High-income homes 97% online, By Michael Oliveira, May 27, 2011, Winnipeg Free Press: “An overwhelming 97 per cent of the highest-income households in Canada had access to the Internet last year while just over half of the homes in the lowest income group were online, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday. Overall, about 80 per cent of all Canadian households had Internet access in 2010, with the highest penetration levels in British Columbia (84 per cent), Alberta (83) and Ontario (81). Almost all the homes with total incomes above $87,000 were connected, while just 54 per cent of households with incomes under $30,000 had access…”

India’s stingy definition of poverty _ $12.75 a month for city dwellers _ called little help, Associated Press, May 27, 2011, Washington Post: “Every day, through scorching summers and chilly winters, Himmat pedals his bicycle rickshaw through New Delhi’s crowded streets, earning barely enough to feed his family. But to India’s government he is not poor - not even close. The 5,000 rupees ($110) he earns a month pays for a tiny room with a single light bulb and no running water for his family of four. After buying just enough food to keep his family from starving, there is nothing left for medicine, new clothes for his children or savings. Still, Himmat is way above India’s poverty line. Earlier this month, India’s Planning Commission, which helps sets economic policy, told the Supreme Court that the poverty line for the nation’s cities was 578 rupees ($12.75) per person a month - or 2,312 rupees ($51.38) for Himmat’s family of four. For rural India, it’s even lower at about 450 rupees ($9.93)…”

• AHCCCS cutbacks get legal challenge, By Howard Fischer, May 24, 2011, Arizona Daily Star: “An attorney wants the Arizona Supreme Court to block Gov. Jan Brewer from eliminating health care for more than 100,000 Arizonans. A lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of some who would be affected by the change contends the state is violating the requirements of a 2000 voter-approved measure mandating free care for anyone below the federal poverty level. Attorney Tim Hogan of the Center for Law in the Public Interest said the initiative makes Brewer’s plan to stop enrolling childless adults and some others in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System illegal…”
• Kentucky moves step closer to new Medicaid plan, By Deborah Yetter, May 25, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “With the bid deadline past, Kentucky has moved closer to turning most of its Medicaid program over to outside managed care organizations - a move the state hopes will improve efficiency and cut costs in the $6.5 billion-a-year health plan for the poor and disabled. Officials refused to identify any of the bidders who met the 3:30 p.m. Wednesday deadline, citing confidentiality of the bidding process. Don Speer, who is overseeing the bids for the state Finance and Administration Cabinet, declined even to say how many companies entered bids…”

• Food stamp use explodes in the suburbs, By Janice Podsada, May 18, 2011, Hartford Courant: “Nhan Do, a supervisor at Five Star Farmers Market in Hartford, says she always schedules extra people to work the first three days of the month. Those are ‘big shopping days’ for people who use food stamps. Despite modest job gains, Do and other area merchants say they haven’t seen a reduction in the number of customers using food stamps. On the contrary, the number of Connecticut people enrolled in the federal food stamp program has been climbing for 28 consecutive months in a steady progression during and after the officially declared national recession…”
• 1 in 6 getting food stamps in Volusia, By Anne Geggis, May 25, 2011, Daytona Beach News-Journal: “More than one of out every six Volusia residents got government help buying food in March, according to statistics released this week that show a dramatic increase in assistance in the past four years. In Flagler County, three of every 20 residents got help. That translates into nearly 100,000 people in the two counties. Comparing data from before the recession began, in March 2007 to March of this year, the latest statistics available, the number of area residents getting food stamps increased by nearly 189 percent…”

• N.J. high court’s Abbott ruling means other school districts will still be short funding, By Jeanette Rundquist and Jessica Calefati, May 25, 2011, Star-Ledger: “Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling means the state’s 31 poorest districts get to share $500 million in additional state aid.  But it also means some 550 districts will go without. ’Once again, districts like Woodbridge and Piscataway have been left out in the cold,’ said John Crowe, the superintendent in Woodbridge. He said it is ‘disheartening to think a student who is born into poverty in Woodbridge somehow requires less assistance than a student born into poverty in another district.’ Crowe, along with other suburban superintendents, said Tuesday’s ruling short-changed their district despite the fact they, too, may educate at-risk children…”
• Tracing the history of rulings on school funding in poor N.J. cities, By Jeanette Rundquist, May 25, 2011, Star-Ledger: “In 1875, in an effort to get control of a patchwork public school system, the New Jersey state Legislature amended New Jersey’s constitution and made it the state’s responsibility to provide a ‘thorough and efficient system of free public schools.’ For more than 100 years since, the state’s courts and elected officials have wrestled with those eight words.  The participants and dollar amounts have changed over the years, but the issue has largely been the same: how to give children in New Jersey’s poorest cities the same level of education as those in its wealthiest communities.  The state Supreme Court took another stab at the issue Tuesday, ordering the state to increase school funding to poor districts by $500 million. Here is a look back at decisions leading up to Tuesday…”
• N.J. high court orders more school funding, By Rita Giordano, May 25, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “New Jersey’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the state to come up with $500 million more to aid certain poor and largely urban school districts next year, finding that the state did not enforce its own law or live up to promises made to the court. However, the justices, in their highly anticipated decision, declined to restore the full amount of the state’s aid shortfall - about $1.6 billion - that could have benefited many districts, including others with low-income children. The strongly worded, 3-2 ruling requires the additional funds for only the 31 former Abbott districts, which through more than two decades of corrective court orders had come to receive a large share of state aid. They still do, but the state funding formula, enacted under Gov. Jon S. Corzine, sought to spread money more evenly to other districts with poor children…”

• GOP: Feds should let states tighten Medicaid eligibility, By Mary Agnes Carey and Phil Galewitz, May 24, 2011, Miami Herald: “With their proposal to turn Medicaid into block grants all but dead, Republicans are pushing legislation to let states tighten eligibility rules for the health program for poor people and those with disabilities. The move, which would affect Medicaid as well as the Children’s Health Insurance Program, would help cash-strapped states save money, but it also could cause hundreds of thousands of people to lose health coverage. While Democrats strenuously oppose the proposed Medicaid change, some advocates and physicians groups worry that the issue could wind up as a bargaining chip in the partisan wrangling over raising the federal debt limit and reducing the budget deficit…”
• Christie eyes curb on Medicaid rolls, By Matt Katz and Maya Rao, May 23, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Gov. Christie plans to seek approval for a proposal that would deny Medicaid coverage to adults in a family of four with an annual household income of little more than $6,000, down from the current $30,000. A single mother raising three children who earned as little as $118 a week would not qualify for the government-funded medical coverage. The eligibility-requirement change, which must be cleared by the Obama administration and would apply only to new adult Medicaid applicants, would follow Christie’s eliminating - for the second year - a long-standing line item that would provide nearly $7.5 million in funding to family-planning clinics…”
• State drops managed-care Medicaid plan for 5 counties, By Charles S. Johnson, May 23, 2011, Billings Gazette: “The Schweitzer administration has abandoned its controversial plan to set up a Medicaid managed-care demonstration project in Lewis and Clark, Cascade, Choteau, Teton and Judith Basin counties. The Gazette State Bureau reported last fall that the Schweitzer administration since August 2009 had discussed using managed-card Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides health care for the poor and disabled. One major proposal came from Centene Corp., a large managed-care firm based in St. Louis. It was based on the idea that the private company would be paid a certain amount of money for each patient and ‘manage’ that patient’s care by directing him or her to lower-cost health care. That, in turn, was supposed to save money for both the state and the company.
  By last week, the state pulled the plug on the idea…”
• U.S. objects to new law on clinics in Indiana, By Robert Pear, May 22, 2011, New York Times: “The Obama administration is raising serious objections to a new Indiana law that cuts off state and federal money for Planned Parenthood clinics providing health care to low-income women on Medicaid. The objections set the stage for a clash between the White House and Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, over an issue that ignites passions in both parties. The changes in Indiana are subject to federal review and approval, and administration officials have made it clear they will not approve the changes in the form adopted by the state. Federal officials have 90 days to act but may feel pressure to act sooner because Indiana is already enforcing its law, which took effect on May 10, and because legislators in other states are working on similar measures…”

Help wanted: Jobs for the disabled, series homepage, Columbus Dispatch: “Thousands of adults with Down syndrome, autism and other developmental disabilities work in Ohio at jobs that pay less money than a teen-age babysitter earns. Some say the low pay is immoral; others view the federal law as a godsend…”

House rejects minimum wage hike, By Rebekah Metzler, May 25, 2011, Morning Sentinel: “The Maine House voted 77-69 along party lines Tuesday to reject a proposal to raise the state’s minimum wage from $7.50 to $8 an hour over the next two years. The vote marked a change from recent years, when Democratic majorities in the Legislature routinely approved increases. Republican lawmakers, now in the majority, argued Tuesday that an increase would serve as a mandate that harms businesses. Democrats said struggling low-wage workers could use the extra $10 a week to buy necessities…”

• Cumberland County ranks last in children’s health issues, By Caitlin Dineen, May 23, 2011, Press of Atlantic City: “Cumberland County ranks 21st of New Jersey’s 21 counties in terms of overall child well-being, and Atlantic and Cape May counties also rank poorly, according to the New Jersey Kids Count annual rankings released Monday. The survey, which is published by Advocates for Children of New Jersey, compares counties on 15 measures including child poverty, health, safety and education. Cumberland - which ranked 20th last year - slipped to last place due to a combination of increasing childhood poverty, students having the lowest passing rates for state tests and an increased infant mortality rate…”
• Child data reveals county in last place, By Matt Zager, May 24, 2011, Vineland Daily Journal: “Cumberland County has slipped to last in the state in an annual ranking of child well-being, according to the latest Kids Count report released Monday. ‘That we’re still last is disturbing,’ said George Sartorio, Cumberland County health officer. ‘We all need to do a better job to get better outcomes.’ The data were collected as part of an ongoing effort known as Kids Count conducted by Advocates for Children of New Jersey. It compares the state’s 21 counties on 15 categories, including child poverty, health safety and education…”

Abortion rates decline overall, increasing in poor, By Sharon Jayson, May 23, 2011, USA Today: “Abortion rates fell among most groups of women between 2000 and 2008, except for those classified as poor, finds an analysis conducted by the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute and published online today in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. Guttmacher, which has been tracking abortion since 1974, found that the abortion rate for low-income women increased 18% during the same period that the national rate dropped 8%. Low-income women (as an example, those earning $17,170 or less in a three-person household) accounted for 514,040 abortions, or 42% of all abortions, in 2008. The abortion rate for the poor rose from 44.4 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44 in 2000 to 52.2 in 2008. At the same time, the 2008 national abortion rate was 19.6 per 1,000, which dropped 8% from a rate of 21.3 in 2000. Sociologist Carole Joffe of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco, says the report re-affirms demographic trends…”

Rhode Island’s Medicaid experiment draws raves, suspicion, By Tony Pugh, May 24, 2011, Miami Herald: “After six months in hospitals and nursing homes rehabbing from a stroke, Elvira Tesarek of Warren, R.I., had a decision to make: Either Medicaid would move her to a long-term nursing facility, or she could simply go home. For Tesarek, the choice was obvious. Instead of costly institutional care, Medicaid pays for a nurse’s aide to visit Tesarek at home five days a week to help with meals and household chores. A registered nurse comes three times a week to prepare her medications. A physical therapist visits twice weekly, and a speech therapist makes occasional home visits as well. Nearly 1,300 elderly and disabled adults, such as Tesarek, have been able to leave Rhode Island nursing facilities or avoid them altogether under a pilot program designed to cut spending on Medicaid, the federal-state health plan for the poor. Many states steer certain Medicaid patients into assisted-living and home-care settings, where they have greater independence. Rhode Island’s effort, however, has garnered national attention in conservative circles not because of what it does but because of how it’s funded…”

Feds threaten state with loss of FoodShare funds over privatization, By Jason Stein, May 20, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Federal officials are threatening to withhold new money and take back previous funds for Wisconsin’s food assistance if state officials don’t scale back efforts to privatize the program. The letter from federal officials follows an April visit to Wisconsin by USDA staff and goes a step further than similar past warnings by saying the state FoodShare program is already in violation of federal rules because of the privatization efforts by two governors. Federal officials are also separately questioning a new privatization proposal put forward by Republican Gov. Scott Walker for FoodShare, the successor program to food stamps…”

• BPL poverty cap placed at 46%, By K. Balchand, May 19, 2011, The Hindu: “The Below the Poverty Line (BPL) census, approved by the Union Cabinet on Thursday, will be an exercise in identifying households that will fit the bill within the poverty cap of 46 per cent of the rural population of India. The identification of the 46 per cent poverty cap, estimated by the Planning Commission, will be done through a set of automatic exclusion and automatic inclusion criteria, and the remaining households will be classified through seven assigned deprivation indicators. At the same time, State-wise caps based on the S.D. Tendulkar methodology have been allowed for better targeting of those living below the poverty line. The 46 per cent cap is lower than the 50 per cent suggested by the N.C. Saxena Committee. Officials have remained silent on the displeasure of the Supreme Court on placing a cap on the BPL list…”
• India ‘redefines’ poverty for new survey, May 19, 2011, BBC News: “India’s cabinet has approved a proposal for a survey to identify people living below the poverty line, which also redefines what constitutes poverty. It will classify the rural poor into ‘destitutes, manual scavengers and primitive tribal groups’. Urban poor will be defined as those in vulnerable shelters, low-paid jobs and homes headed by women or children. The survey, to be conducted alongside a caste census later this year, will help identify those who need state aid. There are various estimates on the exact number of poor in India…”

S.F.: New homeless on street as others find housing, By Kevin Fagan, May 19, 2011, San Francisco Chronicle: “Forced into the streets by the economic downturn, hundreds of newly homeless people have been showing up in San Francisco - in cars and camper vans. Crushed by the same pressures, the number of families without homes has also gone up, according to San Francisco’s latest biennial homeless count, to be released today. The increases come even as the city has managed to reduce the number of hard-core people living for years on the streets, a reduction that has kept the overall homeless population in check. ‘It could have been a lot worse if we hadn’t created so much supportive housing’ and secured federal funding for homeless families, said San Francisco’s homeless policy director, Dariush Kayhan…”

First-ever data shows 25,000 car title loans worth $21M issued in last 3 months of 2010 in Va, By Dena Potter (AP), Washington Post: “Virginia car title lenders doled out nearly 25,000 loans worth more than $21 million in the last three months of 2010, according to data collected for the first time since the state started regulating the lenders. Car title lenders were unregulated in Virginia until October, when a new law took effect that limited how much the companies can charge, how much they can lend and for how long. Despite the protections, more than 3,500 borrowers missed payments for at least 60 days during those three months, and nearly 200 had their vehicles repossessed. Meanwhile, the new State Corporation Commission data shows that laws enacted in 2008 to curb the repeated use of their close cousin, payday loans, have dramatically reduced their use. Both are short-term loans that charge borrowers triple-digit interest rates. Payday loans hold a paycheck as collateral for a loan, whereas a car title loan uses a vehicle…”

Tax credits and rural incomes, By Ron Durst and Tracey Farrigan, May 19, 2011, Daily Yonder: “Since 1980, the total cost of tax expenditures has increased by over 250 percent and currently exceeds $1.1 trillion. A primary reason for this growth is that there is greater bipartisan support to enact tax expenditures than to fund or increase direct spending programs, especially since tax expenditures are often viewed as tax cuts. These expenditures have significantly reduced the share of taxpayers who owe Federal income tax. As a result, in 2009, only about half of rural taxpayers owed any Federal income tax. This is slightly below the overall rate of 53 percent of all taxpayers and reflects the lower income levels of rural taxpayers. In 2008, 22 percent of rural taxpayers received a cash payment from one or more of the refundable tax credits. The average amount was $2,428. Thus, an effect of the increased use of the tax code for social policy goals has been an increase in the number of rural taxpayers who owe no Federal income tax and who receive a cash payment as a result of the refundable tax credits…”

Money counts: Young adults and financial literacy, series homepage, May 20, 2011, National Public Radio.

Rural poor caught in budget war over clinics, By Curt Brown, May 14, 2011, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “Deb Zupke gets both angry and bewildered that the ordinary-looking strip-mall storefront in her hometown has become a target of the budget battles in Washington and St. Paul. Planned Parenthood relocated its clinic to the site just next to the Ace Hardware store in the Belle Mar Mall one year ago. Nearly 5,000 women come from the local university and far-flung farms to visit the four exam rooms, the little lab area and the bland-but-warm reception area every year — just like Zupke and her two older sisters did while growing up on a dairy farm 10 miles west of here. ‘For rural women like us, this was the only place to go for our annual exams and birth control,’ said Zupke, now 27 and pregnant with her first child. ‘Abortion is the first thing that pops into everybody’s mind when they hear Planned Parenthood, and I don’t know why. I know what their real focus is because I was a recipient, and it was my primary care.’ In this and 15 other outstate clinics from Albert Lea to Thief River Falls, nearly 60 percent of Planned Parenthood’s 64,000 Minnesota patients come for Pap smears, breast cancer screenings, infection treatment and birth control. Far beyond offering birth control, the clinics have become the backbone of the public health system in outstate Minnesota, where health-care options are increasingly sparse…”

ACLU: Michigan’s public defender system among worst, By Doug Guthrie, May 18, 2011, Detroit News: “Michigan’s system of appointing lawyers to represent criminal defendants who can’t afford to hire their own is among the worst in the nation, according to a report issued today by the American Civil Liberties Union. Using numerous prior studies by others that condemned the state’s dependence on a patchwork of dissimilar systems run separately by 83 counties, the report blasts a lack of oversight, funding, training and failure to meet national standards…”

For states, a glimmer of hope on deficits, By Michael Cooper, May 17, 2011, New York Times: “From stronger-than-expected tax collections in deficit-ridden California to projected surpluses in struggling states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, a growing number of recession-weary states are finally announcing a bit of good budget news for the first time since the downturn began. But it would probably be premature to pop the Champagne, or even the prosecco - or to otherwise declare the fiscal crisis that has hammered states to be over. ‘If the question is ‘Are we out of the woods?,’ I think the answer is probably no,’ said Donald J. Boyd, a senior fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, which closely tracks state tax collections. ‘We’re closer to the edge. But there are still so many things that states and localities need to worry about…’”

• Long-term jobless see reduction in benefits, By William M. Welch, May 17, 2011, USA Today: “Peter Gordon has been out of work for more than a year, and his $233-a-week unemployment checks stopped last month. ‘I’m getting by,’ he says, ‘but just barely.’ Gordon, 53, of St. Louis, worked in call centers and as a patient coordinator at a hearing clinic before being laid off. Last month, Missouri became the first state to quit the federal program that provides an additional 20 weeks of extended benefits for people such as Gordon: the long-term unemployed who have exhausted their otherwise-maximum 79 weeks of benefits. Missouri’s Legislature reversed itself after a group of Republican lawmakers upset with federal spending backed off a fillibuster aimed at forcing cuts in benefits. That means thousands of people, including Gordon, will be eligible after all to receive an unemployment check for 20 more weeks…”
• New bill could cut unemployment benefits, By Mary Ann Milbourn, May 16, 2011, Orange County Register: “A new bill working its way through Congress would help states like California pay off the billions they’ve borrowed from the federal government to fund unemployment benefits, but it could result in the early cutoff of the 99 weeks of extended jobless aid. Rep. David Camp, R-Mich., who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, introduced the bill, called the Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits and Services Act of 2011 (JOBS Act). The legislation, H.R. 1745, would take the $31 billion earmarked to pay extended unemployment benefits through the end of the year and allow states to use the money for other unemployment or job-related purposes…”

R.I. Medicaid agreement admired in other states, By Philip Marcelo, May 16, 2011, Providence Journal: “A Medicaid agreement reached nearly two years ago between Rhode Island and the federal government continues to be praised as a model for other states and the country, even as Rhode Island’s new governor questions how much it has actually saved. Republican governors in New Jersey and Kansas cite Rhode Island’s Medicaid agreement, known as the ‘global waiver,’ as a model for Medicaid reforms they say are needed to close budget deficits. So, too, do Republican-dominated state legislatures in Minnesota and Texas, according to national policy analysts. Leading conservative thinkers argue that the Rhode Island waiver shows how governments can save money by converting federal Medicaid spending into a block grant - a key piece of the federal budget recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. But Rhode Island’s role in the debate over the nation’s primary health-insurance program for the elderly, poor and disabled comes as Governor Chafee, an independent, continues to cast doubts as to whether the agreement has actually produced the promised savings…”

Welfare program for poor eliminated in proposed budget plan, By Madeleine Baran, May 13, 2011, Minnesota Public Radio: “A welfare program for disabled adults was eliminated in the Health and Human Services conference committee late Thursday night, according to advocates tracking the measure. The latest version of the bill was not immediately available, but the spreadsheet from Thursday’s committee included the elimination of the General Assistance program, which provides up to $203 a month for 20,000 disabled adults without children. Many of the recipients are homeless and awaiting approval for Social Security benefits. The program is their only source of income other than food support. Recipients depend on the program to pay for medication co-payments, bus fare, and basic items like toothpaste and soap…”

• In Florida, off-the-job conduct may put your unemployment benefits at risk, By Jim Stratton, May 11, 2011, Orlando Sentinel: “A just-passed overhaul of Florida’s unemployment laws gives employers the ability to challenge jobless benefits to former employees for behavior that has little to do with how they conduct themselves at work. The provision permits businesses to fight a worker’s benefits claim based on ‘misconduct, irrespective of whether the misconduct occurs at the workplace or during working hours.’ In essence, it allows the business to cite a worker’s private behavior as a reason to deny benefits…”
• Bill could end long-term benefits for jobless, By Marisa Schultz, May 12, 2011, Detroit News: “States could end long-term benefits for laid-off workers and use the money to pay off federal loans for the unemployment benefits under legislation passed Wednesday in the House Ways and Means Committee. States also could use the federal extended unemployment money to pay for federal tax increases on businesses or to start job creation programs. Michigan is to receive $1.3 billion this year from the federal government, which will distribute $31 billion nationally. As a result of the prolonged recession, 29 states owe the federal government a total of $41.2 billion in outstanding loans for unemployment benefits. Michigan, which held the highest unemployment rate in the nation for nearly four years, owes nearly $3.2 billion and must start paying the bill Sept. 30…”

• Labour’s final year in power saw child poverty at lowest level since 1980s, By Larry Elliott and Patrick Wintour, May 12, 2011, The Guardian: “Child poverty in Britain fell to its lowest level since the mid-1980s during Labour’s last year in power, according to the latest official figures. Data from the Office for National Statistics released on Thursday said that 20% of children were living in a household below the poverty line in 2009-10, down from 22% the previous year. Although the figures show Labour missed its target of halving child poverty by 2010, campaigners welcomed the improvement during the longest and deepest recession since the second world war. They warned that the downward trend in the number of children in families with an income less than 60% of the national median before housing costs were taken into account was likely to be reversed as a result of spending cuts. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said the return on Labour’s anti-poverty spending had been poor and that the figures showed no narrowing of the gap between rich and poor households…”
• Child poverty figures fell in UK during 2009/2010, May 12, 2011, BBC News: “In 2009-10, 20% of children (2.6m) lived in households classed as below the poverty line, a two per cent decrease on the previous year. Children’s charities offered a cautious welcome to the statistics but warned the future looked bleaker. Ministers say the figures signal a poor return on Labour’s huge investment. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘These figures lay bare the growth of income inequality in the UK which is now the highest it has ever been…’”
• Cuts will force child poverty levels to increase again, says thinktank, By Larry Elliott, May 13, 2011, The Guardian: “Britain’s leading financial thinktank warned on Friday that 300,000 children would be pushed below the poverty line in the next three years as the government’s spending cuts reversed the improvement during Labour’s last years in power. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that after falling to its lowest level in 25 years, child poverty was likely to rise sharply owing to George Osborne’s decision to cut the generosity of state benefits and tax credits. In its analysis of the latest official figures, the IFS said despite 200,000 fewer children living below the poverty line in the year to the 2010 general election, Labour had missed its ambitious target for halving the total by a wide margin and after 13 years went into opposition with income inequality at its widest since modern records began in 1961…”

Census shows big jump in women-led families in Wisconsin, By Dan Simmons and Nick Heynen, May 12, 2011, Wisconsin State Journal: “When Ally Moll had her daughter three years ago, she felt isolated. Her family lives in Florida and New York, and the girl’s father was out of the picture. So the Madison woman took her plight to an online classifieds board: ‘I’m a new mom and I’m alone. Does anyone want to hang out?’ It led to connections with many other moms in her situation and monthly social gatherings that continue today, perhaps not surprising given that the last decade brought a dramatic increase in women-led families here and across Wisconsin. In the state, the number of families headed by women with children and no husband increased 13 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to Census figures released Thursday. In Dane County, they’re up 23 percent. In Madison, it’s 22 percent. The data show a further decline in the traditional nuclear family approach, with married couples with kids comprising 19 percent of total Wisconsin households in 2010, down from 24 percent in 2000…”

• Number of homeless in Utah keeps dropping, By Patty Henetz, May 11, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “Utah’s homeless population shrank by 8.2 percent between January 2010 and this January, Lt. Gov. Greg Bell and other state officials announced Wednesday. The number of chronically homeless, defined as those who have been homeless for more than a year, dropped by 26 percent. Bell attributed the drop to Utah’s Housing First Initiative, a collaboration between government, nonprofit and private agencies that has built hundreds of units in permanent supportive communities since 2005 and is planning still more…”
• Chronic homelessness continues on a downward trend in Utah, By Wendy Leonard, May 12, 2011, Deseret News: “Chronic homelessness in Utah is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Numbers are down for the sixth straight year as the state’s Housing First initiative continues to prove itself. ‘What is surprising to me is that people are willing to give up the freedom of the streets,’ Pamela Atkinson, an well-known advocate for the homeless in Utah, said Wednesday. For years, homeless people were offered treatment for whatever ailed them and caused them to be without a home, ‘but now we know they need housing first,’ she said…”

• Fla. pilot program to cut Medicaid costs raises new questions, By N.C. Aizenman, May 11, 2011, Washington Post: “To visit the low-rise medical offices dotting the sun-bleached highways of Broward County is to meet doctors and patients who complain of being guinea pigs in a social experiment gone wrong. They are part of a five-year pilot program designed to test whether Florida can reduce spending on Medicaid, the public insurance program for the poor and disabled, by largely turning the program over to for-profit HMOs. Success would mean getting a handle on one of the fastest-growing and most vexing expenditures confronting states. But it’s unclear whether the pilot, which is also underway in four other counties, has achieved that. Health professionals here say any savings have come at a high cost: the quality of care. And they are outraged over the legislature’s decision last week to essentially expand the pilot statewide, which will be carefully watched by other financially strapped states across the nation…”
• Fla. Medicaid overhaul’s 1st enrollees: disabled, By Carol Gentry, May 12, 2011, Miami Herald: “The first Florida Medicaid patients required to join managed-care plans under the just-approved overhaul won’t be the strong and healthy. The first wave will be made up of frail elders and the disabled. Until now, Florida’s plans to transfer Medicaid patients into managed care have focused on children and families, not the sick and frail elderly who need constant care. The assumption was that health maintenance organizations’ complicated rules would trip up weak, confused elders. But that thinking has changed. In the Medicaid overhaul that the Legislature passed and Gov. Rick Scott is expected to sign, the elderly and disabled would be the first group required to enroll in managed care. If federal health officials approve the plan, in July 2012 the state will officially begin lining up HMOs and provider-service networks to take on the population beginning in October 2013…”

• Debit cards hit jobless with ‘junk fees’, By Susan Tompor, May 11, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Michigan’s debit card for jobless benefits hits the unemployed too hard in the pocket with ‘junk fees,’ a national consumer group said Tuesday. The group, which did a study of such cards for jobless people in 40 states, took issue with a fee on the Michigan debit card that charges $1.50 each time a purchase or ATM transaction is denied because there’s not enough money on the card. Another fee charges $1 to track the balance on the card at an ATM after two free balance inquiries each month at a network ATM. There are no free balance inquiries at out-of-network ATMs…”
• Report gives Ohio’s unemployment benefits card a thumbs down, By Sheryl Harris, May 11, 2011, Cleveland Plain Dealer: “The National Consumer Law Center says Ohio could have done more to protect citizens when it began delivering unemployment benefits on prepaid cards. The law center compared the prepaid cards issued by 40 states, giving Ohio’s card its lowest rating, a thumbs down. The biggest factor in the rating is the state’s decision to permit an ‘opt-in’ for overdraft coverage, which allows a card to be used even when there aren’t sufficient funds in the account to cover a transaction. Ohio’s card, issued through U.S. Bank, charges $17 per overdraft, but the big gripe about overdraft fees is that they tend to trigger additional deficits and even more fees. The law center report generally praised the Ohio card for providing ample fee-free services, including customer service calls, written statements, balance checks and withdrawals at U.S. Bank and VISA Plus ATMs. That’s better than some states, which charge consumers for both transactions denied for lack of funds as well as for checking their balances…”

Fast-growing Brazil tries to lift its poorest, By Juan Forero, May 11, 2011, Washington Post: “The industrial complex and port here are a showcase of the region’s economic might, employing 55,000 workers and attracting billions in investments. But a couple of miles down the road, Netildes Delvina Soares, 47, lives ‘with much suffering,’ as she put it, in a wood-plank hut without plumbing or electricity. Although traditionally poor, Brazil’s northeast is now home to the country’s fastest-growing regional economy, making the disparity between prosperity and extreme poverty more visible here than anywhere else. And it is places such as this that the country’s new president, Dilma Rousseff, is hoping to uplift as she pursues an ambitious goal: eradicating indigence, defined as earning less than $45 a month. Over the past decade, Brazil has lifted 20 million people out of poverty through a mix of well-funded social programs and careful economic stewardship, creating a burgeoning consumer class that has helped make the country the world’s seventh-largest economy…”

Walker wants private sector to run assistance programs, By Jessica VanEgeren, May 11, 2011, Capital Times: “Vivian Colon is often the first point of contact for Dane County’s most vulnerable residents when they find themselves in desperate situations. From parents seeking emergency medical care for a sick child to those who live paycheck to paycheck and have little money left for food, Colon treats everyone the same when they walk through the doors of the Dane County Job Center on Aberg Avenue. She greets them with a smile. ‘A lot of people need help when they first come in,’ says Colon, who has worked for the county for nearly four years. ‘For some people, it’s their first time applying for benefits. Other people aren’t computer-friendly. They don’t know how to use a mouse or they can’t type. It’s my job to help them if they get stuck during any part of the process - beginning, middle or end.’ Every county across the state has a center like the one where Colon works. The centers function as one-stop shops where people can apply for food and medical assistance at the same time. Applications can be filled out online, over the phone or on paper. Whichever way applicants choose to go, county and state workers are there to help them through any stumbling blocks. But a provision in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget would change all that by creating an ‘income maintenance administrative unit’ to centralize and largely privatize the operation of the food assistance, or FoodShare program, and Medicaid programs in Wisconsin…”

States eye drug tests for welfare recipients, By Kelli Kennedy (AP), May 10, 2011, Sarasota Herald-Tribune: “Lawmakers in more than two-dozen states have proposed drug-testing recipients of welfare or other government assistance, taking a tough stance on aiding the poor in the down economy. Critics say such laws would be unconstitutional - an argument that federal judges have agreed with before. Similar proposals have been introduced in past years by lawmakers in dozens of states, but none currently requires drug testing because it’s difficult to get around the arguments that the tests violate the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches. Michigan’s random drug testing program for welfare recipients lasted five weeks in 1999 before it was halted by a judge, kicking off a four-year legal battle that ended with an appeals court ruling it unconstitutional. No other state has enacted such a program, worrying about legal battles. But lawmakers say they’re willing to take the risk, as cash-strapped states struggle to close budget gaps, potentially paving the way for major legal battles. The National Conference of State Legislatures said at least 30 states have proposed to drug test recipients of government aid during the current legislative session…”

California’s limits on welfare debit cards inspire U.S. response, By Jack Dolan, May 11, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Welfare recipients nationwide would be barred from using their government-issued debit cards at casinos, strip clubs and liquor stores under a bill to be introduced Wednesday by leaders of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. A co-sponsor of the measure says he was inspired by the fact that nearly $5 million in cash benefits issued in California and meant to help struggling families feed and clothe their children, was spent or withdrawn from ATMs at casinos and poker rooms between January 2007 and May 2010. Tens of thousands of dollars in Temporary Aid for Needy Families assistance was accessed or spent with the debit cards at Los Angeles-area strip clubs in the same period. The Times last year detailed all of those transactions, prompting immediate changes in the state’s network of ATMs that accept Electronic Benefit Transfer cards…”

Milwaukee infant mortality rate still high, despite years of effort, millions spent, By Crocker Stephenson and Ben Poston, May 7, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “As other communities around the country have found ways to reduce infant mortality, Milwaukee’s rate has remained all but stagnant for nearly two decades, the result of a vacuum of leadership and a scattershot approach to tackling the problem. In Central Harlem, babies once died at a rate twice that of Milwaukee. But through a unified effort, the community has slashed its infant mortality rate by 78% since 1990. The rate there is now about 6 deaths per 1,000 births, lower than the state of Wisconsin as a whole. In Milwaukee - where tens of millions of tax dollars have been spent in the past decade - 11 out of every 1,000 infants die before their first birthday. The city continues to have one of the worst infant mortality rates in the nation, especially for African-Americans, whose babies die at a rate about 2.5 times that of whites. Year after year, the city continues its rudderless and fragmented approach, with over 100 health initiatives that, lacking collective impact, fail to generate communitywide results…”

New version of Snyder tax plan saves Earned Income Tax Credit for working poor, By Dawson Bell, May 10, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Michigan’s working poor would continue to receive supplemental income from the Earned Income Tax Credit - albeit at a significantly reduced level - under the latest revision to Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed business and income tax overhaul plan. The credit, currently set at 20% of the federal EITC, would be reduced to 6%, under a proposal announced by Lt. Gov. Brian Calley this morning during a Senate committee hearing on the overhaul. That would mean about $108 million in relief to low-income wage earners in 2012, down from a projected $360 million under current law…”

2 Illinois hospitals on brink of closure illustrate pressures on US health care safety net, By Carla K. Johnson (AP), May 9, 2011, Washington Post: “Two charity hospitals in Illinois are facing a life-or-death decision. There’s not much left of either of them - one in Chicago’s south suburbs, the other in impoverished East St. Louis - aside from emergency rooms crowded with patients seeking free care. Now they would like the state’s permission to shut down. The institutions, which have served low-income people in the state for more than 100 years, represent a significant development that’s gone largely unnoticed as the nation climbs out of the recession. Many charity hospitals, already struggling with rising costs, are on the brink of failure because of looming budget cuts, increasing numbers of uninsured patients and a slow economic recovery…”

• Fla. lawmakers pass historic Medicaid overhaul, By Kelli Kennedy and Brent Kallestad (AP), May 6, 2011, Miami Herald: “Two historic bills enacting sweeping changes to Florida’s Medicaid program won Senate and House approval Friday, placing the care of nearly 3 million beneficiaries in the hands of private companies and hospital networks. The bills inject sorely needed accountability into a statewide managed care program that has faltered in its current state in five pilot counties. The plan’s detractors say for-profit providers are making money scrimping on patient care. Patients have complained they couldn’t get appointments with specialists. Several providers pulled out of the program, causing lapses in care as patients were bounced among plans. Sen. Joe Negron, who spearheaded the overhaul, said leaders have learned from the pilot program’s shortcomings and includes increased oversight and more stringent penalties, including fining providers up to $500,000 if they drop out. The bills (HB 7107 and HB 7109) also require providers to generate a 5 percent savings the first year, which could save the state about $1 billion…”
• Florida legislature passes massive Medicaid overhaul, By Jim Saunders, May 8, 2011, Kaiser Health News: “Arguing that the proposal will save tax dollars and improve patient care, Republican lawmakers Friday approved a massive overhaul of Florida’s Medicaid system. The proposal, which has been debated for more than year, would eventually shift hundreds of thousands of poor and elderly beneficiaries into HMOs and other types of managed-care plans. Supporters say that would hold down spiraling costs in the $20 billion program, while also improving a fragmented system of care. ‘We get to save billions of dollars, and we get to deliver better health care,’ said House sponsor Rep. Rob Schenck, R-Spring Hill. But the proposal drew opposition from Democrats, who questioned whether it would adequately hold HMOs accountable and whether it would stick Medicaid beneficiaries with costs they can’t afford…”

• Florida would be only state to tie unemployment benefits to jobless rate, By Marcia Pounds, May 5, 2011, South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “If Florida’s Legislature approves the unemployment benefit bill passed by the Senate on Tuesday, Florida will be the only state that varies an unemployed worker’s weekly benefit with the jobless rate. An amended HB 7005, which returns to the House this week, is ‘the most damaging blow to unemployed workers yet,’ said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, in a press release. The legislation ‘would go further than any other state in dismantling its unemployment insurance system,’ Owens said. Under the House version, the national standard of 26 weeks of benefits would no longer be available to unemployed Florida workers. Instead, the maximum number of weeks would vary from 23 weeks when the state’s unemployment rate is as high as 10.5 percent to as low as 12 weeks when the rate drops to 5 percent…”
• Lawmakers cut unemployment benefits to 23 weeks, By Michael C. Bender, May 6, 2011, Miami Herald: “Out-of-work Floridians would receive fewer state benefits while businesses pay less tax under a controversial proposal approved Friday by a divided Legislature. The deal, which Gov. Rick Scott is expected to sign into law, immediately cuts unemployment benefits by 11.5 percent. Jobless Floridians would continue to receive a maximum payment of $275 per week, among the lowest of any state in the country. But it would be paid for no more than 23 weeks, instead of 26. Cutting the number of weeks was a victory for Scott and the Republican House, which had fought Senate sponsor Nancy Detert to reduce the number of weeks. The bill, HB 7005, passed along party lines in both the Senate and the House. The bill also creates a sliding scale that cuts and adds weeks of benefits based on the unemployment rate. Unemployment compensation would drop as low as 12 weeks once the average unemployment rate drops to 5 percent or lower. A week would be added for every 0.5 percent the jobless rate climbs…”

• Low pay linked to poverty rates, By Catherine Candisky, May 7, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “Of Ohio’s 10 largest occupations, only one pays enough for a family of three to pay for food, housing and other basic needs: nursing. A report released yesterday found a job doesn’t always pay enough for families to be self-sufficient. Despite full-time employment, many still rely on food stamps, subsidized child care or other types of government assistance to make ends meet. ‘Poverty persists because … we have a lot of lower-paying jobs,’ said Philip E. Cole, executive director of the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies, which commissioned the analysis. ‘We need to focus on jobs with good benefits.’ Cole said he thinks Ohio is investing more than any other state into creating jobs, and he commended Gov. John Kasich for his efforts to attract and retain employers. But planned cuts to the state’s subsidized child-care program will make it more difficult for many low-wage workers to keep their jobs because they can’t afford to pay someone to look after their kids, Cole said…”
• Report: Parents with low pay rely on aid, By Russ Zimmer, May 7, 2011, Zanesville Times Recorder: “Eight of the 10 largest occupations in Ohio do not pay enough for an adult with a young child to live without public assistance, according to a report released Friday. In fact, the median hourly wage in the state, $15.72, doesn’t allow a single earner with a baby to live free of welfare, according to Diana Pearce, the author of the report. Pearce based her findings on the self-sufficiency standard, a metric she developed 14 years ago that calculates the costs of basic living needs and the earnings required to cover them. The problem is a lack of good jobs, but Pearce added that Ohio’s situation is not unlike other states. The eight top jobs — fast-food worker is No. 1 with 151,000, and retail sales and cashiers round out the top three — represent about 18 percent of all workers in Ohio…”

State approves tax credit for working poor, By Stephen Singer (AP), May 5, 2011, Stamford Advocate: “Connecticut’s new earned income tax credit will provide needed financial help to as many as 190,000 low-income workers, supporters say. Critics dismiss it as welfare. The tax credit, part of the $40 billion, two-year budget signed Wednesday by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, is a major victory for the Democratic governor and Democrats who run the Legislature after being blocked for years by then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Malloy’s Republican predecessor. Sen. Martin Looney, the Democrats’ leader in the state Senate, called it an economic stimulus for low-income workers…”

In Alabama, tornadoes wiped out uninsured homes, By Tanya Ott, May 5, 2011, National Public Radio: “Across the South, crews are clearing debris and starting the rebuilding process after last week’s deadly tornadoes. Early estimates put the amount of insured damage at up to $5 billion across the region, but that doesn’t include all of the uninsured damage, which could be extensive. Robert Jamison’s house in the Smithfield Estates neighborhood of North Birmingham has been wiped out. ‘It all the way demolished. The wind blowed everything out there,’ Jamison says as he and two friends pick through what’s left of his home. Furniture, clothing, appliances - all ruined. The roof is missing, as is one wall. The floor joists are bowed and the whole place looks like it could collapse at any minute. Jamison says it feels like his whole world is falling down around him. ‘I dropped the insurance on the house because I couldn’t pay it no more. The economy got me,’ he says…”

Conn. to help inmates pare child-support bills, By Pat Eaton-Robb (AP), May 1, 2011, Denver Post: “Julaquis Minnifield was sitting in his prison cell last summer when he received a notice from the state of Connecticut that he owed more than $13,000 in back child support for his 8-year-old son. Minnifield went to prison knowing he must pay $55 a week in child support under an order obtained by his former girlfriend but said he had no idea the debt was accruing while he was behind bars. He expects to owe more than $15,000 by the time he is released next year. ‘What chance do I have to pay if I’m incarcerated? The longer I sit here, the higher the debt goes,’ Minnifield, a 31-year-old Waterbury man, said in an interview at the Carol Robinson Correctional institution in Enfield, where he is serving a 2-year sentence for drug possession. It’s a challenge faced by incarcerated parents across the country, the vast majority of them fathers. Just because they are in prison does not mean they won’t have to pay child support or repay the state for welfare paid to their families in lieu of child support. Experts say the debt can make overwhelmed parents less likely to pay when they are released, and potentially damage relationships with their children…”

Plan would trade Medicaid funds for flexibility, By Julie Rovner, May 5, 2011, National Public Radio: “Most of the debate about the budget plan passed by House Republicans last month centers on the dramatic changes it would make to the Medicare health program for seniors. But the proposal calls for potentially even bigger changes to the Medicaid program for the poor. Medicaid actually covers more people than Medicare. In 2010, according to the most recent estimates from the Department of Health and Human Services, Medicaid covered 53.9 million people, compared with Medicare’s 47.3 million. Medicaid’s patients are also among the most vulnerable in society…”

More farmers markets take food stamps, By Mary Jane Smetanka, May 3, 2011, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “The drive to get fresh food to low-income Minnesotans is getting a boost this year with a big increase in the number of farmers markets that will accept food stamps. Eight new markets will allow customers to buy fresh fruit and vegetables with food stamps this year, bringing the number of markets belonging to the Minnesota Farmers’ Market Association that accept food stamps to 13. While that doesn’t sound like a lot — there are an estimated 130 formal farmers markets in the state — using food stamps at those markets is a financial and technical challenge. Users of the federal program, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), buy food with a card that is swiped like a credit card. That requires a card reader and an electrical or wireless connection, which are not always easy to get at makeshift market locations…”

Experts: Half-day kindergarten a ‘disaster’, By Alfred Lubrano, May 1, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “The Philadelphia School District’s plan to cut full-day kindergarten to help balance its budget is being decried by national education experts as a ‘disaster’ and a ‘very bad decision’ that could harm the development of thousands of children - especially the poor. At the same time, many Philadelphia parents are angered and worried that half-day kindergarten would force them to choose between quitting work to be home for their children or placing them in questionable or costly day care. And local child advocates warn that community child-care centers could not handle the tidal wave of 12,700 kindergartners likely to need placement in some kind of program…”

Government programs help cushion poverty in Wisconsin, By Bill Glauber, May 4, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Government programs designed to help the poor and unemployed helped cushion Wisconsin’s poorest residents from the worst effects of the Great Recession in 2009, according to the third Wisconsin Poverty Report. Expanded tax credits and food assistance were key drivers to holding down poverty in the state, according to the report issued Wednesday by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty. ‘What is glaringly obvious, we had a bad recession and anti-poverty efforts were very successful in making sure that the recession did not hurt the most vulnerable, especially children,’ said Timothy Smeeding, director of the research institute. The report comes amid the state’s great debate over the size and role of government. Gov. Scott Walker has proposed reducing a tax-credit program for the poor and hiring a private contractor to help determine who is eligible for food assistance. He is also seeking more flexibility from the federal government in running the state’s health insurance program for the poor…”

• Residents of Los Angeles County’s poorest areas to get help in keeping their homes, By Victoria Kim, May 2, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Thousands of residents in Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods will get new legal help in fighting high-stakes eviction cases involving slumlords and foreclosures under a pilot project approved by the state’s judicial leaders Friday. The new Eviction Legal Assistance Center at Los Angeles County Superior Court’s downtown civil courthouse will provide legal representation to about 15,000 people facing eviction over three years, according to legal aid groups, which will be jointly running the center…”
• State’s chief judge pledges more aid for poor in courts, By Thomas Kaplan, May 2, 2011, New York Times: “New York’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, on Monday called the state’s routine failure to provide lawyers for poor criminal defendants being arraigned in local courts a problem that ‘can no longer be tolerated,’ and pledged to remedy the situation within a year. Judge Lippman, in a speech at the State Court of Appeals, said too many New Yorkers were needlessly spending nights in jail after appearing without legal counsel at criminal arraignments in small-town and village courthouses. He vowed that the state would spend $10 million in an effort to improve the availability of legal defense provided to the poor…”

• Minnesota rental affordability worst in Midwest, May 3, 2011, Alexandria Echo Press: “According to a national report released Monday, a Minnesota family must have 2.2 minimum wage earners working full-time - or one person working 87 hours per week at minimum wage- to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment in Minnesota. Of the 12 states in the Midwest, Minnesota ranks the worst for rental affordability among low-wage workers. The report, Out of Reach 2011, was jointly released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a Washington, D.C.-based housing policy organization, and for Minnesota, the Minnesota Housing Partnership. The report provides housing affordability data for every state, metro area, and county in the country…”
• N.J. rental costs among highest in the nation, By Sarah Portlock, May 3, 2011, Star-Ledger: “A household in New Jersey must earn at least $51,044 annually - the fifth-highest amount in the nation - to be able to afford rent and utilities for a ’safe and modest’ two-bedroom rental property, according to a study released yesterday. Statewide, a typical renter earns about $32,905, according to the report, which was released by two housing advocacy groups. The fair market rent for a two bedroom-apartment in New Jersey is $1,276, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the report found New Jersey families are paying much more than the recommended 30 percent of income on housing and utilities…”
• Harvard report finds housing ‘affordability crisis’, By Megan Woolhouse, May 3, 2011, Boston Globe: “Philip Frabetti wants to move his wife and two children out of their cramped apartment in the North End, but finding a bigger place that’s affordable has been difficult. Frabetti, a project manager at Fidelity Investments, said the asking rents of $2,500 or more a month in Newton, Arlington, and Belmont would eat up at least half of his monthly income…”
• Typical renter can’t afford one-bedroom apartment in Seattle, By Aubrey Cohen, May 2, 2011, Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “The typical renter in the Seattle-Bellevue area could afford a one-bedroom apartment a year ago but just a studio now, according to a new report. That’s because that renter is earning 5.1 percent less, while fair market rents compiled by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have risen 11.3 percent, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual ‘Out of Reach’ report. This means the typical renter would have to work 44 hours a week, with no vacation or sick days, to pay for a one-bedroom apartment (up from 37 hours a week in 2010)…”

Rule would discourage states’ cutting Medicaid payments to providers, By Robert Pear, May 2, 2011, New York Times: “In a new effort to increase access to health care for poor people, the Obama administration is proposing a rule that would make it much more difficult for states to cut Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals. The rule could also put pressure on some states to increase Medicaid payment rates, which are typically lower than what Medicare and commercial insurance pay. Federal officials said Monday that the rule was needed to fulfill the promise of federal law, which says Medicaid recipients should have access to health care at least to the same extent as the general population. ‘We have a responsibility to ensure sufficient beneficiary access to covered services,’ the administration said in issuing the proposal, to be published Friday in the Federal Register. In many parts of the country, Medicaid recipients have difficulty finding doctors who will take them because Medicaid payment rates are so low…”

Fla. can’t track child welfare contractors, By Kelli Kennedy (AP), May 3, 2011, Miami Herald: “A decade ago, Florida began turning its child welfare program over to private contractors instead of state workers. Almost everyone involved feels that the change has been for the best, but that’s all it is - a feeling. Despite spending a half billion dollars a year, the Department of Children and Families does not have a standardized system for evaluating in most areas its 20 child welfare contractors, making it impossible to prove that the 40,000 children in the system are being helped. Nor can the state show with confidence which contractors are performing well, adequately or poorly. ‘We’ve got to create better statewide data. We have very little,’ new DCF Secretary David Wilkins told The Associated Press. He plans to introduce a new system next year. Critics and advocates agree that the child welfare system has improved overall and cite numbers that prove their point…”