More of state’s poor may soon get public defender, By Bruce Vielmetti, October 11, 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Seven years after a Journal Sentinel investigation revealed how outdated eligibility criteria prevent hundreds of poor residents charged with crimes from getting a public lawyer, those same 1987 standards remain in effect. The criteria essentially say that anyone earning $7.25 an hour, with a $2,000 car and $300 cash isn’t poor enough for a public defender. The paper’s 2002 series “Unequal Justice” examined hundreds of cases in which defendants were denied a public defender and found dozens who were forced to defend themselves, including the nearly illiterate, a mentally impaired senior and a first-time defendant who thought the prosecutor was his lawyer. Everyone in the criminal justice system agreed in 2002 that the practice violates the U.S. Constitution and often leads to injustice. But year after year, legislative attempts to change the standards have failed…”

• Proposed Medicaid expansion could heap big costs on cash-poor California, By Mike Zapler, October 12, 2009, San Jose Mercury News: “An expansion of Medicaid contemplated by health care reformers in Congress may be good news for the uninsured, but it could be a bitter pill for cash-strapped California that would cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars it doesn’t have. President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress want to use Medicaid as one of the main vehicles for extending health insurance to many of the 46 million Americans who lack coverage. But because Medicaid costs are split between the federal and state governments, California officials fear that this change would saddle California with a costly mandate at a time when the state can’t afford its existing Medicaid program, called Medi-Cal…”
• Lynch wary of Medicaid reform cost, By Daniel Barrick, October 12, 2009, Concord Monitor: “Gov. John Lynch is one of several governors raising concerns about the health care reform proposals being debated in Congress. Specifically, Lynch is worried that a plan to expand Medicaid, the government-run insurance program for the poor and elderly, will saddle state budgets with hefty costs. Pam Walsh, Lynch’s deputy chief of staff, said the governor supports the larger goal of expanding health care coverage, but he doesn’t think states should be stuck with the bill…”
• Medicaid keeps stretching, By Catherine Candisky, October 11, 2009, Columbus Dispatch: “The recession and continuing job losses are pushing Medicaid enrollment and spending to record levels, raising concerns about how Ohio will continue to meet the soaring demand. Every month, 10,000 to 15,000 Ohioans join the Medicaid rolls, most after losing their job and the employer-provided health insurance that came with it. Over the past 12 months, Ohio’s rolls increased by 154,000, the largest caseload growth in nearly seven years…”
• Expected $1B shortfall looms for Fla. Medicaid, By Lloyd Dunkelberger, October 10, 2009, Ocala Star-Banner: “Florida is heading for a cliff when it comes to Medicaid spending. The federal government has boosted its support for Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled, in Florida during the economic recession. But the extra funding is scheduled to dry up in December 2010, leaving Florida perhaps more than $1 billion short and facing the prospect of having to cut back critical medical services for some of the state’s poorest and sickest residents. Florida isn’t alone. A new report says the states, facing the loss of federal stimulus funding, may experience cuts ‘perhaps on a scale not ever seen in Medicaid…’”

Study finds high rate of imprisonment among dropouts, By Sam Dillon, October 8, 2009, New York Times: “On any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to a new study of the effects of dropping out of school in an America where demand for low-skill workers is plunging. The picture is even bleaker for African-Americans, with nearly one in four young black male dropouts incarcerated or otherwise institutionalized on an average day, the study said. That compares with about one in 14 young, male, white, Asian or Hispanic dropouts. Researchers at Northeastern University used census and other government data to carry out the study, which tracks the employment, workplace, parenting and criminal justice experiences of young high school dropouts…”

Wait for food stamps rises as more people seek assistance, By Celinda Emison, October 8, 2009, Abilene Reporter News: “When Mary Ranjer, a working mother of six, applied for food assistance in June, she had to wait until mid-August to receive the help. Ranjer and her husband both work, but tough economic times have forced them to apply for food stamps. The Ranjers are among a growing number of Abilenians who have had to apply for and wait for help. ‘It has really taken a long time,’ said Ranjer, 37, who was waiting in line Thursday at the Department of Health and Human Services office. ‘I have to take my day off to take care of this.’ Taylor County has experienced an 8 percent increase in the number of individuals receiving food stamps over the past year. There are 15,903 individuals who are receiving benefits through the SNAP program, an increase from last year when 14,674 individuals were being served…”

Food sales tax could be completely reinstated, By Arthur Raymond, October 9, 2009, Deseret News: “It may be coming back. A state sales tax on food that’s been incrementally decreased for the past two years - and widely viewed as one that unfairly targets low-income families - could be under consideration for a complete reinstatement in the face of ongoing, large-scale revenue losses. Members of the Utah Tax Review Commission heard testimony Thursday from advocates of the disadvantaged, grocery industry representatives, tax watchdogs and a state legislator who sponsored a failed attempt at increasing the food tax last session. This time, however, the idea may find some traction under the cloud of an upcoming state budget shortfall currently being estimated at $700 million…”

Some job seekers work without Net, By Steve Giegerich, October 9, 2009, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Two job-hunters, two stories. Laid-off marketing executive Michael Clutts fires up his computer and begins his online search for a new job at 8 each morning, a routine that continues - with interruptions to attend to meals and family matters - well into the night. It’s a process Gail Spencer knows well, ever since losing her job as a concierge at a downtown hotel last year after 21 years in the hospitality industry. But in order to avail herself of the online functions Clutts accesses countless times a day from the comfort of his home in Ballwin, Spencer must travel from her residence in Hanley Hills to libraries and career development centers that provide computers and Internet hook-ups…”

• Many Minnesotans at end of jobless benefits, By Dee DePass, October 5, 2009, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “Former University of Minnesota plumber Keith Ferguson got his last unemployment check last week. Now the Maple Grove father of four, unemployed for 20 months, is wondering how he’ll pay child support and feed himself. It is a dilemma facing millions of unemployed Americans who have counted on as many as 79 weeks of government checks to help them make ends meet through the worst recession in decades. Almost 5.5 million workers have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, a record. In Minnesota, an estimated 1,000 people currently exhaust unemployment benefits each week, said Dan McElroy, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). When the last federal extension expires the day after Christmas, the number will grow given that new job growth is expected to remain slow…”
• Senate Dems reach deal on extending jobless benefits, By Jim Abrams (AP), October 8, 2009, Seattle Times: “Senate Democrats said Thursday they have reached a deal to extend unemployment insurance benefits to the nearly 2 million jobless workers across the country who are in danger of running out of assistance by the end of the year. The agreement would give an additional 14 weeks of benefits to jobless workers in all 50 states. Workers in states with an unemployment rate at 8.5 percent or above would receive six weeks on top of that. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tried to bring the measure to a quick vote on the Senate floor, but Republicans objected, saying they needed more time to study the proposal and its costs and possibly offer amendments. The House last month approved legislation that gives 13 weeks of extended benefits, but only in those 27 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico that have unemployment rates of at least 8.5 percent…”

Bill increases funds for food stamps, nutrition, By Jim Abrams (AP), October 7, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Nutrition, food stamp and dairy aid programs were among the winners as the House on Wednesday approved a $121 billion agriculture spending bill for the 2010 budget year. Reflecting the growing number of people scrambling to get by in tough economic times, the bill provides $58.2 billion for the food stamp program, a jump of $4.3 billion from last year. Similarly, the federal nutrition program for women, infants and children receives $7.3 billion, up $400 million from 2009 nonemergency levels. Aid to school and child care nutrition programs goes up $1.9 billion to $16.9 billion…”

• ‘Shockingly wide’ health gaps among states, By Rita Rubin, October 8, 2009, USA Today: “A new ’scorecard’ lists ’shockingly wide variations’ among the states when it comes to the health of their residents, says the president of the Commonwealth Fund, which compared such factors as access to care, insurance coverage and avoidable hospital admissions. ‘The differences we see among the states translate to real lives and real dollars,’ Karen Davis said Wednesday at a news conference…”
• Report shows healthcare disparities among states, By Andrew Zajac, October 7, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Even as state and federal initiatives have extended a medical safety net beneath children in recent years, more and more adult Americans have been living without insurance coverage - compounding the already-serious problems of the healthcare system and fueling sharp disparities in the cost and quality of care across the country. Those disparities, graphically documents in state-by-state rankings released Wednesday by the non-partisan Commonwealth Fund, underscored one of the biggest challenges in designing a healthcare overhaul: The nation doesn’t have one system and one reality, it has at least 50 - each with its own economic, social and demographic characteristics…”

California’s zigzag on welfare rules worries experts, By Erik Eckholm, October 6, 2009, New York Times: “As he pressed state lawmakers over the summer to close a record budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lathered scorn on the state’s welfare-to-work program. He called it too lenient on the work requirement and overly generous in its benefits. At one point, he proposed eliminating it, then compromised to make it tougher. So Anna Zendejas, a welfare recipient in a farm town 50 miles west of here, was more than a little surprised to get a letter recently saying that she did not need to work to collect her check - in effect, a return to the much-derided welfare approach that existed before a national overhaul in the 1990s. It was no fluke. This fall, tens of thousands of Californians will be given a similar choice as the state embraces a startling reversal in some of its welfare policies for the next two years…”

• Governor lobbies for Medicaid expansion, By Michelle Saxton, October 6, 2009, Charleston Daily Mail: “A proposed expansion of Medicaid has some governors voicing concern about how states will afford greater coverage in a challenging economy, but Gov. Joe Manchin argues that an expansion focused on prevention will help reduce costs from uncompensated care. ‘You have to expand that to get people more involved in the system,’ Manchin said Monday. ‘We’re paying for them now anyway. People will wait and go to the emergency room when they get deathly ill or seriously ill at the highest cost,’ he said. ‘But if you get them into more of a managed type of care, showing them how to take action on the preventive side, you can really cut down the costs on the most expensive side. That’s the debate that’s going on…’”
• Expansion of Medicaid could impose costs on Ohio, By Jack Torry and Jonathan Riskind, October 7, 2009, Columbus Dispatch: “As Ohio officials try to close an $850 million budget hole, the key U.S. Senate health-care overhaul package could cost Ohio $922 million in additional Medicaid spending in the plan’s first five years. The health-care bill, which is expected to win the Senate Finance Committee’s approval this week, would add nearly 800,000 Ohio residents to the state’s Medicaid roll. The bill would do so by allowing a family of four with an annual income of up to $29,300 to be eligible for Medicaid coverage instead of the current limit of $22,050 for such a family…”
• Levine: Health bill hurts Medicaid, By Gerard Shields, October 7, 2009, Baton Rouge Advocate: “Louisiana’s top health official is criticizing a provision in the U.S. Senate’s health-care bill that would give four states, including that of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, full federal funding for increases in the Medicaid rolls. Louisiana would have to pay a 5 percent match for any new federal money for expansion of Medicaid amounting to $614 million over five years, said Alan Levine, secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals. ‘The cost to Nevada?’ Levine said. ‘Zero.’ The news of the provision comes at a time when Louisiana is struggling to get control of its Medicaid budget…”

• Federal officials: Texas needs food stamp czar, By Corrie MacLaggan, October 6, 2009, Austin-American Statesman: “Federal officials say Texas should appoint a food stamp czar to take charge of fixing the application backlogs and high error rates plaguing the program. ‘All states are feeling the pinch right now because of the economic recession, but I’m not aware of any state that is having it to the degree that Texas is,’ said William Ludwig, a Dallas-based regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. Ludwig, who rarely gives interviews, oversees food stamps for Texas and four other states. He attributed the state’s problems last week to a “whole series of missteps, mismanagement over the last four years,” starting with thousands of state workers getting pink slips in advance of a massive privatization effort…”
• Too many Texans are waiting too long for food stamps, Editorial, October 7, 2009, Austin American-Statesman: “It is scandalous that Texas is letting so many of its residents go hungry when the resources exist to feed them. But those resources - food stamps - are being processed at a snail’s pace because the state has not been able to get its act together. Texans deserve a better, more compassionate solution than state leaders have proposed so far. The massive backlog that has left low-income families hungry and waiting for weeks and months for government food assistance has reached a critical level. In September 2009, Texas processed 58.6 percent of new applications on time…”

Many children still don’t get Medicaid dental care, By Ann Sanner (AP), October 7, 2009, Tuscaloosa News: “Two years after a 12-year-old Maryland boy died from an untreated tooth infection, more low-income children are getting dental care under Medicaid but many still don’t ever see a dentist, government investigators said Wednesday. State officials told the Government Accountability Office that a lack of available funding, low provider participation and administrative burdens are some of the barriers to providing dental care to more children through Medicaid…”

Number of homeless students skyrockets in Central Florida, By Denise-Marie Balona, October 1, 2009, Orlando Sentinel: “The number of homeless children attending Central Florida’s public schools is soaring — further evidence that the weakened economy has hit this part of the state particularly hard. Across Florida, there were 41,286 homeless students in the 2008-09 school year, according to a new report from the Florida Department of Education. That’s a 20 percent jump over the previous year. The tally jumped much higher in Orange County — 36 percent — thanks in large part to the area’s economic and housing crises. It was one of the biggest increases among Florida’s largest counties. In Brevard and Lake, more than twice as many students as last year woke up and got ready for school in motel rooms, shelters, campgrounds and other forms of temporary housing…”

• Obama aides act to fix safety net, By Jackie Calmes, October 5, 2009, New York Times: “With unemployment expected to rise well into next year even as the economy slowly recovers, the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress are discussing extending several safety net programs as well as proposing new tax incentives for businesses to renew hiring. President Obama’s economic team discussed a wide range of ideas at a meeting on Monday, following his Saturday radio address in which he said it would ‘explore additional options to promote job creation.’ But officials emphasized that a decision was still far off and that in any event the effort would not add up to a second economic stimulus package, only an extension of the first…”
• States offer route for jobs spending, By Gerald F. Sieb, October 6, 2009, Wall Street Journal: “The really bad news for Democrats isn’t that the unemployment rate hit 9.8% last week. The really bad news for the party in power is that the last time unemployment reached that level, it was there or higher for exactly one year. That was between July 1982 and June 1983. If you are thinking of this precedent in political terms, it is important to note that smack in the middle of that dreary stretch, the party then in control — the Republicans — lost 26 House seats in the 1982 midterm elections. Today’s downturn is even harsher, and there is some evidence that the American job-creating machine doesn’t work quite as well now as it did then, even in good times…”

W.Va., other states divert child support payments to help poor families get back on their feet, By P.J. Dickerscheid (AP), October 5, 2009, Los Angeles Times: “Changes in how state governments are allowed to disperse child support payments to welfare families has put more money in the pocket of West Virginia resident Becky Salmons, allowing her to buy school supplies and medicine for her 17-year-old daughter. West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington are among the states taking advantage of changes in federal law that encourage states to stop using the money to reimburse state and federal welfare services and instead use it to help poor families get back on their feet. For some families, the change means hundreds of extra dollars a month. Until a year ago, most of the $225 Salmons’ ex-husband paid each month went to the government. Now, she gets all the money…”

• In rural Africa, a fertile market for mobile phones, By Sarah Arnquist, October 5, 2009, New York Times: “Laban Rutagumirwa charges his mobile phone with a car battery because his dirt-floor home deep in the remote, banana-covered hills of western Uganda does not have electricity. When the battery dies, Mr. Rutagumirwa, a 50-year-old farmer, walks just over four miles to charge it so he can maintain his position as communication hub and banana-disease tracker for his rural neighbors…”

• Special report on telecoms in emerging markets, By Tom Standage, September 24, 2009, The Economist:
  • Mobile marvels: “Bouncing a great-grandchild on her knee in her house in Bukaweka, a village in eastern Uganda, Mary Wokhwale gestures at her surroundings. ‘My mobile phone has been my livelihood,’ she says. In 2003 Ms Wokhwale was one of the first 15 women in Uganda to become ‘village phone’ operators. Thanks to a microfinance loan, she was able to buy a basic handset and a roof-mounted antenna to ensure a reliable signal…”
  • Eureka moments: “How did a device that just a few years ago was regarded as a yuppie plaything become, in the words of Jeffrey Sachs, a development guru at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, ‘the single most transformative tool for development’? A number of things came together to make mobile phones more accessible to poorer people and trigger the rapid growth of the past few years. The spread of mobile phones in the developed world, together with the emergence of two main technology standards, led to economies of scale in both network equipment and handsets…”
  • The mother of invention: “Providing mobile services in a developing country is very different from doing the same thing in the developed world. For a start, there may not be a reliable electrical grid, or indeed any grid at all, to power the network’s base stations, which may therefore need to run on diesel for some or all of the time. That in turn means they must be regularly resupplied with fuel, which can be tricky in remote areas. Then there is the challenge of running the network profitably…”
  • Up, up and Huawei: “In the 1960s, when Japan emerged as a manufacturing exporter, it soon became a byword for low cost and low quality. Much fun was made of unreliable Japanese watches and cheap Japanese cars. But quality improved and Japan became a powerful force in electronics, carmaking and other industries. Today Toyota is held up as a model of efficient manufacturing, and Japanese firms lead the world in clean technology, carmaking and consumer electronics. China hopes to make a similar transition…”
  • Beyond voice: “In a field just outside the village of Bumwambu in eastern Uganda, surrounded by banana trees and cassava, with chickens running between the mud-brick houses, Frederick Makawa is thinking about tomatoes. It is late June and the rainy season is coming to an end. Tomatoes are a valuable cash crop during the coming dry season and Mr Makawa wants to plant his seedlings as soon as possible. But Uganda’s traditional growing seasons are shifting, so he is worried about droughts or flash floods that could destroy his crop. Michael Gizamba, a local village-phone operator, offers to help using Farmer’s Friend, an agricultural-information service. He sends a text message to ask for a seasonal weather forecast for the region. Before long a reply arrives to say that normal, moderate rainfall is expected during July. Mr Makawa decides to plant his tomatoes…”
  • Finishing the job: “How long will it be before everyone on Earth has a mobile phone? ‘It looks highly likely that global mobile cellular teledensity will surpass 100% within the next decade, and probably earlier,’ says Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, a body set up in 1865 to regulate international telecoms. Mobile teledensity (the number of phones per 100 people) went above 100% in western Europe in 2007, and many developing countries have since followed suit. South Africa passed the 100% mark in January, and Ghana reached 98% in the same month. Kenya and Tanzania are expected to get to 100% by 2013…”

More Hoosiers feeling the pain of poverty, By Bill Ruthhart, October 5, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “Indiana is one of only eight states that last year had a statistically significant increase in its poverty rate — likely yet another troubling effect of devastating layoffs in the auto and RV industries, experts said. The percentage of Hoosiers living in poverty increased to 13.1 percent in 2008, up from 12.3 percent the year before, according to the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey. That survey estimates that more than 807,000 Hoosiers were living in poverty in 2008, up from 757,000 in 2007. The numbers are particularly disturbing for black and Hispanic Hoosiers. In 2007, 25.5 percent of blacks and 22.2 percent of Hispanics lived below the poverty line, compared with 10.4 percent of whites. But this year’s survey shows those numbers have climbed to 28.1 percent of blacks and 23.7 percent of Hispanics. The percentage of whites rose more slowly, to 11 percent. Experts who work with the homeless and help distribute food stamps say Indiana’s increased poverty rates reflect what they’ve seen since last year: More Hoosiers are struggling to make ends meet and feed their families…”

Scattered in suburbs, and in need, By Julie Bosman, October 2, 2009, New York Times: “It is hard enough for the unemployed and others struggling financially to figure out how to obtain social services like food stamps, counseling and utility assistance for the first time. It can be even harder in the suburbs. There, many residents, including middle-class people unversed in the welfare system, have trouble making use of the shelters, government offices and nonprofit agencies that are less visible than in cities, spread out across a larger area and harder to reach using public transportation. So needy people are commonly sharing rides, walking and riding buses, often with small children in tow, in larger numbers than before the recession, officials said. And for advice on how to get help in the first place, they are seeking out priests, school nurses and small-town mayors, turning them into de facto social workers…”

Report: States using stimulus to replace, not boost school aid, By Libby Quaid (AP), October 2, 2009, USA Today: “An internal watchdog at the Education Department says states are using money from the economic stimulus to plug budget holes instead of boosting aid for schools. President Barack Obama did not intend for state lawmakers to simply cut state education spending and replace it with stimulus dollars. But Congress made that tough to enforce, and the Education Department’s inspector general said in a memo Thursday that some states are doing it. That means instead of getting extra help to weather tough times, school districts and colleges could wind up with the same level of state aid or with cuts, even as local tax revenues plummet…”

• States resist Medicaid growth, By Shailagh Murray, October 5, 2009, Washington Post: “The nation’s governors are emerging as a formidable lobbying force as health-care reform moves through Congress and states overburdened by the recession brace for the daunting prospect of providing coverage to millions of low-income residents. The legislation the Senate Finance Committee is expected to approve this week calls for the biggest expansion of Medicaid since its creation in 1965. Under the Senate bill and a similar House proposal, a patchwork state-federal insurance program targeted mainly at children, pregnant women and disabled people would effectively become a Medicare for the poor, a health-care safety net for all people with an annual income below $14,404. Whether Medicaid can absorb a huge influx of beneficiaries is a matter of grave concern to many governors, who have cut low-income health benefits — along with school funding, prison construction, state jobs and just about everything else — to cope with the most severe economic downturn in decades…”
• Proposed Medicaid Expansion: Plan could be costly to Nevada, By Ed Vogel, October 5, 2009, Las Vegas Journal-Review: “The number of Nevadans receiving free medical care would nearly double by 2015 under provisions of the health care bill being developed in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. A record 222,022 residents now receive medical care through the state-federal Medicaid program. That total would increase by 217,000 under the national health care bill, according to an analysis done by the state Health Care Financing and Policy Division. The move to expand Medicaid comes at a time when the state can least afford it, although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has proposed an amendment to prevent Nevada from absorbing additional costs under the health care bill. But Charles Duarte, administrator of the division, is not convinced the amendment will be approved. If it fails, then Duarte said Nevada would be responsible for 13 percent to 18 percent of the costs of adding the 217,000 new Medicaid recipients, along with what it already pays for the current recipients. Providing Medicaid to Nevadans already costs the state about $1.5 billion a year, of which $450 million is state funds, Duarte said. Medicaid is the second most costly state government expenditure, trailing only the funding of public education…”

Heating aid could fall short of needs, By Judy Keen, October 4, 2009, USA Today: “Record numbers of low-income people and senior citizens who can’t afford to heat their homes are applying for help, say some local agencies that distribute aid and struggle with the recession’s fallout. ‘The overwhelming need we have (for heating aid) far surpasses any of our resources,’ says Dave Dexheimer of Douglass Community Services in Hannibal, Mo., which is getting 25% more calls than a year ago. It has $60,000 in state heating funds, down from $100,000 last year…”

• Reports predict increasing financial burden from health care, By Brian Tumulty, September 30, 2009, Elmira Star-Gazette: “New York’s Medicaid program will experience a financial crisis if Congress doesn’t enact health care legislation, according to two studies released Wednesday. Ten years from now, state officials could face a 93 percent rise in the cost of providing Medicaid services to adults and related health services to children from low-income families, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute predict in one report…”
• Medicaid crisis looms for state, By Jerry Zremski, October 1, 2009, Buffalo News: “New York, which has continued to expand Medicaid while other fiscally pressed states trimmed benefits, now faces a potential double whammy of federal-level changes that could cost the state health care program for the poor nearly $6 billion in 2011 alone. The state’s deficit, projected at $7 billion in the fiscal year beginning next April, is projected to grow to $13 billion a year later…”
• Nearly a quarter of Florida residents have no health insurance, By Drew Harwell and Andy Boyle, October 2, 2009, St. Petersburg Times: “Lawrence Rill, an out-of-work Clearwater tradesman, was preparing to donate plasma when a nurse gave him the news: His blood pressure was dangerously high and his body was in ’stroke mode.’ Rill, 50, needed prompt medical attention. But he hasn’t been able to afford health insurance for 15 years. Even when times were better, and he was working at Home Depot, the weekly $75 premium would have eaten up a fifth of his paycheck. Sound familiar? Florida has the second-lowest rate of health insurance for people younger than 65 in the country, trailing only Texas, a new U.S. Census survey shows. Excluding Medicare-eligible senior citizens, one in four Floridians lives without any form of medical coverage…”

A food stamp fingerprint feud, By Corrie MacLaggan, October 2, 2009, Austin American-Statesman: “The federal agency that oversees food stamps wants Texas to stop fingerprinting applicants as a way to save resources and speed up what the agency says is an unacceptably slow application system. But because state law requires the fingerprinting, the Health and Human Services Commission finds itself caught between what the Legislature mandates and what federal officials want. ‘One of the things I think Texas needs to do is streamline their operations,’ said William Ludwig, a regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. ‘Finger imaging is very time-consuming.’ Texas is one of four states with such a requirement, which supporters - including Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst - say is an important way to prevent people from collecting benefits under more than one name. Critics have said it’s invasive and a waste of money and seeks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist…”

State budget impasse threatens government-funded social services, By Brad Bumsted, October 2, 2009, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “A two-week-old state budget deal among legislative leaders and Gov. Ed Rendell fell apart Thursday as Pennsylvania reaches the 94th day of an impasse that threatens government-funded social services. ‘It is unconscionable that both sides cannot seem to find middle ground in order to pass a new budget,’ Grant Oliphant, president and CEO of The Pittsburgh Foundation, said yesterday. ‘Increasing numbers of families and individuals depend on social- and human-services support for their very survival, and I am deeply worried that it is going to take a tragedy to bring our state leaders to a compromise.’ The Pittsburgh Foundation yesterday granted more money to a fund established to help people hurt by the recession - raising the emergency grants to more than $1 million…”

Jobs report highlights uncertainty of U.S. recovery, By Peter S. Goodman, October 2, 2009, New York Times: “The American economy lost 263,000 jobs in September - far more than expected - and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, the government reported on Friday, dimming prospects of any meaningful job growth by the end of the year. The Labor Department’s monthly snapshot of unemployment suggested that the economy was plodding through a faltering recovery that could pose big challenges to lawmakers worried about a growing public outcry over both big government deficits and high unemployment. The numbers could intensify pressure on Congress to provide additional unemployment benefits and extend some programs that are set to expire toward the end of the year, such as tax credit for first-time homebuyers and health-insurance subsidies for people who lose their jobs…”

Report: High poverty risk for Southern rural kids, By Dionne Walker (AP), October 1, 2009, Miami Herald: ” A child living on a remote Southern farm may be at a higher risk of poverty than counterparts in the city, as schools struggle to develop new opportunities and factories shut down what few jobs are available, according to a new report. The brief by the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute found rural children in several Southern states fell into poverty at a faster rate than urban children in 2008. The report examined population numbers released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau, which showed the South remains home to many of the nation’s poor children. ..”

• Census data show falling income, By Kate Linthicum and DeeDee Correll, September 30, 2009, Los Angeles Times: “Reporting from Los Angeles and Denver - In 2008, the median household income in the United States plummeted 3.6% from the year before, and the percentage of people living in poverty soared to an 11-year high, recently released U.S. Census data reveal. Economists say the bleak news — which they blame on the slew of layoffs that have accompanied the economic downturn — is significant, if not entirely surprising…”
• Poverty in Ohio spreading and getting worse, By Catherine Candisky and Alan Johnson, September 30, 2009, Columbus Dispatch: “Crushing job losses and rising unemployment pushed nearly one in five Marion County residents into poverty last year, the highest rate among the state’s larger counties, according to new U.S. Census statistics. Marion County’s 2008 poverty rate of 19.4 percent represents a jump of more than half in only two years for the county of 66,396 people about an hour north of Columbus…”
• Child poverty in Baltimore declines, By Brent Jones, September 30, 2009, Baltimore Sun: “Despite a decrease in poverty among city children, nearly one in five Baltimore residents were living below federal poverty levels in 2008, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. Census Bureau data showed that 19 percent of Baltimore’s population lived in poverty last year, putting Maryland’s most populous city well above the national rate of 13 percent…”
• Experts say LI rate underestimates level of poverty, By Olivia Winslow, September 30, 2009, Newsday: “Long Island’s poverty rates remained largely unchanged in 2008 from the previous year, continuing to fall well below national and state levels, according to new census data out Tuesday. But experts say the figures likely underestimate the level of poverty here, since the region’s high cost of living is not factored into the federal poverty formula…”
• Public aid need grows in Oklahoma, census finds, By Vallery Brown and Paul Monies, September 29, 2009, The Oklahoman: “Nearly one in four Oklahoma families with children younger than 18 were on some type of public assistance in 2008, according to newly released census estimates. Public assistance includes food stamps and supplemental Social Security income…”
• Requests for help contradict statistics, By Kevin Duggan, September 30, 2009, Fort Collins Coloradoan: “Poverty rates in Larimer County appeared to level off in 2008 after rising sharply in the early part of the decade, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. But information in the bureau’s American Community Survey does not reflect the current level of poverty around the county brought on by the economic downturn and the loss of jobs, say local agencies that work with low-income residents…”
• County hit with sharp rise in level of poverty, By Lori Weisberg, October 1, 2009, San Diego Union-Tribune: “Poverty in San Diego County rose last year to its highest level this decade, fresh evidence of the financial toll the county’s prolonged recession and heavy job losses are taking on the region’s neediest households. In all, nearly 367,000 individuals were living in poverty - almost 46,000 more than a year earlier, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau…”

• 140,000 of Minnesota’s kids are living in poverty, By Warren Wolfe, September 30, 2009, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: “Rising child poverty means that more Minnesota children are suffering physical and emotional “toxic stress” that, for some, will result in irreversible delays in brain development, according to a new report that tracks 14 indicators of child well-being over the last decade. Even in the best years, more than 100,000 Minnesota children live poverty. But the past few years have not been good for children, according to the 2009 Kids Count report by the Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota…”
• Childhood poverty rates on the rise, By Tim Nelson, October 1, 2009, Minnesota Public Radio: “A new report on child welfare in Minnesota predicts the number of children in poverty will jump by a one-third over the course of the current recession. The Children’s Defense Fund of Minnesota says while the economic downturn may last only a few months, it will leave a long and troubling legacy. The organization’s annual Kids Count report says more than 26,000 additional children fell into poverty in the first part of this decade. But twice that number could join their ranks during this recession alone…”