More working families getting government food aid, By Mark Niesse (AP), October 22, 2010, Kansas City Star: “Lillie Gonzales does whatever it takes to provide for three ravenous sons who live under her roof. She grows her own vegetables at home on Kauai, runs her own small business and like a record 42 million other Americans, she relies on food stamps. Gonzales and her husband consistently qualify for food stamps now that Hawaii and other states are quietly expanding eligibility and offering the benefit to more working, moderate income families. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reviewed by The Associated Press shows that 30 states have adopted rules making it easier to qualify for food stamps since 2007. In all, 38 states have loosened eligibility standards. Hawaii has gone farther than most, allowing a family like Gonzales’ to earn up to $59,328 and still get food stamps. Prior to an Oct. 1 increase, the income eligibility limit for a Hawaii family of five was $38,568 a year…”

• Highest teen birthrates are in the South, October 21, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “The highest teenage birthrates in the U.S. are clustered in Southern states and the lowest in the Northeast and upper Midwest, government researchers said Wednesday. Birthrates fell to an average of 41.5 births per 1,000 female teens in 2008 from 42.5 in 2007, with 14 states seeing declines. That followed an increase from 2005 to 2007, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. The differences are important because teen parents are less likely to pursue higher education, their children are less likely to be healthy, and they earn less on average than people who have children later…”
• State’s lower teen-pregnancy rate doesn’t tell whole story, By Carol M. Ostrom, October 20, 2010, Seattle Times: “Teen pregnancy is associated with all sorts of bad things - physical risks to babies, interrupted education for moms, and lower lifetime incomes all around - so it’s good news that Washington, overall, has a significantly lower rate than the U.S. average. But the statistics released Wednesday morning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention don’t tell the whole story. Buried inside the big-picture statistics about Washington are numbers that reveal pockets of teen pregnancy, often in nearby high schools and middle schools…”
• Teen birth rate low, but racial disparities persist, By Elizabeth Dunbar, October 21, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “New numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Minnesota has the eighth-lowest teen birth rate in the nation, but the rates are much higher among teens of color. Nationally, the CDC found that the worst disparities between black teens and the general population occurred in the South and the Upper Midwest. Minnesota was among the 10 states with the highest teen birth rate among black teens…”

In Illinois, late payments fray the safety net, By Daniel C. Vock, October 19, 2010, Stateline.org: “On weekday afternoons when schools let out in Humboldt Park, a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, dozens of children, ages 6 to 16, head to a community center known as the Youth Service Project. When they arrive at the center’s activity rooms, the children must do their homework first. Then they’re allowed to play, read books about sharks, throw balls at each other or just hang out with friends. It’s a safe place in a neighborhood troubled by gang violence. Two years ago, two participants at the Youth Service Project were killed, and two more were injured, in the fighting. The youth at the center, which runs an arts education program, responded to the deaths by painting an indoor mural of their memories of that summer’s events. It shows a SWAT team van, a church cross against a blue sky and a funeral home - although the center’s staff, fearing that the funeral home would be a distressing image for the kids to see every day, have moved a bookshelf in front of it. The center plays an important role in the life of Humboldt Park. Indeed, the state of Illinois, which provides 95 percent of the Youth Service Project’s funding, expects the center to provide all of the services under its contract. The catch is that, with all the state’s fiscal troubles lately, no one knows when the state will actually hand over that money…”

• Cholera reported in several areas in Haiti, By Donald G. McNeil Jr., October 22, 2010, New York Times: “A cholera outbreak in a rural area of northwestern Haiti has killed more than 150 people and overwhelmed local hospitals with thousands of the sick, the World Health Organization said Friday, increasing long-held fears of an epidemic that could spread to the encampments that shelter more than a million of Haitians displaced by the January earthquake. Even as relief organizations rushed doctors and clean-water equipment toward the epicenter - the Artibonite, a riverine rice-producing area about three hours north of the capital, Port-au-Prince - Haitian radio reported that cholera cases had surfaced in two other areas: the island of La Gonâve, and the town of Arcahaie, which lies closer to the capital. In addition, a California-based aid group, International Medical Corps, said they had confirmed cases in Croix-des-Bouquet…”
• Haiti’s first cholera epidemic in a century kills scores, By Rory Carroll, October 22, 2010, The Guardian: “Haiti’s first cholera epidemic in a century has swept a region north of the capital Port-au-Prince, killing dozens and overwhelming health services. At least 142 people have died and more than 1,500 were stricken by diarrhoea, fever and vomiting in the worst public health crisis since the January earthquake. Authorities and aid agencies scrambled to contain the outbreak in the largely rural Artibonite region before it reached tent cities housing vulnerable quake survivors…”

• Unemployment rate drops in 23 states in September, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), October 22, 2010, USA Today: “Nearly half of U.S. states reported drops in their unemployment rates in September from a month earlier, the best showing since June. But job creation was weak in most areas of the country. Unemployment fell in 23 states and Washington, D.C., rose in 11 states and was unchanged in 16 during September, the Labor Department said Friday. The declines were nearly double the number reported by states in the previous month…”
• For some, jobless benefits trump a job, By Allison Linn, October 21, 2010, MSNBC.com: “You know the economy has become truly screwy when it pays more to collect jobless benefits than to get an actual job. The economy is so weak and jobs are so scarce that some people are finding that it isn’t worth it to work. These workers say that’s because the only jobs available are part-time or low-wage gigs that would not only be a big step down from their previous careers but also would not even pay enough to cover their expenses. About 8 million people are now collecting some form of unemployment aid, but how much they take home varies widely depending on what state they live in and how much they made previously. In Massachusetts, for example, the maximum benefit is $943 per week, including an allowance for dependents, while in Mississippi it is just $235 a week. In August, the average weekly benefit was $293.54, according to U.S. Department of Labor. On average, unemployment pays about 47 percent of what people were making before they lost their jobs, according to the department’s latest data from 2009…”