Neighborhoods key to future income, study finds, By Alec MacGillis, July 27, 2009, Washington Post: “Researchers have found that being raised in poor neighborhoods plays a major role in explaining why African American children from middle-income families are far more likely than white children to slip down the income ladder as adults.  The Pew Charitable Trusts Economic Mobility Project caused a stir two years ago by reporting that nearly half of African American children born to middle-class parents in the 1950s and ’60s had fallen to a lower economic status as adults, a rate of downward mobility far higher than that for whites.  This week, Pew will release findings of a study that helps explain that economic fragility, pointing to the fact that middle-class blacks are far more likely than whites to live in high-poverty neighborhoods, which has a negative effect on even the better-off children raised there. The impact of neighborhoods is greater than other factors in children’s backgrounds, Pew concludes…”

• Reach of subsidies is critical issue for health plan, By Robert Pear, July 26, 2009, New York Times: “The major health care bills moving through Congress would require nearly all Americans to have health insurance. But as lawmakers struggle to achieve the goal of universal coverage, a critical question is whether the plans will be affordable to those who are currently uninsured…”
• Small business owners wary of health reform, By Guy Boulton, July 26, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Dianne Wonder, owner of Alpha-Omega Cleaning in New Berlin, has followed the debate over health care reform closely through a variety of media outlets and e-mails from her representatives in Congress. ‘I find it very difficult to know what to believe because there is so much conflicting information,’ Wonder said.  But she knows this: A payroll tax on employers who don’t provide health benefits would increase her business’ costs…”
• Hawaii law mandates health coverage, By Mark Niesse (AP), July 27, 2009, Charlotte Observer: “Hawaii’s 35-year-old mandate for companies to provide insurance to workers has brought something less than universal health care to the 50th state. President Obama’s home state poses some cautionary realities to any sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system as Congress considers a similar federal requirement that businesses provide health insurance to employees.  Since the law passed 35 years ago, the percentage of uninsured in Hawaii has fallen to lower levels than nearly every other state, but there are coverage gaps.  And cost-conscious business owners avoid the law by hiring more part-time workers, who aren’t required to be covered…”

• Opinions split on how hike in wage affects the economy, By Diane Stafford and Tony Pugh, July 26, 2009, Buffalo News: “The federal minimum wage rose from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour on Friday, bringing with it controversy about whether the increase is good or bad for the economy.  The raise, which affects about 4 million workers nationally, is the third and final increase mandated by Congress in 2007…”
• Raising the bar: Minimum wage hike benefits seniors returning to work, By Vernon Tarver, July 26, 2009, Northwest Arkansas Times: “For minimum wage workers, Friday was a good day indeed. Federal minimum wages increased to $7.25 for employees covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, meaning workers receiving minimum pay in Arkansas can look forward to a 70-cent increase in hourly wages…”
• Minimum wage for tipped workers unchanged since 91, By Tony Pugh, July 24, 2009, Miami Herald: “Friday’s increase in the federal minimum wage left Leanne Foti feeling a little hollow. A single mother of two, Foti works as a waitress at the Bridgewater Diner in Bridgewater, N.J.  So her base pay of $2.13 per hour didn’t budge Friday when the federal minimum wage went from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour.  Foti, 34, is one of roughly 146,000 Americans - many of them restaurant, hotel, car wash and nail salon employees - who are paid mainly through customer tips and therefore earn a lower federal minimum wage, $2.13 an hour…”
• Not everyone sees increase in paychecks, By Rhiannon Meyers, July 26, 2009, Galveston County Daily News: “After 30 years of waiting tables, Paula Baker earns just $1.03 more an hour than she did when she started working in the early 1960s. So although millions of minimum-wage earners received a raise Friday, the League City waitress, who’s been struggling for years to make ends meet, did not…”

Once a dream, U.S. life is hard reality for Iraqis, By Kristin Collins, July 26, 2009, Charlotte Observer: “It was the hope of America that sustained them through Iraq’s long years of war. First, they believed the United States’ promises that their country would be free after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Then, as the fighting continued, they were thankful for the good-paying jobs the U.S. military provided. And finally, their lives in peril, they traded their homeland for a new start in North Carolina.  About 200 Iraqis have moved to this state since 2007, officials say. They are part of a wave of more than 20,000 who have come to the U.S. after being targeted by terrorists in Iraq or working for the U.S. government there. But as they arrive in the midst of a recession, their expansive hopes are being replaced by a struggle with poverty and social isolation…”

• Groceries more costly for Valley’s poor, By Barbara Anderson and Bethany Clough, July 25, 2009, Fresno Bee: “For thousands of people in the central San Joaquin Valley, a tomato costs at least a dollar. So does a single roll of toilet paper. That’s the price of being poor.  It’s a well-known but unsolved paradox: Poor people often spend more than their middle-class neighbors for groceries…”
• Programs ensure needy have access to fresh foods, By Ingrid Stegemoeller, July 27, 2009, Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “Amid the crowds shopping for produce at the Richland Farmers’ Market, Carolyn Merrell and her mother-in-law Linda Herrera carefully selected corn, tomatoes, onions, cherries and blueberries from the colorful bounty.  But rather than handing over cash for their purchases, the West Richland women paid with Women, Infants and Children (WIC) vouchers from the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program…”

• To create jobs, Tennessee looks to New Deal model, By Michael Cooper, July 27, 2009, New York Times: “Critics elsewhere may be questioning how many jobs the stimulus program has created, but here in central Tennessee, hundreds of workers are again drawing paychecks after many months out of work, thanks to a novel use of federal stimulus money by Tennessee officials to help one of the state’s hardest-hit areas…”
• Stimulus creates 12,000 teen jobs, By Clay Carey, July 27, 2009, The Tennessean: “As she searched for what would be her first summer job, Jasmine Frazier hit dead end after dead end.  Clothing stores and boutiques near her family’s home in Wilson County weren’t hiring. In a tight economy, she was competing with older, more experienced workers for low-paying jobs teens typically land…”

Tracking the recession: Lawmakers dreading end of stimulus dollars, By Stephen C. Fehr, July 27, 2009, Stateline.org: “Whether they welcomed or snubbed the federal economic stimulus package, state lawmakers took advantage of the bailout dollars this year to help patch their state’s shaky finances.  Now, as they start thinking ahead to next year’s budget and the 2010 elections, lawmakers are increasingly apprehensive about what will happen when the stimulus money dries up. They predict even deeper cuts in services, higher taxes and raids on rainy day funds to balance budgets…”