• Recent war vets face risk of homelessness, By Gregg Zoroya, July 25, 2011, USA Today: ” More than 10,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are homeless or in programs aimed at keeping them off the streets, a number that has doubled three times since 2006, according to figures released by the Department of Veterans Affairs.The rise comes at a time when the total number of homeless veterans has declined from a peak of about 400,000 in 2004 to 135,000 today. “We’re seeing more and more (Iraq and Afghanistan veterans),” says Richard Thomas, a Volunteers of America case manager at a shelter in Los Angeles. “It’s just a bad time for them to return now and get out of the military.”…”
• $1 million grant a lifeline for vets, By Adam Parker, July 28, 2011, Post and Courier: “George Krowska traveled to Myrtle Beach this spring after a relationship went sour. He had been staying in a Colorado shelter for a couple of months, the first time in his life the 62-year-old Army veteran was homeless. But in Myrtle Beach, he was abandoned, he said. Krowska has a heart blockage that qualifies him for disability benefits and requires a certain proximity to a VA hospital, so he hitchhiked to Charleston. At the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center, he received treatment, learned about Crisis Ministries, the area’s homeless shelter and got a bus pass…”
• VA embarks on national homeless prevention initiative, By Lidia Dinkova, July 27, 2011, Miami Harald: “The United States Department of Veterans Affairs has embarked on a national initiative that aims to financially support low-income veterans and their families. The funds will be distributed in the form of grants to non-profit organizations, which, in turn, will give the money to veterans. Six Florida organizations are recipients of these grants, including the Advocate Program and Carrfour Supportive Housing, both in South Florida…”

• More parents seek state assistance amid cutbacks, By Tory N. Parrish, July 24, 2011, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “New mother Kaylynn Banks enjoys the time she gets to spend with her baby. Banks’ maternity leave from her job as a full-time housekeeper ends in a week, and the single mother worries about the cost of providing day care for her daughter, Peyton, 5 weeks old. “I’m going to have to either make more money or my mom could watch her, or I don’t know,” said Banks, 20, of Braddock, who said she makes about $21,320 annually. She said she hadn’t explored all her options, including getting financial assistance from state or county programs…”
• State cuts cost SMMUSD its toddler program, By Ashley Archibald, July 26, 2011, Santa Monica Daily Press: “SMMUSD HDQTRS - For months, as the governor and state legislators wrangled over budget deals, Californians were told that cuts would be borne by every age group and demographic to balance the state budget. Once again, Santa Monica is feeling the sting of the state’s fiscal knife. At a presentation before the Board of Education last Wednesday, Judy Abdo, Santa Monica’s former mayor and the school district’s child development services director, revealed unsettling news…”

• National graduation rates likely to dip as states switch to more accurate calculation formula, By Associated Press, July 27, 2011, Washington Post: “KANSAS CITY, Mo. - States are bracing for plummeting high school graduation rates as districts nationwide dump flawed measurement formulas that often undercounted dropouts and produced inflated results.Education wonks long have suspected the statistics used by some people to determine how their neighborhood high school is faring - or even where to buy a house - can be figured using various formulas that produce wildly different results. Now, many states are facing a sobering reset: Some could see numbers fall by as many as 20 percentage points…”
• Why Dropout Data Can Be So Unreliable, By Claudio Sanchez, July 28, 2011, National Public Radio: “Accurate dropout figures are very hard to find because most states don’t adequately collect or analyze the data. Part of the problem is that every state has had a different definition for dropout. In some states, for example, students who leave school aren’t counted as having dropped out if they enroll in adult education classes like night school. Many schools don’t count kids as dropouts if they enroll in a GED program. The U.S. Department of Education says GED recipients should be counted as dropouts but that rule isn’t uniformly applied…”

U.S. Jobless Claims Fall Under Key Level, July 28, 2011, New York Times: “WASHINGTON - First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, dropping below the important 400,000 level for the first time since April, according to a government report on Thursday. At the same time, a private trade group said sales of existing homes rose unexpectedly in June, and both statistics gave investors a reason for optimism. Jobless claims dropped 24,000, to a seasonally adjusted 398,000, the Labor Department said…”

• Low-income families struggle with utility bills can get help, July 28, 2011, Eloy Enterprise: “PHOENIX - Help is available for low-income families and individuals across Arizona struggling with summer utility bills pushed higher by desert temperatures above 110 degrees and major dust storms. The Arizona Community Action Association (ACAA), through its member Community Action Agencies statewide, offers assistance to qualifying individuals and families through programs including the federally funded Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), the federal weatherization program and the locally-funded Arizona Home Energy Assistance Fund. LIHEAP and the Arizona Home Energy Assistance Program provide bill assistance for low-income families who may be spending up to 30 percent of their income to pay for energy costs…”
• 17,000 low-income Colorado households likely to lose energy assistance benefits this winter, By David O. Williams, July 28, 2011, Colorado Independent: “More than 17,000 low-income Colorado households will lose state benefits to help pay their home heating bill this winter if the federal government delivers on expected funding cuts to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Colorado’s share of LIHEAP last year, delivered in the form of block grants to the state’s Low-income Energy Assistance Program (LEAP), was $62 million. The Obama administration in February proposed cutting overall LIHEAP funding in half, meaning Colorado is faced with receiving only $31 million for the winter of 2011-12…”

• Researcher: Low-wage job numbers a ’cause for concern’, By Marcos Restrepo, July 26, 2011, Florida Independent: “That Florida unemployment remained steady during the month of June and added manufacturing jobs are positive signs, but according to researcher Emily Eisenhauer, jobs have been added in low-wage industries. Eisenhauer, an associate at the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy at Florida International University, says that Florida still has the fourth highest unemployment rate in the U.S., but unemployment has come down over the last six months. The state has adding more than 85,000 jobs, but according to Eisenhauer, Florida is still missing about 700,000 jobs since the beginning of the recession in December 2007…”
• High-pay jobs decline as low-pay jobs increase, By Alana Semuels, July 27, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “John Soto said he felt like he got “punched in the gut” when BMW announced that it planned to lay off him and other workers at an Ontario parts distribution warehouse and give their jobs to contract workers provided by a third-party company. “They wouldn’t do this in Germany,” said Soto, 46, referring to the labor-friendly policies in the country where BMWs are manufactured…
• “Lower-paying jobs dominate recovery, By Alana Semuels, July 26, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “The majority of jobs being created in this economic recovery are lower-paying ones, while higher-paying positions have been slow to return, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Employment Law Project. Lower-wage occupations such as sales and office clerks, cashiers and food preparation workers grew 3.2% in the first quarter of 2011 from a year earlier, the report said. In contrast, higher-wage jobs such as registered nurses, engineers and finance workers declined by 1.2%. Mid-wage positions such as paralegals, customer service representatives and machinists grew by 1.2%…”

• Food stamp usage up 58 percent in S. Dakota, By Austin Kaus, July 26, 2011, Daily Republic: “Enrollment in a federal program that provides food assistance increased by 58 percent in South Dakota between 2007 and 2010, according to the results of a study released this week. The Urban Institute reported that enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called food stamps) increased nationally by 69 percent from 2007 to 2010. Increases in state caseloads varied from 23 percent in Arkansas to 128 percent in Nevada…”
• Idaho food stamp growth saw massive drop in June, By Dustin Hurst, July 27, 2011, Idaho Reporter: “Though food stamp enrollment numbers have been growing steadily in the Gem State in the past few years, officials with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) told IdahoReporter.com last week that the month of June saw the smallest increase in new enrollees in many months. Tom Shanahan, spokesman for DHW, reported that only 168 new people joined the food stamp program. June was the first time since July 2008 that less than 1,000 people joined the program in any one month…”
• Nevada Has Biggest Increase in Food Stamp Caseloads, July 26, 2011, Nevada News Bureau: “Nevada experienced the greatest growth among the states in food stamp caseloads between 2007 and 2010 with an increase of 128 percent, according to a recent report from the Urban Institute. The jump in caseloads is attributable to a nearly 250 percent increase in state unemployment between 2007 and 2010, says the report…”

• Fears energy price rises will put more Cumbrians in fuel poverty, July, 25, 2011, News & Stars: “Ruth Willis fears the latest energy bills blow could not have come at a worse time. Parts of Cumbria are already dogged by so-called fuel poverty as families struggle to pay gas and electricity bills. And new rises come as the aftermath of the recession continues to bite and people grapple with the tight financial times. Ms Willis, chief executive of Action with Communities in Cumbria, believes the increases are unreasonable and is clear about what they could mean for some…”
• Fuel poverty warning issued, July 26, 2011, Berwick Advertiser: “The number of people living in fuel poverty in the region could rocket, according to a Northumberland-based debt advice service. Government figures, published earlier this month, revealed that more than 20 per cent of households - around 5.5 million - were spending more than 10 per cent of their annual income on keeping warm in 2009. However, already-high utility prices are set to soar after British Gas and Scottish Power announced forthcoming price hikes, with most energy suppliers expected to follow suit…”

• Arizona schools fail to hit test targets in record numbers, By Pat Kossan and Ryan Konig, July 27, 2011, Arizona Republic: “A record number of Arizona schools failed to meet benchmarks for academic progress this year, which likely means the state will fall short of the nation’s goal of having all students proficient at their grade level in three years. A record 814 Arizona schools, or 42 percent, failed to get students to make “adequate yearly progress” in the 2010-11 school year, compared with 563 schools, or 29 percent, the previous year. Schools will have to notify parents of the deficiency, and more schools could experience intervention by the state…”
• More Georgia schools, districts fall short of goals as expectations rise, By D. Aileen Dodd, July 22, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Facing tougher requirements, the number of Georgia public schools placed on a Needs Improvement list set under the No Child Left Behind Act rose by 24 percent in 2011. Sixty-three percent of Georgia school districts achieved student performance goals, down from 71 percent the previous year. The list of schools designated as Needs Improvement — campuses that have failed to meet the federal Adequate Yearly Progress goals for two consecutive years — must offer free tutoring to students and offer the option of transfer to higher-performing schools. This year, the list grew by 74 schools, to a total of 379…”

Our hungry kids: 40,000 NZ kids fed by charities , By Simon Collins and Elizabeth Binning, July 27, 2011, New Zealand Harald: “School principals say the number of pupils turning up for breakfast is increasing daily, despite the collapse of one of the two main breakfast programmes, a Red Cross scheme which ended this month after Countdown supermarkets withdrew their sponsorship. A Herald investigation has found that at least 185 of New Zealand’s 256 primary and intermediate schools in the poorest 10th of the nation (decile 1) give their children breakfast or other food during the day, on top of the Government’s fruit in schools scheme…”

Child welfare overhaul still bumpy, By Martha Stoddard, July 24, 2011, Omaha World-Herald: “Before turning over major responsibility for Nebraska’s child welfare system to private contractors, state officials said the change would help abused and neglected children. Fewer children would be torn from their homes. Fewer would become wards of the state. Children would not be bounced from foster home to foster home. Families would be reunified or children adopted sooner. What’s more, those benefits could be gained with existing state dollars. Yet 20 months into the reform, the costs to the state have escalated, instability within the system has grown and benefits have been mixed, at best…”

• Utah leaders pushing feds for quick approval for state Medicaid waiver, By Wendy Leonard, July 24, 2011, Deseret News: “State government officials signed a letter last week addressed to federal officials, hoping to push their Medicaid waiver request along in a ‘timely fashion.’ The original waiver, which seeks flexibility in reforming the system locally, among other changes to Medicaid, was submitted to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on July 1. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said the state’s plan ‘makes sense,’ is ‘innovative and homegrown,’ and is the result of much collaboration from stakeholders…”
• Jindal administration announces firms for Medicaid privatization, By Bill Barrow, July 25, 2011, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “The state health department today identified five companies to run a $2.2 billion privatization of the Louisiana Medicaid insurance program for low-income children and adults. The firms still must clear additional rounds of government evaluation, including by the federal agency responsible for the Medicaid program, before Medicaid recipients can join the new managed-care networks later this year. But the announcement is a key juncture for Gov. Bobby Jindal’s signature health-care initiative. The program would shift more than two-thirds of the state’s 1.2 million Medicaid recipients - most of them children - to a system of coordinated-care networks designed to save taxpayer money and provide better care through coordination among doctors, hospitals and other medical professionals. Medicaid currently operates on a traditional fee-for-service model, with a recipient choosing any physician or other provider who accept the program and the provider billing the state after delivering a service…”

Welfare change lets parents get training before job hunting, By Philip Marcelo, July 25, 2011, Providence Journal: “Rhode Island welfare recipients will be able to do more than seek a job in order to initially earn their benefits, following a change included in this year’s state budget. Now, qualified parents will be able to immediately pursue work-related activities like vocational education and literacy classes, which would make them better- prepared for the job market, according to advocates. The new provision marks the most significant change lawmakers have made to the state welfare program since it was overhauled in 2008 under then-Republican Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, and renamed Rhode Island Works. It is also one victory that supporters of the poor can point to in a budget that slashed more than $78 million for human service programs for people who are elderly, disabled or have low incomes…”

• USDA: Parts of W.Va. qualify as ‘food deserts’, By Taylor Kuykendall, July 24, 2011, Register-Herald: “West Virginia, a state that conjures up memories of wooded valleys, streams, rivers, lakes and lush fields, is also a land of desert - not a hot, dry expanse, but instead areas with extensive droughts in regard to food access. According to the USDA, a ‘food desert’ is a ‘low-income census tract where a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store.’ This is defined as communities with a poverty rate of 20 percent or higher or a median family income at or below 80 percent of the area’s median family income or a community with one-third of its population more than a mile (or 10 miles in a rural area) from a supermarket or grocery store. The effort has largely been spearheaded by first lady Michelle Obama, who has promoted various healthy initiatives since moving into the White House…”
• Michelle Obama, Wal-Mart and the ‘food desert’ problem, By Daniela Hernandez, July 22, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Nothing’s ever as simple as we’d like it to be. A case in point: Policies that simply increase access to supermarkets may not get people to choose an apple over ice cream, a recent study reported. Changing people’s eating habits is difficult, in other words. One reason is money. Healthful foods such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean meats and dairy, can often be pricey. For the cost of a couple of peaches, a person can get a full meal on the dollar menu at a fast-food outlet. Another problem: The produce in stores in low income neighborhoods is often of low quality.This is a hefty problem, given that 1 in every 3 children and adults is overweight or obese. Policy-makers and health-food advocates across the country are developing programs to increase access to healthful foods-and make it easier for people to buy them…”

Ind. FSSA welfare ‘hybrid’ poised to expand, By Eric Bradner, July 24, 2011, Evansville Courier and Press: “A year and a half ago, Indiana’s human services agency decided to scrap some parts of its ‘modernization’ effort and replace it with a new way of handling welfare benefits. The Family and Social Services Administration piloted its ‘hybrid’ system - one that combined the technological advances of the botched effort and the in-person touch that existed before 2008 - in 10 Southwestern Indiana counties. Eighteen months later, the state is expanding that hybrid way of determining whether Hoosiers qualify for welfare and delivering those benefits to 72 of Indiana’s 92 counties. A look at data on error rates, timeliness, case backlogs and more show that across the board, the hybrid system is outperforming its two predecessors - the paper-based system in place before 2008, and the computerized one in place after that…”

Appalachian poverty concentrated around mine sites, WVU study says, By Ken Ward Jr., July 23, 2011, Charleston Gazette: “Poverty in Appalachia is concentrated in the communities around mountaintop removal mines, and people living in those areas suffer greater risk of early deaths, according to a new scientific paper by a West Virginia University researcher. Michael Hendryx, an associate professor in the WVU Department of Community Medicine, compared data on poverty, mortality and mining in counties in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. He was trying to determine if residents near mountaintop removal mines experience greater poverty and higher death rates compared to other kinds of mining or other areas of Appalachia…”

Investigation: Health care system struggles to follow foster kids, By David Freed, July 23, 2011, North County Times: “San Marcos resident Patty Boles has taken in more than 100 children during three decades as a foster mom. She specializes in caring for the most medically fragile kids the system has to offer, and has adopted 10 of them. If there’s one thing Boles has learned over all those years, it’s that the system often does a poor job of meeting foster children’s health needs, thanks in no small measure to the often haphazard, increasingly archaic way their medical records are kept. “The way it works right now,” said Boles, president of the North County Foster Parents Association, “is a huge problem.” By law, each time a foster youth in California is relocated, a comprehensive paper file of his or her medical records —- a “health passport” —- is to be promptly forwarded to the new caregiver. But this doesn’t always happen, according to Boles and other foster care experts —- sometimes with potentially serious consequences…”

• The hidden homeless: Sheltered in motels, they wait, hope, By Edward Colimore, July 25, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Sometimes the problems are so overwhelming that Robert Cordero steps away from his children for a few minutes to pull himself together. While two sons and three daughters play in a cluttered Cherry Hill motel room, he turns up the radio, closes the bathroom door, and cries. ‘I can’t let them see me that way. . . . Who will they look up to?’ said the 40-year-old single father. ‘I have to go back and try to raise five kids.’ Cordero’s family has lived at the Hillside Inn for more than five months, along with a couple dozen other homeless people surviving on public assistance. He and his children - ages 8 to 16 - moved there after Cordero lost his home-remodeling job and they were evicted from a Woodlynne apartment…”
• No place for these students to call home, By Eric G Stark, July 24, 2011, Lancaster Newspapers: “Two boys sleep in a car and use an electric heater to keep warm, running an extension cord into their family’s crowded apartment. A girl showers at her high school rather than endure the long, cold walk to shower at a campground in winter. A family that can’t afford toilet paper resorts to using washcloths, and a boy shares his cousins’ underwear.These are real examples of how some families with children are living in Lancaster County. Just like city schools, where social workers have helped more than 1,000 homeless children this past school year, suburban schools dealt with hundreds more who did not have a permanent place to call home…”

• Unemployment rates rose in more than half of US states; 26 added jobs in June, Associated Press, July 22, 2011, Washington Post: “Unemployment rates rose in more than half of U.S. states in June, evidence that slower hiring is affecting many parts of the country. The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates in 28 states and Washington, D.C., increased last month. Rates declined in eight states and were flat in 14. That’s a change from May, when 24 states reported falling unemployment rates. Twenty-six states reported a net gain in jobs in June, while 24 states lost jobs. The changing trend in state unemployment rates reflects a weaker economy hampered by high gas prices and lower factory output. Nationally, employers added only 18,000 net jobs in June, the second straight month of feeble hiring. The U.S. unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent…”
• Economic disconnect: Corporate profits surge while jobs and wages remain at recession levels, Associated Press, July 22, 2011, Washington Post: “Strong second-quarter earnings from McDonald’s, General Electric and Caterpillar on Friday are just the latest proof that booming profits have allowed Corporate America to leave the Great Recession far behind. But millions of ordinary Americans are stranded in a labor market that looks like it’s still in recession. Unemployment is stuck at 9.2 percent, two years into what economists call a recovery. Job growth has been slow and wages stagnant. ‘I’ve never seen labor markets this weak in 35 years of research,’ says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. Wages and salaries accounted for just 1 percent of economic growth in the first 18 months after economists declared that the recession had ended in June 2009, according to Sum and other Northeastern researchers…”

Florida spurns $50 million for child-abuse prevention, By Carol Marbin Miller, July 20, 2011, Miami Herald: “Florida lawmakers have rejected more than $50 million in federal child-abuse prevention money. The grants were tied to the Obama administration’s healthcare reform package, which many lawmakers oppose on philosophical grounds. The money, offered through the federal Affordable Health Care Act passed last year, would have paid, among other things, for a visiting nurse program run by Healthy Families Florida, one of the most successful child-abuse prevention efforts in the nation. Healthy Families’ budget was cut in last year’s spending plan by close to $10 million. And because the federal Race to the Top educational-reform effort is tied to the child-abuse prevention program that Healthy Families administers, the state may also lose a four-year block grant worth an additional $100 million in federal dollars, records show…”

Dispute on jobless benefits puts unemployed in a bind, By Jason Stein and Patrick Marley, July 21, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Kathleen Bonchek raised a family and then worked for decades before her job at an insurance company fell victim to the financial crisis. For the first time in her life, the 61-year-old South Milwaukee resident took state jobless benefits and now stands just three weeks away from exhausting them. The federal government is offering an estimated $88 million in extended benefits for unemployed Wisconsin workers like Bonchek, but a dispute between GOP lawmakers has blocked their approval in the Legislature. ‘I’ve worked for 35 years. Is it OK for me to lose my home and everything I’ve worked for?’ Bonchek asked Thursday. ‘We need to act on this, and I don’t know what more we can tell these people.’ On Thursday, the Senate adjourned until at least next week without resolving the dispute over jobless benefits or giving a clear timeline for doing so…”

States hit hardest by heat wave cut or cancel programs to help poor people cool their homes, Associated Press, July 21, 2011, Washington Post: “Many states hit hardest by this week’s searing heat wave have drastically cut or entirely eliminated programs that help poor people pay their electric bills, forcing thousands to go without air conditioning when they need it most. Oklahoma ran out of money in just three days. Illinois cut its program to focus on offering heating money for the winter ahead. And Indiana isn’t taking any new applicants. When weighed against education and other budget needs, cooling assistance has been among the first items cut, and advocates for the poor say that could make this heat wave even more dangerous…”

• Health care providers, advocates feel budget sting, By Madeleine Baran, July 21, 2011, Minnesota Public Radio: “Advocates, nonprofits and health care providers continue to scrutinize a state Health and Human Services budget that could restructure social services and public healthcare in Minnesota for years to come. Gov. Mark Dayton signed the department’s $11.4 billion budget into law Wednesday along with other bills that ended the state government shutdown. The budget bill that emerged Wednesday preserved health insurance coverage for the state’s poorest residents. It made slight cuts in welfare spending and services for people with disabilities. And it cut payments for health care providers and created incentives for hospitals to reduce emergency room visits and readmissions…”
• Budget deal means big changes for schools, health, By Baird Helgeson, Mike Kaszuba and Eric Roper, July 21, 2011, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “Minnesotans awoke Wednesday to a new state budget that clamps down on spending, makes big changes in education and health care, and borrows heavily to make ends meet. The $35.7 billion budget ends a nearly three-week state government shutdown and sends 22,000 laid-off workers back to their jobs, where today they will begin reopening state offices and digging through the backlog of work. They will return to an operation transformed by changes forced largely by sagging revenues, as the state finds itself still trying to emerge from the worst economy in decades…”

• Big retailers make pledge of stores for ‘food deserts’, By Sean Collins Walsh, July 20, 2011, New York Times: “Executives from Wal-Mart, Walgreens, SuperValu and other stores joined Michelle Obama at the White House on Wednesday to announce a pledge to open or expand a combined 1,500 stores in communities that have limited access to nutritious food and are designated as ‘food deserts.’ With the pledges, secured by the Partnership for a Healthier America, which is part of Mrs. Obama’s campaign to reduce childhood obesity, the stores aim to reach 9.5 million of the 23.5 million Americans who live in areas where finding affordable healthy foods can be difficult. In those areas, many people turn to fast food restaurants or convenience stores…”
• First lady, grocers vow to build stores in ‘food deserts’, By Yian Q. Mui, July 20, 2011, Washington Post: “Supermarkets joined with first lady Michelle Obama on Wednesday in a pledge to build stores in poor neighborhoods that have historically lacked access to fresh groceries, part of her signature effort to combat childhood obesity. Participating retailers include Wal-Mart, the country’s largest grocer, Walgreens and Supervalu and regional supermarkets such as Brown’s Super Stores in Philadelphia and Calhoun Foods in Alabama and Tennessee. Together, they promised to open more than 500 stores that will employ tens of thousands of people…”

Michigan jobless rate hits 10.5%, highest since January, by Melissa Burden, July 21, 2011, Detroit News: “Michigan’s unemployment rate climbed for the second straight month to 10.5 percent in June, but economists see the increase as something temporarily tied to Japan’s March earthquake and not a cause for concern for the state’s economic recovery. June’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate rose two-tenths of a percentage point from May and is above the state’s low this year of 10.2 percent in April, according to the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget. That puts last month’s rate back almost where it stood in January, when it was 10.7 percent…”

• UN declares Somalia famine in Bakool and Lower Shabelle, July 20, 2011, BBC News: “The United Nations has declared a famine in two areas of southern Somalia as the region suffers the worst drought in more than half a century. The UN said the humanitarian situation in southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle had deteriorated rapidly. It is the first time that the country has seen famine in 19 years. Meanwhile, the UN and US have said aid agencies need further safety guarantees from armed groups in Somalia to allow staff to reach those in need. Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controls large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009, but has recently allowed limited access…”
• Somalis dying in world’s worst famine in 20 years, By Katharine Houreld (AP), July 20, 2011, Denver Post: “Tens of thousands of Somalis are feared dead in the world’s worst famine in a generation, the U.N. said Wednesday, and the U.S. said it will allow emergency funds to be spent in areas controlled by al-Qaida-linked militants as long as the fighters do not interfere with aid distributions. Exhausted, rail-thin women are stumbling into refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia with dead babies and bleeding feet, having left weaker family members behind along the way. ‘Somalia is facing its worst food security crisis in the last 20 years,’ said Mark Bowden, the U.N.’s top official in charge of humanitarian aid in Somalia. ‘This desperate situation requires urgent action to save lives … it’s likely that conditions will deteriorate further in six months.’ The crisis is the worst since 1991-92, when hundreds of thousands of Somalis starved to death, Bowden said…”

• Poverty study: 1 in 3 Michigan senior citizens struggles with money, By Robin Erb, July 20, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “A third of Michigan’s seniors are considered ‘economically insecure’ - far more than the federal poverty limits would suggest, according to a new study. Moreover, even in counties that are home to some of the most affluent suburbs where the wealthiest will buoy the overall median household income, at least one in four seniors on the other end of the economic scale struggles to make ends meet, according to the paper, ‘Invisible Poverty: New Measure Unveils Financial Hardship in Michigan’s Older Population…’”
• Study: Third of Lansing-area seniors are struggling financially, By Kathleen Lavey, July 19, 2011, Lansing State Journal: “More than one-third of Michigan’s senior citizens are struggling to pay for food, housing, transportation and medical care they need, according a report to be released today. Those who do not own homes or who rely solely on Social Security payments to live are at much greater risk, says the report by Wayne State University researchers. ‘These numbers are very frightening,’ said Kate White, executive director of Elder Law of Michigan, an advocacy and service group that is releasing the Michigan- focused report today along with the report’s authors…”

States save by moving vets from Medicaid’s rolls to VA’s, By Pamela M. Prah, July 18, 2011, Stateline.org: “A growing number of states are shifting health care costs to the federal government by finding military veterans who receive Medicaid and signing them up for medical benefits through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Arizona, California and Texas are among the states that are working to replicate a program first launched in Washington State. That program, begun in 2003, has moved some 9,500 veterans from the state’s Medicaid rolls to the VA’s. Washington State has avoided paying $27 million in health care bills this way - enough to make a small dent in a strained state budget. And veterans generally find that the benefits offered through the VA are more generous that what they were getting through the state…”

State Senate votes to extend jobless benefits, By Patrick Marley and Jason Stein, July 19, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to capture an estimated $88 million in federal money to extend jobless benefits to tens of thousands of out-of-work state residents. In a surprising reversal, most GOP senators joined Democrats in voting to drop a one-week waiting period to get jobless benefits that they adopted just a month ago - a change that put the bill’s future in the Republican Assembly in doubt. The flip-flop came as recall elections loomed for six Republican and three Democratic senators, including one election being held Tuesday. Extending the benefits an additional 13 weeks with federal money would not touch the state’s struggling unemployment insurance trust fund. But ending the waiting period would add $41 million to $56 million a year in additional costs for the fund. There was no immediate word on whether Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) and Gov. Scott Walker supported the revised bill…”

Medicare doesn’t cover many health-care expenses for low-income seniors, By N.C. Aizenman, July 18, 2011, Washington Post: “Helen Johnson gave a welcoming smile to the group of older men and women who had assembled at the senior center in the Maryland Eastern Shore town of Snow Hill on a recent evening. All of them were caregivers for spouses or parents with debilitating illnesses. ‘We’re very concerned about you,’ began Johnson, 74, who organizes support programs for a nonprofit agency serving the elderly. ‘You spend so much time tending to your loved ones, you don’t have time for your self.’ But Johnson’s comforting message masked worries of her own. There was the gnawing pain in her arthritic knee, which gets so bad by late afternoon that she can’t stand up for more than a few minutes at a time. There was her dread of the drive home after dark, which has become difficult as her eyesight has weakened. And perhaps most wearying, there was the knowledge that despite her dislike of working evening hours, she had no alternative. Nearly a decade after reaching retirement age and qualifying for Medicare, Johnson cannot afford to give up her job. Even with the paycheck it brings, her income is only a few notches above the federal poverty level…”

The face of hunger: Migrant workers in southern Minn., By Julie Siple, July 12, 2011, Minnesota Public Radio: “Every year, workers from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas gather their children and clothes and drive 1,500 miles to Minnesota, in an annual migration that spans generations. Most will head for the vegetable processing plants sprinkled across southern Minnesota, where they work for a handful of companies, including Seneca Foods Corp. They process peas and corn and other vegetables that wind up on your grocery store shelf. A number of the workers arrive with almost nothing, having spent the money they made the year before. That brings many to the Salvation Army Montgomery Food Shelf, 50 miles south of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, where their numbers are a challenge for volunteers…”

Thousands set to lose jobless benefits, By Randy Tucker, July 18, 2011, Oxford Press: “Jobless benefits for thousands of displaced Ohio workers are set to expire at the beginning of next year, an event some economists fear will sap hundreds of millions of dollars in personal income from the state’s economy and further stall the economic recovery. Others, however, say the end of extended benefits will be good for the economy because it will force jobless workers to step up their job searches and bring down the unemployment rate. The end of extended unemployment benefits that Congress approved in December 2010 for up to 99 weeks will, at least in the short run, put added pressure on food pantries and other social service agencies that are already struggling with growing demand from jobless workers. More than 33,000 Ohioans have exhausted their unemployment benefits so far this year, putting the state on pace to exceed the 47,241 beneficiaries who received their final unemployment checks in 2010, based on figures from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services…”

• State proposes increases in Medicaid co-pays, By Misty Williams, July 14, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Children could be among the hardest hit by proposed increases in co-pays for Medicaid enrollees and the creation of co-pays for families in the state’s PeachCare for Kids health care program starting this fall. A plan to double existing co-pays for inpatient hospital services to $25 is also among the changes proposed by the Georgia Department of Community Health that would save the state an estimated $4.2 million. Co-pays for prescription drugs, vision care and other services would also climb under the plan outlined at a department board meeting Thursday. Children ages 6 and older enrolled in PeachCare would be the most dramatically affected by the changes, which would take effect Sept. 1, since those families don’t currently have co-pays, said Jerry Dubberly, the state’s Medicaid division chief. PeachCare provides health care to more than 200,000 children through age 18 who don’t qualify for Medicaid and have family incomes up to 235 percent of the federal poverty level…”
• Fewer Utah doctors to treat Medicaid patients, By Kirsten Stewart, July 10, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “When people ask family practitioner Ray Ward if he does charity care, he likes to joke, ‘Yes, I take Medicaid.’ It means making less money, but the Bountiful doctor does it out of a sense of duty. ‘I still come out OK at the end of the year,’ he says. ‘So far, I haven’t had to turn anyone away. I still accept [Medicaid] patients.’ Physicians like Ward, however, are in increasingly short supply. In Utah the number of doctors who accept Medicaid has shrunk 25 percent in 11 years. This year, 3,166 doctors are certified to bill the low-income health program, down from 4,210 in 2000. That’s just over half of the state’s 5,844 practicing physicians. Meanwhile, Medicaid enrollment, now at about 244,470, is swelling with no immediate end in sight…”

Disability program, concerns on rise, By Patricia Wen, July 11, 2011, Boston Globe: “A federally run children’s disability program whose enrollment practices are already the subject of a congressional investigation grew by 3 percent over the past year and is now estimated to cost about $10.3 billion annually. Statistics released last week by the Social Security Administration, at the request of The Boston Globe, showed that at the end of last year, 1.24 million indigent children received up to $700 a month in cash benefits from its children’s Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, compared with slightly fewer than 1.2 million recipients the year before. The youngsters who qualify based on behavioral, mental, or learning disorders grew by 7.2 percent, more than twice the overall rate, and represent 55 percent of all children’s SSI cases. The two largest mental impairment categories - attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and speech delay - grew by 6 and 12 percent, respectively. The third-largest such category is children who qualified based on autism spectrum disorder, and that grew by 13 percent in the past year…”

Poor often don’t know benefit of banks, By Taryn Luna, July 6, 2011, Boston Globe: “Low-income families use costly check-cashing and loan services not because they lack access to banks, but because they lack knowledge of banking options and their advantages, according to a study by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. For example, the study found that about one in four low-income residents in the New Bedford area do not have a bank account because they believe they cannot afford it - although most community banks and credit unions offer low-cost or free accounts as required by state law. In addition, the study found, even low-income residents with bank accounts still use check-cashing establishments more than their banks. The study, which surveyed 173 low-income residents in New Bedford, belies perceptions that limited access to banks drives low-income families to use higher-cost alternatives, said Michael Goodman, an associate professor of public policy at UMass Dartmouth who oversaw the study…”

Innovation schools catch on, By James Vaznis, July 11, 2011, Boston Globe: “A growing number of school districts from Boston to Western Massachusetts are embracing a new kind of school to pursue educational innovations and compete more aggressively with charter schools. About a dozen ‘innovation schools’ are expected to open this fall, while another dozen should arrive a year later. The movement follows the launch of the state’s first three innovation schools this past school year. ‘It’s really catching fire,’ said Paul Reville, the state’s education secretary. ‘I would predict innovation schools in a relatively short period of time could surpass the number of charter schools in the state if the growth continues at the rate we’ve seen recently.’ Innovation schools - a cornerstone of Governor Deval Patrick’s overhaul of public education - are part of the state’s efforts to create schools that operate with more autonomy than traditional public schools…”

NY charter school throws foster kids a safety net, By Larry Neumeister (AP), July 10, 2011, Seattle Times: “A Harvard-trained administrator thought she had heard it all as a gatekeeper in a city office responsible for supporting charter schools when Bill Baccaglini walked enthusiastically through the door with one more idea. ‘I thought, ‘Here we go, another big idea,” recalled Jessica Nauiokas. But she found herself liking his plans so much that she offered to be the Bronx school’s principal. ‘I walked out of the meeting and said, ‘Wow. That actually is a compelling idea.” Thus explains how Nauiokas became principal at the Haven Academy Charter School, where a third of students are in foster care. Another third are in families receiving preventive services to diminish the need for foster care. The rest are from the Mott Haven community, which is in a Congressional district where a soaring poverty rate keeps a third of residents on public assistance…”

County’s child poverty highest in decade, report says, By Marga K. Cooley, July 14, 2011, Santa Maria Times: “The number of children in Santa Barbara County who qualify for free and reduced-cost lunches - 54 percent - and those who live below the federal poverty level, were the highest of the decade in 2010, according to a recent report on children’s welfare. ‘The data shows what we know, that there’s great economic concern for families in our county, and that’s increasing,’ said Joy Thomas, outreach and education specialist for KIDS Network, which produced the 2010 Children’s Scorecard along with the UCSB Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and a variety of public agencies and community-based organizations. Thomas said many of the numbers are due to the general state of the economy, but some are prolonged, significant issues, such as the achievement gap in student test scores…”

Census finds share of children in US drops to 24 percent, a record low, with many in poverty, Associated Press, July 12, 2011, Washington Post: “Children now make up less of America’s population than ever before, even with a boost from immigrant families. And when this generation grows up, it will become a shrinking work force that will have to support the nation’s expanding elderly population - even as the government strains to cut spending for health care, pensions and much else. The latest 2010 census data show that children of immigrants make up one in four people under 18, and are now the fastest-growing segment of the nation’s youth, an indication that both legal and illegal immigrants as well as minority births are lifting the nation’s population. Currently, the share of children in the U.S. is 24 percent, falling below the previous low of 26 percent of 1990. The share is projected to slip further, to 23 percent by 2050, even as the percentage of people 65 and older is expected to jump from 13 percent to 19 percent due to the aging of baby boomers and beyond…”

Medicaid program hailed, By Paris Achen, July 14, 2011, The Columbian: “After a monthlong convalescence in a skilled-nursing facility, 67-year-old Sandra Morgan relishes every day she spends at home. Four years ago, complications from a surgery to remove cancer landed Morgan in Vancouver’s Heritage Health and Rehabilitation Center. (It closed in 2007 to make room for the state Highway 500 and St. Johns Road interchange.) ‘I had visited a nursing home before, but you have no idea what it’s like until you’ve been there,’ Morgan says. ‘People are in different stages of life and death. One lady screamed into the night.’ There was no privacy. Morgan says she had to use a chamber pot to relieve herself and never had the luxury of washing her hands because the staff was too busy to help her. Showers happened just once a week when she was hosed down in her wheelchair, and the food was hard to stomach, she said. Morgan remembers being served a cup of orange juice laced with a thickening agent as a precaution against choking. ‘It was a miracle to get to come home,’ Morgan says. ‘It was an answer to a prayer.’ Morgan says her savior was a state Medicaid-funded program that pays for low-income patients to receive a caretaker at home for a set number of hours instead of living at a skilled-nursing facility…”

Michigan Senate passes 48-month limit on welfare, raises wage cap, By Karen Bouffard, July 13, 2011, Detroit News: “Welfare benefits are limited to 48-months under a bill passed today in a special summer session of the state Senate. Democrats voted as a bloc against the legislation, which passed 24-12. The two-bill package would extend to all recipients a 48-month limit that now applies only to those eligible to participate in the state’s Work First program and who live in an area where the Jobs, Education and Training (JET) program is available. The 48-month limit for those enrolled in JET is due to expire Sept. 30. Eliminating that sunset will throw 12,600 families, with an average monthly benefit of $515, off the welfare rolls Oct. 1. Savings to the state would total $77.4 million, including $65 million in the general fund. The bill includes some exemptions to the cap, and the Department of Human Services would be allowed to exempt up to 6,100 cases during the 2012 fiscal year. The House already approved the bill, but it was changed slightly by the Senate, which gave more discretion to the state Department of Human Services to grant exemptions to the time limit. The package now returns to the House for concurrence and must also be signed by Gov. Rick Snyder to become law…”

State’s slow start puts federal stimulus funds at risk, audit finds, By Kate Linthicum, July 12, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “California could lose tens of millions of dollars in job-creating federal stimulus money for home weatherization projects because the state and several local agencies - including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power - have failed to perform as promised, according to an audit released Monday. Two years ago, California was awarded nearly $186 million to help low-income homeowners make their houses more energy-efficient. But as of April 30, the state had spent $68 million, the audit found. California State Auditor Elaine Howle, whose office conducted the review, warned that California could be forced to forfeit more than $37 million early next year if it doesn’t quickly pick up the pace of distributing grants. Howle blamed a host of factors for California’s sluggish spending of the federal money, part of a $5-billion economic recovery allocation approved in 2009 to put people to work insulating attics, weather-sealing windows and making other energy-saving improvements on nearly 590,000 homes nationwide…”

Access to grocers doesn’t improve diets, study finds, By Daniela Hernandez, July 12, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Better access to supermarkets - long touted as a way to curb obesity in low-income neighborhoods - doesn’t improve people’s diets, according to new research. The study, which tracked thousands of people in several large cities for 15 years, found that people didn’t eat more fruits and vegetables when they had supermarkets available in their neighborhoods. Instead, income - and proximity to fast food restaurants - were the strongest factors in food choice. The results, published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, throw some cold water on the idea that lack of access to fresh produce and other healthful foods is a major driver in the disproportionate rates of obesity among the poor, or that simply encouraging grocery chains to open in deprived areas will fix the problem, said study lead author Barry Popkin, director of the Nutrition Transition Program at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill…”

Michigan town shows promise and pitfalls of job retraining, By Don Lee, July 10, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “When the Electrolux refrigerator factory shut down in 2006, idling almost 3,000 workers, this self-proclaimed Refrigerator Capital of the World put the last two locally produced units in a museum. And the town itself might follow - a once-thriving community overwhelmed by economic forces beyond its control and seemingly bound for history’s dustbin. Waves of layoffs hit other factories. New start-ups cut back. Hard times hit local stores, service firms and government agencies. Like hundreds of other American towns ravaged by the recession, Greenville learned how losing jobs can spread like a contagion through families and institutions that form the heart of a community. Things got so bad that a special office was created recently to help more than 1,000 schoolchildren who had no real homes. ‘It’s a heinous situation,’ said Brenda Greenhoe, director of the office. Greenville, though, is more than a sad story. It’s a petri dish for testing one of the most widely prescribed remedies for reviving troubled communities - job training…”

After decades of hard-fought progress, black economic gains were reversed in Great Recession, By Jesse Washington (AP), July 9, 2011, Washington Post: “Growing up black in the segregated 1960s, Deborah Goldring slept two to a bed, got evicted from apartment after apartment, and watched her stepfather climb utility poles to turn their disconnected lights back on. Yet Goldring pulled herself out of poverty and earned a middle-class life - until the Great Recession. First, Goldring’s husband fell ill, and they drained savings to pay for nursing homes before he died. Then Goldring lost her executive assistant job in the Baltimore hospital where she had worked for 17 years. The cruelest blow was a letter from the bank, intending to foreclose on her home of almost three decades. Millions of Americans endured similar financial calamities in the recession. But for Goldring and many others in the black community, where unemployment has risen since the end of the recession, job loss has knocked them out of the middle class and back into poverty. Some even see a historic reversal of hard-won economic gains that took black people decades to achieve…”

As income gap balloons, is it holding back growth?, July 10, 2011, National Public Radio: “Members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors tend to speak cautiously: Their words can move markets. Yet last month, Fed governor Sarah Bloom Raskin was remarkably candid about the growing gap between America’s rich and poor. ‘This inequality is destabilizing and undermines the ability of the economy to grow sustainably and efficiently,’ she said. Income inequality, she continued, is ‘anathema to the social progress that is part and parcel of such growth.’ The income gap in the United States has ballooned: It’s wider than any time since 1928, in the days before the stock market crash triggered the Great Depression. The numbers are startling: Top CEO salaries were up 23 percent last year, according to the New York Times; the average worker’s pay was up only .5 percent. Meanwhile, the top 0.1 percent of American earners now take in more than 10 percent of the nation’s collective income. That puts the U.S. in the same inequality ballpark as developing countries like Cameroon and Ivory Coast…”

Major health problems linked to poverty, By Emily Ramshaw, July 9, 2011, New York Times: “Laura knows what comfort feels like: Before leaving Reynosa, Mexico, for Texas a few years ago, she lived with her in-laws in a house with bedrooms and flushing toilets, with electricity and a leak-free roof. Now, the 23-year-old - since deserted by her husband but still helped financially by his father - pays $187 a month to live in a dirt-floored shack that is part broken-down motor home, part splintered plywood shed. She bathes her five runny-nosed, half-clothed children, all under 10, with water siphoned from a neighbor’s garden hose. And she scrubs their diapers and school uniforms in the same sink where she rinses their dinner beans. As she glanced sheepishly at her feet, Laura, who declined to give her name because of her immigration status, pointed out the family’s bathroom: a makeshift outhouse, only yards from the large scrap pile her youngest children scale like a mountain. She would return to a better life in Mexico, she said, if she were not sure her children would have a brighter future in the United States. The conditions in which Laura and her children live are common for the roughly half-million people living in Texas’ colonias. These impoverished communities are found in all border states, but Texas, with the longest border, has the most, an estimated 2,300…”

• HIV/AIDS-poverty link strongest in the South, By Steve Sternberg and Jack Gillum, July 10, 2011, USA Today: “Nearly all U.S. counties stricken with both high rates of HIV infection and poverty are located in Southern states, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from 43 states. The study, which drew on data made available from Emory University’s AIDSVu project, offers the clearest picture yet of the close kinship of low income and HIV/AIDS. ‘This tells a story about heavily impacted regions across the South,’ says Patrick Sullivan, leader of the team at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health that produced AIDSVu, the first effort to use state-of-the-art methods to map HIV infection rates by county. ‘Seeing the data on a map helps you see things in a different way,’ Sullivan says. The analysis highlights a vast geographic shift in the HIV epidemic in the USA in the three decades since the first cases of a deadly new disease were reported in gay men by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981…”
• Lack of education fuels HIV epidemic in South, By Steve Sternberg and Jack Gillum, July 10, 2011, USA Today: “Until his death in March, bluesman ‘Big’ Jack Johnson of Clarksdale, Miss., crisscrossed the troubled terrain of the Mississippi Delta, singing of broken homes and broken hearts. His songs touched on all the timeless blues themes of poverty, abuse, abandonment and longing. Johnson also took on a newer heartache - HIV/AIDS - that is sweeping through the Delta and much of the rest of the South. And he confronted it head-on…”

• Income may have impact on waistline, By Danielle Cintron, July 8, 2011, Fargo-Moorhead Forum: “Could the poverty line be affecting the U.S.’s waistline? Those with less education or who make less money continue to have the highest overall obesity rates, according to a study released Thursday by Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. ‘One particular factor is poverty,’ said Jeff Levi, executive director of TFAH. ‘Lower income is associated with higher rates of obesity…’”
• Southerners, poor have highest rates of obesity, By Nanci Hellmich, July 8, 2011, USA Today: “People may still be tightening their belts because of the economy, but too many continue to let them out because of weight gain. The percentage of obese adults increased in 16 states over past year and didn’t decline in any state, a report says. In addition, the number of adults who say they don’t do any physical activity increased in 14 states this past year. ‘The bad news is the obesity rates are really high,’ says Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust for America’s Health, a non-profit group that prepared the report along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. ‘But if you are looking for a silver lining it’s that only 16 states showed an increase this last year, and in the past, more states had increases,’ he says…”

• Economic outlook worsens as U.S. adds only 18,000 jobs in June, By Neil Irwin, July 8, 2011, Washington Post: “Job growth came nearly to a halt in June, the federal government said Friday with surprisingly grim new data that challenge expectations that the economy is poised to bounce back from its spring lull. The disappointing report comes at a sensitive time, as President Obama and Congress engage in high-stakes negotiations over raising the legal cap on the $14.3 trillion federal debt. The weaker job market could make Democrats all the more reluctant to agree to spending cuts that might further slow the economy in the service of reducing long-term budget deficits. Employers added 18,000 jobs in June, a trivial number in a country with 150 million workers, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent from 9.1 percent, the Labor Department reported. It was a far worse report than expected: Economists had forecast 105,000 new jobs…”
• Job growth falters badly, clouding hope for recovery, By Motoko Rich, July 8, 2011, New York Times: “For the second month in a row, employers added barely any jobs in June, showing that the economic recovery has hit a serious speed bump. With all levels of government laying off workers, the Labor Department reported that employers eked out just 18,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs in June. The already low number created in May was also revised downward to a dismally small 25,000 new jobs, less than half of what was originally reported last month. Although the government’s survey of employers showed them adding jobs, a separate survey of households showed that more people were out of work than in the previous month, causing the unemployment rate to rise to 9.2 percent…”