of unemployment benefits to out-of-work residents…”

• Ethiopia appeals for international aid 25 years on, By Tom Pettifor, October 23, 2009, The Mirror: “It’s been a quarter of a century since the Ethiopian famine which shocked the world - and history could be about to repeat itself. The government of Ethiopia, a country in the grip of a five-year drought, yesterday asked the international community for emergency aid to feed 6.2 million. The request came at a meeting of donors to discuss the impact of the drought, affecting parts of East Africa. The UN’s World Food Programme said £173million will be needed in the next six months and some aid officials say the numbers of hungry could rise. But an Oxfam report to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1984 famine - Band Aids and Beyond - warns that drought will be the norm there for the next 25 years. And it called for a new approach to tackling the risk of disaster in the country…”
• Is U.S. food aid contributing to Africa’s hunger?, By Dana Hughes, October 29, 2009, ABC News: “Drought-stricken Ethiopia is pleading for food aid again to stave off starvation, but some critics are complaining that the policies of the country’s most generous donor, the United States, is exacerbating the cycle of starvation. A hungry Ethiopia gets 70 percent of its aid from the U.S., but according to a new report by the aid organization Oxfam International, that help comes at a cost. U.S. law requires that food aid money be spent on food grown in the U.S., at least half of it must be packed in the U.S. and most of it must be transported in U.S. ships. The Oxfam report, ‘Band Aids and Beyond,’ claims that is far more expensive and time consuming than buying food in the region…”
• Oxfam says Band-Aids insufficient, By Peter Goodspeed, October 23, 2009, National Post: “Twenty-five years after Ethiopia suffered a staggering famine that killed more than one million people, the world has done little to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy. A new report by the international aid group Oxfam claims ‘the humanitarian response to drought and other disasters is still dominated by ‘Band-Aids,’ ‘ instead of finding ways to reduce the risks of recurring crisis…”

More and more warehouse clubs accept food stamps, By Sarah Skidmore and Dan Sewell (AP), October 28, 2009, Idado Statesman: “With many families suddenly struggling to feed themselves, the big warehouse clubs known for king-size packages of steak and jumbo boxes of Cheerios are increasingly competing with grocery stores for the 36 million Americans now on food stamps. Costco Wholesale Corp. said Wednesday that it would start accepting food stamps at its warehouse clubs nationwide after testing them at stores in New York. That is a big about-face for a chain that has catered to the bargain-hunting affluent with its gourmet foods, and a reflection of the fact food-stamp use has hit new highs. Costco joins warehouse-club competitor BJ’s Wholesale Corp., which started taking food stamps last April, and Sam’s Club, which began accepting them in the fall of 2008. Up until recently, some wholesale clubs were skeptical poor people would be willing to pay the $50-a-year membership fee or would be interested in buying food in the bulk quantities for which the stores are famous…”

• Medicaid plan draws fire, By Marsha Shuler, Baton Rouge Advocate: “A state health agency proposal to scale back rates paid to Medicaid providers drew opposition Monday from nursing home and hospital interests. State Department of Health and Hospitals Undersecretary Charles Castille said reducing the rates to the levels they were three years ago would lower spending by $232 million. The program grew $1 billion in one year and now costs more than $6 billion. State Treasurer John Kennedy, the chairman of a Commission on Streamlining Government advisory group, said cutting the budget across the board, such as this one, is not the way to go. Kennedy asked DHH officials to instead consider prioritizing spending for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor…”
• Analysis: Missouri finally produces Medicaid report, By David A. Lieb (AP), St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “After claiming for more than a year that it could not do so, the Missouri Department of Social Services finally has obeyed a state law and published a list of employers whose workers get government-funded Medicaid health care coverage. Yet compliance with the Medicaid reporting law may be only an experiment. Although the list is supposed to be published quarterly, the department says there’s no telling when it will produce the report again. As lawmakers in Washington, D.C., debate a national health-care overhaul, Missouri’s experience shows how slow and difficult it can be for bureaucracies to implement even incremental changes in the health care system. Missouri was one of several states to mandate employer-Medicaid reports in recent years as a way to gauge the extent to which government was picking up the slack for businesses that either didn’t offer their employees affordable health insurance or paid them so little that they qualified for Medicaid…”

R.I.’s hard times hit child support, By W. Zachary Malinowski, October 26, 2009, Providence Journal: “One-by-one, day-after-day, the men sheepishly walk to the lectern in Family Court and answer questions about why they can’t possibly make their child-support payments. On a recent morning, Kervin Candelier fumbled through his pants pockets and pulled out a wrinkled receipt from Western Union that suggested he had paid $1,000 in June. Candelier owed $6,900 in child support payments, and his former girlfriend, the mother of their two children, claimed that he only gave her $500 to pay for school clothes and supplies. He said that he’s doing his best, but he’s a barber and only makes about $230 a week. ‘Every business is slow right now because of the economy,’ he said. Magistrate George N. DiMuro, acting on a recommendation from the state Office of Child Support Services, ordered the father to immediately pay a lump sum of $300 and begin paying her $70 a week through the court system. DiMuro tells him to make sure the payments are made through the court, so it’s recorded - not directly to the mother. ‘Otherwise, you’re going to get yourself in a world of trouble here,’ DiMuro warned. There’s no better place to get an understanding of the state’s poor economy than Family Court - the place where divorce, custody, child support and other domestic crises are settled. According to the latest national economic data, Rhode Island’s unemployment rate of 13 percent is the third highest in the nation, trailing only Michigan and Nevada…”

More welfare going to parents here illegally, By Timothy Pratt, October 27, 2009, Las Vegas Sun: “Jose Silva had just obtained an appointment in three weeks to see whether his family would be eligible for monthly welfare benefits. ‘Now I just have to not eat until then,’ he joked, standing with his wife on the sidewalk outside the state office on Flamingo Road. Silva has been without a steady job for a year, one of tens of thousands of workers still reeling from the bottom dropping out of the Las Vegas Valley’s construction industry, the region’s second-largest employer after tourism. If approved for assistance, the Silvas will belong to the fastest-growing category of families in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Bearing the confusing government label of ‘non-qualified non-citizens,’ this category refers to families with parents who are not U.S. citizens and children who are. Since the recession began in late 2007, the average monthly caseload of these families has grown 96 percent, according to state records. About 4,250 of these families of mixed immigration status were on the program’s rolls in September, making it the second-largest category in TANF, after single-parent households…”

Housing aid: End of a lifeline, By Kevin Duchschere, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “With two emergency housing aid programs slated to end this week, officials are worried that homelessness figures, especially among single adults, will rise. By his own count, Victor Gomez has lived in 28 states since leaving his native Indiana. He’s been homeless for the better part of 20 years. He worked odd jobs in construction before damaging his wrist in a drunken leap off a bridge in downtown Minneapolis four years ago. ‘I don’t know what got into me,’ he says about the jump, although he knows why he used to drink so much: ‘I didn’t feel no cold.’ For the past three months Gomez, 44, and his wife, Linda, have shared a two-bedroom apartment in south Minneapolis. St. Stephen’s Human Services found the place for them, and Minnesota’s Emergency General Assistance (EGA) program got them in the door — it provided the funding for Hennepin County to cover the Gomezes’ $939 damage deposit…”

• Missouri public defender system faces ‘caseload crisis,’ study says, By Mark Morris, October 25, 3009, Kansas City Star: “Missouri’s public defender system is facing ‘an overwhelming caseload crisis’ that has pushed the state’s criminal justice system ‘to the brink of collapse,’ a new study reports. The study, released Friday, underscores a similar 2005 report and notes that little has improved. The public defender system represents poor defendants charged with more than 80 percent of the felonies filed in Missouri. Offices throughout the state regularly report that their lawyers are working well above 100 percent of their recommended maximum workloads. Earlier this year, Laura Denvir Stith, then chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, warned legislators that the state’s courts could be forced to release ‘vast numbers’ of inmates from jail because their public defenders could not get them to trial quick enough. She also warned that the state was vulnerable to lawsuits challenging the adequacy of its public defender system…”
• Missouri Supreme Court must stanch public defender meltdown, Editorial, October 27, 2009, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “A new study of Missouri’s public defender system - which provides lawyers for indigent defendants in criminal cases - says the system’s lawyers are so underpaid, overworked and badly supervised that they’re like the pilots of the commuter plane that crashed into a Buffalo, N.Y., suburb in February. As a result, says the Spangenberg Group, a judicial consulting firm, and George Mason University’s Center for Justice, Law and Society, Missouri’s criminal justice system ‘is heading for disaster, one which is both predictable and preventable.’ Missouri’s public defender system ’stands at the bottom of its sister states in terms of resources,’ the report concludes, and ‘has reached a point where what it provides is often nothing more than the illusion of a lawyer.’ None of this is news, at least not to anyone familiar with the state’s criminal justice system. The Missouri Bar commissioned a similar study four years ago, and it reached similar conclusions…”

State gives most foster parents a raise; but some see cuts, By Michelle Cole, October 26, 2009, The Oregonian: “Most Oregon foster parents are getting a big raise from the state, part of a compensation overhaul that officials hope will encourage more adults to become foster parents. But the change hasn’t been good for everybody. Some foster parents who care for some of the sickest children are facing deep cuts and are threatening to quit. Nobody was more thrilled than Jeany Stangl when the state raised the basic amount it reimburses foster parents. On Sept. 1, the rate for caring for a child age younger than 5 went up to $639 a month — a $240 increase…”

• Recession drives surge in youth runaways, By Ian Urbina, October 25, 2009, New York Times: “Dressed in soaked green pajamas, Betty Snyder, 14, huddled under a cold drizzle at the city park as several older boys decided what to do with her. Betty said she had run away from home a week earlier after a violent argument with her mother. Shivering and sullen-faced, she vowed that she was not going to sleep by herself again behind the hedges downtown, where older homeless men and methamphetamine addicts might find her. The boys were also runaways. But unlike them, Betty said, she had been reported missing to the police. That meant that if the boys let her stay overnight in their hidden tent encampment by the freeway, they risked being arrested for harboring a fugitive…”
• For runaways, sex buys survival, By Ian Urbina, October 26, 2009, New York Times: “She ran away from her group home in Medford, Ore., and spent weeks sleeping in parks and under bridges. Finally, Nicole Clark, 14 years old, grew so desperate that she accepted a young man’s offer of a place to stay. The price would come later. They had sex, and he soon became her boyfriend. Then one day he threatened to kick her out if she did not have sex with several of his friends in exchange for money. She agreed, fearing she had no choice. ‘Where was I going to go?’ said Nicole, now 17 and living here, just down the Interstate from Medford. That first exchange of money for sex led to a downward spiral of prostitution that lasted for 14 months, until she escaped last year from a pimp who she said often locked her in his garage apartment for months. ‘I didn’t know the town, and the police would just send me back to the group home,’ Nicole said, explaining why she did not cut off the relationship once her first boyfriend became a pimp and why she did not flee prostitution when she had the chance. ‘I’d also fallen for the guy. I felt trapped in a way I can’t really explain.’ Most of the estimated 1.6 million children who run away each year return home within a week. But for those who do not, the desperate struggle to survive often means selling their bodies…”

The foster child thought she had nobody left to love her. She was wrong., By Nancy Cambria, October 25, 2009, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “The search begins inside a sparse office in a corner of the St. Louis family court. Carlos Lopez, a 6-foot private investigator with a disarming smile, and his partner Sheila Suderwalla sit at a computer side by side, scouring court records, police files, motor vehicle records, occupancy permits and mug shots - any clue that would lead them to a woman named Karen. Karen is not a wanted criminal. And the partners are not looking to solve a crime. Suderwalla, a petite social worker with a driven passion for the underdog, and Lopez are on the trail of something far more elusive: a lost relative with a heart big enough and bloodlines strong enough to change the life of a 15-year-old foster child. Her name is Lisa, and she feels as if she has nobody. Lisa doesn’t know it yet, but she is at the center of a groundbreaking $2 million federally funded St. Louis program called Extreme Recruitment, one of the first programs in the nation that partners social workers with private investigators in a gumshoe effort to reunite foster children with long-lost family members…”

Underemployed compound state’s jobless troubles, By Tom Abate, October 26, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle: “San Francisco resident Elena Duran represents an unfortunate job trend that isn’t reflected in the unemployment rate. For years, Duran has been a full-time server at a downtown hotel. But the recession has cut so deeply into business that her hours were cut to half time in July. ‘It’s better than a layoff, but it still requires a lot of sacrifices,’ said Duran, who, along with her working husband, supports three sons. Because she works, Duran doesn’t count in California’s 12.2 percent unemployment rate. But her situation is captured by a broader measure, the underemployment rate, which, in addition to the jobless, includes people who could get only part-time work as well as those who want jobs but were too discouraged to look…”

Needs grow for children amid creeping poverty, By Josh Verges, October 25, 2009, Sioux Falls Argus Leader: “Wendy Klinsing used to volunteer serving food to the needy. But with her husband’s bartending income slashed by a poor economy, she now holds down expenses by eating a weekly meal at The Banquet. ‘We might start going twice a week for Christmas,’ Klinsing said Thursday as her 6-year-old daughter complained about the lasagna. ‘They don’t know about the economy. They still want presents.’ Child poverty indicators in Sioux Falls are at historic highs. And while state government faces a serious budget squeeze, some advocates are hopeful the recession will bring heightened awareness to the plight of the poor - and with it changes in policy to help more struggling families. After years of slow growth, the percentage of public elementary schoolchildren signed up for free and reduced-price lunches hit 41.5 at the end of May, a 2.9-point increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, the local waiting list for Head Start, the federally funded preschool program for children in poverty, reached a record 301 in a September count. School officials say there are 330 more students on the list who are considered below the self-sufficiency marker of 200 percent of the federal poverty line…”

• Poverty study receives praise, By Amanda McElfresh, October 26, 2009, Daily Advertiser: “Local researchers who study poverty and its effects across the state say they are encouraged by the U.S. Census Bureau’s decision to release revised estimates of how many Americans are living in poverty. The new formula, developed in part by the National Academy of Science, shows that about 47.4 million Americans lived in poverty last year, about seven million more than originally estimated. In addition, almost 18 percent of children lived in poverty, a slight decrease from the number found using the traditional formula…”
• 3.6M older Americans living in poverty, By Saul Friedman, October 23, 2009, Newsday: ” We cannot take much comfort in the latest census figures on poverty among older Americans. It is true that the 2008 poverty rate, 9.7 percent among people 65 and older, was unchanged from 2007. But that 9.7 percent, according to the census tables, represents about 3.6 million people who are living on $10,326 a year, or $14,051 for a couple. That probably means Social Security is their only income; indeed, for half the population over 65, Social Security is the primary source of income. Yet, those figures don’t take into full account of the effects of the prolonged and deepening recession on older people…”
• U.S. needs better way measure poverty, By Terry Haven, October 23, 2009, Salt Lake Tribune: “On Oct. 19, the Census Bureau released alternate poverty rates based on recommendations from a National Academy of Sciences panel on measuring poverty. No state data were given in the report, but new figures show a national poverty rate of 15.8 percent rather than the 13.2 percent poverty rate released just weeks ago using the traditional formula. The poverty rate for the Western Region rose from 13.5 percent to 19 percent. There is increasing agreement among policymakers and advocates that the current federal poverty measure is broken and outdated. The advent of these poverty figures is a good time to reflect on the inadequacies of our poverty measure and the crucial need to update this outdated statistic…”

Aid program will demand more, By Lynn Bonner, October 23, 2009, News and Observer: “The state’s 15-year-old welfare program, Work First, will begin living up to its name this year by requiring adult recipients to work, go to school, or job hunt before they get their monthly benefits checks. A handful of counties already have a “pay after performance” rule. The state Department of Health and Human Services made the pay rule a statewide policy this month, though it sent out payments as usual a few weeks ago to give the 8,900 households that have to live by the new policy a month to adapt to the change. Adults in this group have agreements with their counties that say they will work, look for work or attend classes for a set amount of time each month. In the past, recipients got their money whether or not they stuck to the plan. In November, payments won’t be automatic anymore, and social workers will expect recipients to show that they’ve complied, or have a good reason for not following through, before they get their money. The state made the change because it falls short of federal goals for getting welfare recipients working or on a steady path toward getting jobs…”

Research shows value of preschool for poor, By Joe Smydo, October 23, 2009, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Research released yesterday should end the debate over whether pre-kindergarten classes help level the playing field for the state’s most vulnerable children, researchers and study sponsors said. The three-year study of 10,000 children showed the state’s Pre-K Counts program helped the students improve math, literacy and social skills; helped put them on track for kindergarten; and reduced their need for special-education services…”

• Congress pressed to act to curb child-abuse deaths, By David Crary (AP), October 21, 2009, Washington Post: “Armed with grim statistics, experts and activists are mobilizing this week to demand expanded federal efforts - including more money and tougher oversight - to reverse a recent rise in the number of children dying from abuse and neglect. Child-welfare advocates gathering for a rally and conference in Washington say America should be embarrassed to have a child-abuse death rate far higher than other wealthy democracies. They cite the latest federal figures showing that an estimated 1,760 U.S. children died from abuse and neglect in 2007 - up 35 percent from 2001…”
• Abuse report: 10,440 children died 2001-07, By Wendy Koch, October 20, 2009, USA Today: “More than 10,000 children died from abuse or neglect in the United States from 2001 through 2007, a report released today says. The U.S. death rate is more than double the rate in France, Canada, Japan, Germany, Great Britain and Italy, countries that have less teen pregnancy, violent crime and poverty, according to the report by the Every Child Matters Education Fund, a non-partisan advocacy group…”
• R.I. spends most in U.S. on child-abuse prevention, By Karen Lee Ziner, October 21, 2009, Providence Journal: ” According to a new report that shows a sharp rise in child-abuse and neglect deaths between 2001 and 2007, Rhode Island spends more per capita - $181 - than any other state on child-welfare services aimed at preventing such deaths. South Carolina spends the least: $15 per capita. The report released Wednesday by the nonprofit Every Child Matters Education Fund, cites Rhode Island as one of only two states that reported no child-abuse deaths in 2007. Within the six-year time frame, Rhode Island reported 15 child-abuse deaths…”

• Sweden does most to help world’s poor: study, By David Landes, October 22, 2009, The Local: “Sweden has the best foreign aid policies among the world’s wealthy countries, according to a new ranking. Sweden edged out Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway to claim the top spot in the 2009 Commitment to Development Index (CDI), an annual ranking compiled by the Center for Global Development (CGD), a Washington, DC-based think tank…”
• Ireland ranked sixth in helping poor countries, By Kitty Holland, October 23, 2009, Irish Times: “Ireland has been ranked sixth out of 22 rich countries for its record on helping poor and developing countries by a Washington-based think-tank. The Irish State was, however, criticised by the Centre for Global Development (CGD) for the barriers it puts up to trade in agricultural products from poor countries and its record on investment in technological creation…”
• Canada 11th of 22 in battling poverty, By Olivia Ward, October 23, 2009, Toronto Star: “When it comes to battling world poverty, some of the wealthiest countries, including Canada, are punching below their weight, says a new report from an international think-tank. In the Commitment to Development Index released this week by the Center for Global Development, Canada rates 11th of the 22 richest countries. But the Washington-based organization found that ‘among the G7 countries - those that matter most by dint of their economic power - only Canada squeezes into the top half.’ The index is an important reality check, the group says, because it tallies a wide range of policies that affect the daily lives of poor people in developing countries, going beyond handouts of money or goods…”

23 states report higher unemployment in September, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), October 21, 2009, Washington Post: “Unemployment rose in 23 states last month as the economy struggled to create jobs in the early stages of the recovery. While layoffs have slowed, companies remain reluctant to hire. Forty-three states reported job losses in September, while only seven gained jobs, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Wednesday’s report underscores the uneven nature of the recovery. The unemployment rate dropped in some Midwestern states as the manufacturing sector improved. But Florida and Nevada, two of the states hit hardest by the housing slump, reported record-high jobless rates. Some of the states that lost jobs still saw their unemployment rates improve, as discouraged workers gave up looking for work. People who are out of work but no longer looking for jobs aren’t counted as officially unemployed…”

America’s 10 poorest cities, By Joshua Zumbrun, October 19, 2009, ABC News: “The Great Recession is rewriting the rules of American poverty. Data from the Census Bureau, released in September, show that during the first year of the recession, incomes fell farther and poverty leaped higher than during almost any other time in a generation. In 2008, U.S. median income fell to $50,303 from $52,163 in 2007. That 3.6% decline is the largest one-year drop since records begin. The poverty rate increased to 13.2% from 12.5%, meaning the recession has brought 2.6 million more Americans into poverty. The Economic Policy Institute projects that in the next two years, incomes could decline by another $3,000 and poverty could increase by 1.9 percentage points. Just as the recession has changed the map of unemployment, it has redrawn the contours of poverty…”

Youth face uphill struggle amid Detroit’s troubles, By Corey Williams (AP), October 17, 2009, Washington Post: “Like the rundown houses and shuttered storefronts in his Detroit neighborhood, bleakness abounds in LeRoy Taylor’s future. He is among tens of thousands reaching adulthood in a city where the American Dream appears just outside their reach. Taylor, 20, spends empty hours on basketball courts, zoned out in front of a television or aimlessly pedaling through streets he desperately wants to leave, but doesn’t have the work skills, education or money to do so. ‘I fill out applications. No one will call me back,’ said Taylor, stopping his bike long enough to hustle change for cigarettes near a west side bus stop. ‘It’s useless. It’s real scary.’ Too few jobs are only part of the problems facing youths in this troubled city. Its public high schools are considered among the nation’s worst. Planned budget cuts to the recreation department will reduce hours and slash into staffing. Then there’s crime…”

• Fuel poverty ‘continues to rise’, October 21, 2009, BBC News: “Up to 4.6 million households in England could be in fuel poverty in 2009, new figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change show. The government has vowed to end fuel poverty in England by 2016. Fuel poverty is defined as those who spend more than 10% of their household income on heating their homes. The projection comes within data that reveals the number fuel-poor households in the UK rose from 3.5 million in 2006 to four million in 2007. The data, based on the latest figures for England and Scotland along with extrapolated estimates for Wales and Northern Ireland, suggest that 16% of all UK households were in fuel poverty in 2007…”
• Households in fuel poverty to hit 4.6m, By Sandra Haurant, October 21, 2009, The Guardian: “The number of households living in fuel poverty in England is likely to reach 4.6 million by the end of the year, figures published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) showed today. A household is said to be “fuel poor” when more than 10% of its income is spent on fuel to maintain an “adequate level of warmth” - usually 21C in the living area and 18C in other rooms. The latest figures show that 3.25 million households in the UK lived in fuel poverty in 2007, an increase of half a million compared with 2006. In England 2.8 million households were fuel poor in 2007, up from 2.4 million in 2006. The DECC said the jump in fuel poverty was caused by an increase in fuel prices, which continued to soar in 2008…”

• Welfare ‘hybrid’ to emerge, By Angela Mapes Turner, October 18, 2009, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “More than $360 million into the state’s largest private contract, Indiana faces uncertainty about how it will rebuild from its failed welfare privatization attempt and what it has actually gained. The state’s Family and Social Services Administration also faces the task of replacing its dinosaur of a core computer system down the road - a cost that had not even been included in the IBM contract. Gov. Mitch Daniels announced Thursday he was firing IBM Corp. as administrator of the state’s food stamp, Medicaid and welfare benefits and that the state would assume IBM’s role at the helm of a ‘hybrid’ system…”
• Daniels, GOP could face welfare deal fallout, By Mike Smith (AP), Chicago Tribune: “Democrats to Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels: We told you so. The gloating was to be expected after Daniels announced Thursday that he was canceling a contract with IBM Corp. to automate applications for food stamps, Medicaid and other welfare benefits. The project introduced in the spring of 2007 had been fraught with complaints of lost documents, delays in approving benefits, lengthy call hold times and severed eligibility for Medicaid and food stamps. Federal officials had closely scrutinized the state’s performance, and the state had put IBM on notice that it needed to improve…”
• Welfare critics await new system, By Eric Bradner, October 18, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “A human touch could have eased the anguish of Omega Young, an Evansville woman who fought for six months with Indiana’s welfare agency to have her Medicaid benefits reinstated at the same time she was fighting a losing battle with cancer. No one took note in time to help Young, whose benefits were approved March 2, the day after she died. But her struggle was vindicated when Gov. Mitch Daniels decided last week to cancel the state’s 10-year, $1.34 billion contract with IBM Corp. that created the modernized system she tried so hard to navigate, said her sister, Christal Bell. ‘She needed all the help she could get,’ Bell said. ‘But there are other people who need help, too.’ Now, thanks in part to Young’s story, others who face hardships such as disease, poverty and disability might get the personal assistance they need from Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration under a newly-announced hybrid system…”
• Firms downplay local impact of canceled IBM contract, By Dave Stafford, October 18, 2009, Anderson Herald Bulletin: “Companies in Anderson and Daleville that expanded two years ago when IBM won a contract to privatize Indiana’s welfare system downplayed local effects after the state canceled the deal. An IBM call center in Daleville and an Affiliated Computer Services facility at the Flagship Enterprise Park had expanded as part of an IBM pledge to create 1,000 jobs in exchange for getting a $1.34 billion contract to handle welfare applications and provide other services for the Family and Social Services Administration…”

• The lesson to learn from failure of IBM contract, Editorial, October 21, 2009, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel: “Gov. Mitch Daniels’ cancellation of IBM’s $1.37 billion contract to deliver welfare services will undoubtedly win praise from Republicans (he realized a mistake and corrected it) and criticism from Democrats (there was evidence to end it a lot sooner). There is some truth in both those positions, but the governor should be given credit for the honesty of his announcement. Daniels said it wasn’t a lack of resources that made the experiment in privatization fail. Nor was it a lack of effort…”
• Much to learn from state’s FSSA mistake, Editorial, October 18, 2009, South Bend Tribune: “There have been many concerns voiced throughout Gov. Mitch Daniels’ experiment in privatizing the Family and Social Services Administration intake process. Undoubtedly there will be many more in the months to come. But now, as Indiana pulls the plug on its $1.34 billion, 10-year contract with IBM to deliver crucial welfare services, the top priority must be the transition back to a state-operated system…”
• Welcome move to fix privatization of welfare, Editorial, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “Last Thursday, after almost three years of missteps that interrupted vital services for some, Gov. Mitch Daniels admitted the welfare-privatization concept didn’t work and canceled the contract with IBM. The governor deserves credit for owning up to the failure. His persistence in getting problems fixed in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles suggests he will now redouble efforts to improve services provided through the Family and Social Services Administration. We wish him only success…”
• Back to the state for personal touch, Editorial, October 17, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “Large, troubling questions remain about the fate of a public assistance system that affects one in every six Hoosiers. How will the transition back to the state from a failed privatization effort be accomplished? Will IBM express its ire over losing a $1.34 billion contract in the form of legal action, or a threat of legal action serious enough to prompt an expensive buyout? How long will it take, and at what cost, to clean up a mess that has cost countless elderly, poor, sick and disabled people vital services and imperils countless more?…”
• Local lawmakers got FSSA job done, By Mizell Stewart III, October 18, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels’ move to cancel the contract that privatized many of the intake functions of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration is a victory for benefit recipients and Southwestern Indiana lawmakers alike. The move was a disaster by nearly every account, notably because it turned much of the work of determining benefit eligibility over to call centers and Web sites. That’s fine for doing business in most instances, but it didn’t work at all for the poor, frail and elderly…”
• Cancelled contract, Editorial, October 18, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was right to cancel the state’s deal with IBM Corp., for privatizing the welfare application process. But let us not kid ourselves: the problems will not be corrected overnight. Daniels will be returning welfare application operations to the control of the Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration. However, remember that before privatization, applications were the responsibility of the state agency and it was a mess, fraught with errors and fraud. It was that way for years before Daniels came to office. It was that poor record of performance that led Daniels, an advocate of privatizing government services and assets, to seek a business-run welfare program. Unfortunately, that private system came with its own flaws…”

La. grad rate falls most, By Will Sentell, October 19, 2009, Baton Rouge Advocate: “Louisiana suffered the biggest drop in its public high school graduation rate of any state in the Southern region over a five-year period, a new report says. State officials disagree. The study says 13 of 16 Southern states reviewed showed graduation gains between 2002 and 2006, a big reversal from earlier this decade when the numbers were slipping. Tennessee’s rate rose by 11 percentage points, to 71 percent of its public school students graduating from high school on time. Arkansas went up five percentage points, Alabama four and Mississippi three…”

• Poverty is up, but how much? Census tells two stories, By Mark Trumbull, October 20, 2009, Christian Science Monitor: “The way you measure poverty makes a big difference in the results you get. The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that 15.8 percent of Americans lived in poverty last year, using an alternative gauge that differs sharply from the 13.2 percent official poverty rate the agency released last month. The difference is even starker for some specific groups within America. For example, Americans over age 65 have a poverty rate that’s twice as high - 18.7 percent - using the alternative measure. In all, 47.4 million Americans lived in poverty last year, or 7 million more than indicated in official poverty statistics last month…”
• Is poverty at 40 million - or 47 million?, October 20, 2009, msnbc.com: “How should poverty in America be counted? The Census Bureau uses a calculation that put the number at 39.8 million last year. But a revised formula that lawmakers are considering adds more than 7 million Americans to that number. If the revised formula is adopted, a more refined picture of American poverty could emerge that would capture the everyday costs of necessities besides food. A change also could upend long-standing notions of those in greatest need and lead to shifts in how billions of federal dollars for the poor are distributed for health, housing, nutrition and child care…”

• State botched chance for aid, By Katy Stech, October 16, 2009, Charleston Post and Courier: “Thousands of out-of-work South Carolinians will miss out on five months of unemployment checks because state officials failed to tweak a rule enabling them to tap into federal stimulus money. The state’s high jobless rate, one of the worst in the country at 11.5 percent, means some unemployed residents could be receiving an additional 20 weeks of checks when they run out of their current state and federal benefits. More than 113,000 South Carolina unemployed residents already have exhausted their benefits. To get access to the additional money, state lawmakers needed to pass temporary changes to the economic index they use to trigger additional emergency benefits in times of unprecedented financial hardship. No bill was ever proposed. South Carolina is one of two states eligible for the most generous benefits but is not receiving them. The other is Mississippi…”
• Leaders aim to fix benefits, By Katy Stech, October 17, 2009, Charleston Post and Courier: “State lawmakers scrambled Friday to figure out if they could fix an oversight that has cost thousands of out-of-work South Carolinians extended unemployment benefits. Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell and House Speaker Bobby Harrell said they support fixing the problem, which could involve calling a special session of the General Assembly, and deployed their staffs to determine the cheapest, easiest way to make the necessary changes to the law. ‘It’s an open-ended question at this point,’ said McConnell, who expects his staff will come up with an answer early next week. Calling a special session, by McConnell’s estimate, would cost about $17,000 but could bring the state tens of millions of dollars in federal money for unemployed residents. Meanwhile, federal policy experts indicated that, if the proper changes are made, some residents who missed out on earlier benefits could start receiving weekly paychecks again…”

D.C. school vouchers have a brighter outlook in Congress, By Robert Tomsho, October 19, 2009, Wall Street Journal: “The District of Columbia’s embattled school-voucher program, which lawmakers appeared to have killed earlier this year, looks like it could still survive. Congress voted in March not to fund the program, which provides certificates to pay for recipients’ private-school tuition, after the current school year. But after months of pro-voucher rallies, a television-advertising campaign and statements of support by local political leaders, backers say they are more confident about its prospects. Even some Democrats, many of whom have opposed voucher efforts, have been supportive…”

Revised formula puts 1 in 6 Americans in poverty, By Hope Yen (AP), October 20, 2009, Washington Post: “The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed. A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government’s official figure. The disparity occurs because of differing formulas the Census Bureau and the National Academy of Science use for calculating the poverty rate. The NAS formula shows the poverty rate to be at 15.8 percent, or nearly 1 in 6 Americans, according to calculations released this week. That’s higher than the 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million, figure made available recently under the original government formula. That measure, created in 1955, does not factor in rising medical care, transportation, child care or geographical variations in living costs. Nor does it consider non-cash government aid when calculating income. As a result, official figures released last month by Census may have overlooked millions of poor people, many of them 65 and older…”

More Colorado children living in poverty, By Karen Auge, October 18, 2009, Denver Post: “Joshua Richardson’s days unfold about like any 4-year-old’s. His mom, LaKetra Richardson, pulls him from under his Spider-Man covers way too early every morning so she can get him and his 2-year-old sister, Alice May, to preschool and still be on time for work. At 4, he knows his letters, his numbers and what time “SpongeBob SquarePants” - or, Spunk Bot Care Pat - comes on. He has no idea, though, that he is part of one of the nation’s fastest-growing demographics: children growing up poor. Or that his home state leads the U.S. in that growth. Colorado’s number of children living in poverty grew 73 percent from 2000 to 2006 - the nation’s highest rate of growth, according to the Colorado Children’s Campaign. The percentage of Colorado kids in poverty grew from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 15 percent in 2008, according to U.S. census data reported last month…”

Teacher inequalities still haunt Nashville schools, By Jaime Sarrio, October 18, 2009, The Tennessean: “Students attending schools at the center of Metro’s controversial rezoning plan are more likely to be taught by inexperienced teachers, despite incentives to attract and retain staff at the high-poverty schools. Teachers at nine select schools affected by the rezoning were offered a 5 percent pay increase or the chance to earn more money through training sessions, but at every school the average level of teaching experience decreased. The problem goes beyond schools involved in the rezoning. Across the district, poor students are more likely to be taught by a new teacher than are their wealthier peers. It’s a trend that has gotten worse in the past year, according to a Tennessean analysis of teacher profile data…”