Wisconsin one of few states that will raise taxes on poor, By Michael Louis Vinson, December 28, 2011, Appleton Post-Crescent: “As Wisconsinites await W-2 forms and related tax documents, hundreds of thousands of low-income families are bracing for a state budget change that will mean less money in their wallets next year. Last summer, the state Legislature reduced the amount of money low- income families can receive in tax credits by $56.2 million. That places Wisconsin among only a handful of states that will effectively raise taxes on their poorest residents in 2012, according to a recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit think tank…”

State child care cuts force hard choice on parents, By Amy Taxin (AP), December 29, 2011, Boston Globe: “Sarah Comito rolls out of bed before dawn most days and slips quietly out of her house. Before her rambunctious toddler wakes up, she heads off to work as a waitress in an upscale weight-loss resort in Malibu. The hour-long commute is exhausting, but the 33-year-old is thankful to make the trip when she remembers where she and her husband were four years ago: living in a tent in a nearby river bottom, strung out on methamphetamine. Now Comito fears the progress they have made since then could be lost as California cuts her from a vital child care assistance program, more than doubling the cost of her son’s day care to $600 a month. On a $10 hourly wage, she said she’d be better off quitting her job and staying home with her son while her husband works as a professional tree cutter. But if she stops working, they can’t make rent…”

• States get $845 million in home heat aid from feds, By Andrew Miga (AP), December 22, 2011, Boston Globe: “States got more than $845 million in federal home heating aid on Thursday, but the latest round of government funding won’t take the chill from the fuel assistance program, which is being cut by about a quarter this winter. New England, with its reliance on costly home heating oil, is expected to be especially hit hard by the spending cut. Several Northeast states already have reduced heating aid benefits this winter…”
• Home heating help slashed by $1 billion, By Pamela M. Prah, December 22, 2011, Stateline.org: “Just in time for the cold weather and holiday season, states have learned that Congress cut $1.2 billion from a program to provide heating and cooling assistance to low-income families. The large spending bill that Congress approved this month for 2012 contained about $3.5 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Advocates of LIHEAP had hoped Congress would fund the program at its 2010 level of $5.1 billion; it was funded at $4.7 billion for 2011, an amount that several governors urged Congress to maintain for this year. President Obama’s budget proposal would have cut LIHEAP funding by nearly 50 percent to $2.6 billion, so the congressional figure came down somewhere in the middle…”

State efforts put more children on health insurance rolls, despite economic downturn, By N.C. Aizenman, December 27, 2011, Washington Post: “Publicly funded programs have enabled 1.2 million more children to gain health insurance since 2008 - at least in part due to extra work by many states to ensure that more of the children who are eligible for the programs are actually signed up, Obama administration officials plan to announce Wednesday. Twenty-three states are to be awarded federal performance bonuses totaling nearly $300 million for these efforts. Maryland and Virginia have qualified for the two largest amounts - $28.3 million and $26.7 million, respectively - under an incentive plan aimed at improving child enrollment rates in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP…”

State cuts to Medicaid reduce care for patients, force doctors to reconsider participation, By Shannon McCaffrey (AP), December 27, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “Just as Medicaid prepares for a vast expansion under the federal health care overhaul, the 47-year-old entitlement program for the poor is under increasing pressure as deficit-burdened states chip away at benefits and cut payments to doctors. Nearly every state has proposed or implemented a plan in its current budget to rein in costs, and many are considering additional cuts in the year ahead. For the tens of millions of poor and disabled who rely on the program - approaching nearly one in five Americans - the cuts translate into longer waits for doctors, restrictions on prescription drugs, a halt to vision and dental care, staff cuts at nursing homes and dwindling access to home health care…”

Wage floor is increasing in 8 states in new year, By Catherine Rampell, December 23, 2011, New York Times: “Eight states will ring in the New Year with a higher minimum wage, under state laws that require wage floors to keep apace with inflation. San Francisco, one of the few cities that sets its own minimum wage above the federal level, is also raising wages for the lowest-paid workers in the new year. It will become the first big city in the country to require companies to pay their workers more than $10 an hour. The minimum wage increases in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington will be 28 cents to 37 cents an hour, according to the National Employment Law Project. That is an extra $582 to $770 a year for a full-time minimum wage worker, and resets these states’ minimum wages to $7.64 to $9.04 an hour…”

Grass-roots efforts aim to pull people out of poverty, By Dave Aeikens, December 21, 2011, USA Today: “In one of this city’s poorest neighborhoods, Jerry Sparby is among those trying to help people pull themselves out of poverty and help their children do better in school. Sparby and a group of volunteers have launched a local version of Promise Neighborhood, a growing national program aimed at connecting struggling families with the services they need, from job training to car repairs. If people start to understand the importance of relationships, I honestly think we can turn this community around,’ says Sparby, a professor at St. Cloud State University and retired school administrator in nearby Cold Spring, Minn. Promise Neighborhood programs are popping up across the country in mostly urban areas that have high poverty and low student success…”

Recession takes toll on Kansas kids, By Ann Marie Bush, December 15, 2011, Topeka Capital-Journal: “Data shows Kansas children are feeling the full impact of the recession, said Shannon Cotsoradis, president and chief executive officer of Kansas Action for Children. The Kansas Kids Count report, which is being released Thursday, measures county by county how children are doing across 25 health indicators of health, education and economic success, a news release from Kansas Action for Children states. Nearly one in five Kansas children is living in poverty, and more than 47 percent of public school children are participating in the free or reduced-priced school lunch program…”

‘Alarming’ new test-score gap discovered in Seattle schools, By Brian M. Rosenthal, December 18, 2011, Seattle Times: “African-American students whose primary language is English perform significantly worse in math and reading than black students who speak another language at home - typically immigrants or refugees - according to new numbers released by Seattle Public Schools. District officials, who presented the finding at a recent community meeting at Rainier Beach High School, noted the results come with caveats, but called the potential trend troubling and pledged to study what might be causing it. Michael Tolley, an executive director overseeing Southeast Seattle schools, said at the meeting that the data exposed a new achievement gap that is ‘extremely, extremely alarming.’ The administration has for years analyzed test scores by race. It has never before broken down student-achievement data by specific home language or country of origin - it is rare for school districts to examine test scores at that level - but it is unlikely that the phenomenon the data suggest is actually new…”

• Michigan’s homeless students: Foreclosure crisis takes toll on 31,000 kids, By Jeff Seidel, December 18, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Like a silent epidemic, the number of homeless children in Michigan schools is growing. In the 2010-11 school year, more than 31,000 homeless students attended school — 8,500 more than in the previous school year, a 37% spike attributed to the weak economy, loss of jobs and the foreclosure crisis. Overall, the number of homeless students in Michigan has jumped more than 300% in the last four years. Most experts say those numbers are low because many parents are embarrassed to admit they are homeless. And many school districts lack the resources to identify these kids, as required by federal law. Advocates say there’s also a disincentive to find homeless children. Once a district finds them, it has to pay to transport them to school and provide other services — a tough job for many cash-strapped districts. School officials who deal with these children say the numbers are likely to grow next year because of the thousands of families who have lost jobless benefits and other cash assistance…”
• For Michigan’s homeless students, a storage room of backpacks shows community support, By Jeff Seidel, December 19, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “The small cluttered motel room is filled with all their worldly possessions — bags of clothes from a free clothes locker, a fistful of utensils standing up in a Mason jar, a deep fryer, a toaster oven, a Crock-Pot, a box of food donated from a nearby church, and a backpack that links thousands of homeless children across Michigan. The backpack was given to 11-year-old Amber Phillips by the Macomb Intermediate School District because she is a homeless student. She has been living in this motel for two months..”
• Covenant House is a haven for Michigan’s homeless students, By Jeff Seidel, December 20, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Even before the downturn in the economy, there were thousands of homeless children across the state — kids who ran away from home because of family squabbles or because of abuse or because of myriad other reasons. Some children now might have a new reason to run away. ‘Now, we are seeing kids who leave home because they feel their parents can’t afford them anymore and they feel like, ‘I have to go on my own and spare them paying for me,” said Pamela Kies-Lowe, the state coordinator for Homeless Education at the Michigan Department of Education. ‘They are trying to be magnanimous to their families. They strike out on their own and figure out they can’t make it.’ She said even those who leave for reasons of abuse might have an underlying tie to the economy…”
• Love from new families turns lives around for Michigan’s homeless students, By Jeff Seidel, December 21, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Traverse City and Adrian are running two of the most unusual programs in the state to help homeless children — families taking in a homeless child for a year so he or she can finish high school. It’s an idea that could be replicated around the state to help agencies already besieged by too many people who need help and not enough money to go around. In both cities, homeless children are placed in mentor homes for the entire school year. Last year, 15 students were in the Traverse City program; all seven seniors graduated. In Adrian, 13 children were in the program last year and all of them also graduated from high school, including two valedictorians. Beth McCullough, who runs the Adrian program, said 87% of the homeless students in the program have gone on to higher education…”

Census Bureau clarifies poverty numbers, By Sharon Bernstein, December 16, 2011, MSNBC.com: “Officials at the U.S. Census Bureau moved Friday to clarify widely reported figures meant to estimate the number of Americans living in poverty.  Dueling Census reports - one based on official poverty estimates that was released just last week and another based on an experimental calculus used in November - differed from one another by 20 percentage points regarding the number of people viewed as living in poverty. The widely reported figure showed that one out of two Americans are in poverty or are low-income. Other Census figures put the figure closer to one out of three Americans. That’s because the experimental measure, a supplement to the official poverty figures meant to take into account such factors as whether a family is receiving food stamps and how much people pay in taxes, uses a poverty level of $24,343 for a family of four instead of the $21,113 used by the official measure…”

• Unemployment fell in 43 states in November, By Martin Crutsinger (AP), December 20, 2011, Atlanta Journal Constitution: “Unemployment rates fell in 43 states in November, the most number of states to report such declines in eight years. The falling state rates reflect the brightening jobs picture nationally. The U.S. unemployment rate fell sharply in November to 8.6 percent, the lowest since March 2009. The economy has generated 100,000 or more jobs five months in a row - the first time that’s happened since 2006, before the Great Recession. Only three states reported higher unemployment rates in November, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Four states showed no change…”
• Bills to restructure Michigan jobless, workers comp insurance systems signed, By Dawson Bell, December 20, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation Monday to restructure Michigan’s unemployment and workers compensation insurance systems, changes he said would ‘ensure their solvency and integrity.’ The bills, approved earlier this month by the Legislature, authorize the issuance of revenue bonds to pay off the state’s $3-billion federal unemployment insurance debt, saving the state about $117 million in 2012 and sparing employers more than $270 million in federal penalties, administration officials said. The debt arose from a decade of high unemployment in Michigan, as unemployment taxes assessed on employers have not kept pace with claims made by Michigan workers…”

• Private contractors play increasing role in Medicaid, audit finds, By Jason Stein, December 20, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “As the state’s health programs for the poor have ballooned in recent years, the state relied increasingly on private contractors to run its health programs for the poor and completed fewer investigations into potential fraud, a new audit has found. The report released Tuesday by the Legislative Audit Bureau found that as of June there were at least three times as many contract workers working on Medicaid health programs as there were state workers. Over the past four years, payments to private vendors for Medicaid have nearly doubled, the audit found…”
• Utah’s budget debate: transportation and Medicaid, By Kirsten Stewart, December 19, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “Unveiling his budget for next year, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert last week bemoaned the growing share flowing to Medicaid. The health insurance program for low-income people consumes 17.6 percent of Utah’s budget, hurting the state’s ability to fund other priorities such as public schools, said Herbert, sounding a theme popular among conservatives. But advocates for the poor say the national strategy of pitting Medicaid against public schools doesn’t reflect reality in Utah. They point to another familiar budget boogeyman: transportation…”

Feds: Florida can continue 5-county Medicaid pilot, By Kelli Kennedy (AP), December 15, 2011, Miami Herald: “Federal officials on Thursday approved the expansion of a five-county Medicaid privatization pilot program that allows for-profit providers to determine the health care of recipients, but there’s no indication whether a statewide expansion will be allowed. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was insisting on new protections, more accountability and quality reporting, spokesman Alper Ozinal said…”

Florida minimum wage inches up, By Tim Engstrom, December 18, 2011, News-Press: “Florida’s lowest-paid workers will get a raise on Jan. 1 with an increased Florida minimum wage, but local employers say most workers - except tipped employees like restaurant servers - won’t notice because they already earn more. Florida’s minimum hourly wage will jump 4.9 percent to $7.67 an hour. That becomes an extra $14.40 for a 40-hour week for a total gross pay of $306.80 for the week. That adds up to annual pay of $15,953.60. The minimum hourly wage for tipped employees jumps to $4.65…”

• Low Medicare, Medicaid rates shift costs to insurers, study finds, By Guy Boulton, December 17, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “An estimated $851 million is added to the cost of commercial health insurance to make up for the lower fees that Medicare and Medicaid pay hospitals in southeastern Wisconsin, according to a study released last week. The study, commissioned by the Greater Milwaukee Business Foundation on Health, supports the long-standing position of the hospital industry that the government health programs don’t cover their share of costs and that the shortfall is passed on to employers and individuals through higher prices for commercial health plans. Yet that contention - widely held in the business community and among elected officials - is challenged by most health economists…”
• Medicare penalties for readmissions are likely to hit hospitals serving the poor, By Jordan Rau, December 19, 2011, Washington Post: “James Breedin cannot keep track of how often he has been admitted to Howard University Hospital for heart problems. ‘It’s been so many,’ said Breedin, a 75-year-old disabled former truck driver from Northeast Washington. One reason for his frequent returns, he says, is that he often can’t afford the medications his doctor prescribes, ’so I have to do without.’ Another is that he fears exercising outside because of neighborhood violence. Medicare is preparing to penalize hospitals with frequent potentially avoidable readmissions, which by one estimate costs the government $12 billion a year. Medicare’s aim is to prod hospitals to make sure patients get the care they need after discharge. But this new policy is likely to disproportionately affect hospitals that treat the most low-income patients, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services…”

• Bigger share of state cash for Medicaid, By Michael Cooper, December 13, 2011, New York Times: “Medicaid has steadily eaten up a growing share of state budgets over the past three years, while education has been getting a smaller slice of the pie. That is one of the changes that the lingering economic downturn and the changing American economy have wrought on state finances, according to an analysis of state spending over the last few years released Tuesday by the National Association of State Budget Officers…”
• State Medicaid spending soars, By Lisa Lambert, December 14, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “Spending by U.S. states on Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor, soared last year and will likely continue growing despite measures to contain costs, according to a report released on Tuesday. Total Medicaid spending, excluding administrative costs, likely reached $398.6 billion in fiscal 2011, which ended in June for most states. That was up 10.1 percent from the year before, when spending rose 6 percent, the National Association of State Budget Officers reported. Medicaid was nearly one-quarter of all state expenditures in fiscal 2011, compared to elementary and secondary education, which accounted for 20 percent of all spending…”
• Medicaid money for Texas to jump, By Don Finley, December 13, 2011, San Antonio Express-News: “The federal government Monday granted Texas a waiver that could mean billions more in Medicaid dollars to hospitals over the next few years, in return for having them work together to provide better care for the poor. In Bexar County, that could mean new money to help keep the mentally ill from overusing crowded hospital emergency rooms, among other new services, one local official said. At the same time, federal officials slapped down a request from Texas to deny Medicaid patients access to family planning centers such as Planned Parenthood that also provide abortions - a plan that had drawn the anger of family planning advocates…”
• Medicaid waiver could be boon for Texas hospitals, By Don Finley, December 12, 2011, Houston Chronicle: “The federal government on Monday granted Texas a waiver that could mean billions more in Medicaid dollars to hospitals over the next few years in return for having them work together to provide better care for the poor…”
• Studies point to flaws in Florida’s Medicaid managed care, By Christine Vestal, December 14, 2011, Stateline.org: “Like many other states in fiscal duress, Florida sliced a large portion of its Medicaid budget this fiscal year, primarily by cutting payments to hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers. Next year, Governor Rick Scott wants to double the size of reductions to the federal-state program - again by cutting provider fees. Within the next two years, however, the Republican governor expects to shave billions from the state budget by letting private health plans take over the care of all of Florida’s Medicaid patients - more than 3 million people. Scott’s plan is a statewide expansion of a controversial five-county managed care pilot started by Republican former Governor Jeb Bush in 2006. The state Medicaid office sought approval for the plan in August and a decision by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is expected soon…”
• Gov. Rick Scott’s proposed budget includes $2.1 billion cut in Medicaid, By Matt Dixon, December 12, 2011, Florida Times-Union: “When Gov. Rick Scott unveiled his proposed $66.4 billion budget last week, many people in the capital and around the state cast it as schools versus hospitals. Scott’s spending plan injected public education with a roughly $1 billion increase but cut $2.1 billion in reimbursements for Medicaid. The cut prompted a fast pushback from the Safety Net Alliance of Florida, a lobbying group that represents 15 of the state’s biggest hospitals. It estimates the cuts would cost its members $1.4 billion…”
• Maine Medicaid deficit mainly due to budget miscalculations, By John Richardson, December 13, 2011, Portland Press Herald: “A $120 million budget deficit projected for the fiscal year that began July 1 has set off an ideological debate over the future of Maine’s Medicaid program. The deficit itself, however, is mostly the result of a series of technical budgeting miscalculations, according to a report prepared by the LePage administration. Problems with a new claims processing system, a loss of federal funds that wasn’t accounted for, and a failure to budget for increases in federal Medicare premiums are among the biggest causes…”
• Proposed Medicaid cuts draw big protests in Maine, By John Gramlich, December 15, 2011, Stateline.org: “Earlier this year, it was Arizona that drew national attention for removing tens of thousands of its citizens from the Medicaid rolls. Now, Maine Governor Paul LePage wants to do the same, saying the state-federal health insurance program is becoming unsustainable. LePage is pushing a proposal that would eliminate 65,000 Mainers from Medicaid, as the Bangor Daily News reports. At a hearing on the proposal Wednesday (December 14), hundreds of protesters converged on the State House to voice their disapproval of the plan, which seeks to close a $220 million shortfall in the state health and human services budget…”
• Report on R.I’s Global Medicaid Waiver finds $22M in savings, By Richard Asinof, December 14, 2011, Providence Business News: “The long-awaited report by the Lewin Group on Rhode Island’s Global Medicaid Waiver was released on Dec. 13, finding that some $22.9 million in savings had been created over three years, far below the $100 million in savings claimed by Gary Alexander, former Secretary of the R.I. Office of Health and Human Services under former Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s administration…”
• Pa.’s drop in Medicaid rolls stirs controversy, By Don Sapatkin, December 15, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Since August, the Corbett administration has cut off more than 150,000 people - including 43,000 children - from medical assistance in a drive to save costs. That purge far exceeds what any other state has tried, health policy experts say, and officials may be walking a fine line between rooting out waste and erecting barriers to care for the poor and disabled. When most states were experiencing flat or rising Medicaid enrollment from the economic downturn, stepped-up eligibility reviews in Pennsylvania began producing a decline over the summer. The pace of cuts picked up in November, with 90,000 cases, or 4 percent, dropped in a single month. In New Jersey, enrollment increased by 391 the same month…”

Number of homeless vets down 12 percent, report says, By Steve Vogel, December 12, 2011, Washington Post: “The number of homeless veterans in the United States declined by nearly 12 percent between January 2010 and January 2011, according to figures being released Tuesday by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan called the decline ‘nothing short of extraordinary,’ given the economic conditions in the country. The annual survey found that 67,495 veterans were homeless in the United States on a single night in January 2011, nearly 9,000 fewer than the 76,329 counted in January 2010. The figures show nearly an 11 percent drop in homelessness among veterans since January 2009, when 75,609 were recorded as homeless…”

Newark’s child poverty rate spikes 32 percent in 2009-10, By Jessica Calefati, December 16, 2011, Star-Ledger: “Newark has an unemployment rate nearly twice the national average, and a report on child welfare released Thursday shows joblessnes among adults has had an outsize effect on the city’s most vulnerable residents - its children. According to the report, produced annually by the non-profit Advocates for Children of New Jersey, the poverty rate among children in Newark exploded between 2009 and 2010, increasing by 32 percent. Statewide, the figure increased eight percent. Two of every five Newark kids now live below the federal poverty line, a rate higher than it’s been in the past eight years. For a family of four, that means a median household income of less than $22,000 a year…”

Report: Reverse child welfare privatization, By Martha Stoddard and Paul Hammel, December 16, 2011, Omaha World-Herald: “Saying Nebraska is failing in its responsibilities to children, a panel of state lawmakers called Thursday for pulling back on the controversial privatization of child welfare services. In the final report from a months-long investigation, the Health and Human Services Committee proposed sweeping changes aimed at creating better outcomes for children and better financial oversight for the state. The report could mark the beginning of the end for Nebraska’s two-year-old experiment in turning over to private contractors the bulk of duties for ensuring the safety and well-being of abused and neglected children in the state. But it also sets up a potential conflict between lawmakers and Gov. Dave Heineman, who has resisted previous calls to slow or halt his administration’s privatization effort…”

Congress weighing length of jobless benefits, By Tom Raum (AP), December 14, 2011, Boston Globe: “Is there any downside to extending federal jobless benefits, as Congress is about to do? The benefits are a crucial lifeline to the longtime unemployed. But they also can be a disincentive to looking for work and prolong joblessness, economists say, as lawmakers weigh shortening them. If Congress does nothing, the current law that provides federal benefits to augment state assistance that last for only 26 weeks will expire at the end of this month. As a result, more than a million out-of-work Americans could lose their benefits in January, and a total of five million could lose them by year’s end. The Republican-led House has passed a bill that extends the coverage but gradually reduces the ceiling on federal and state benefits combined from 99 weeks to 59 weeks by mid-2012…”

1 in 2 people are poor or low-income, census shows, By Hope Yen (AP), December 15, 2011, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The latest census data depict a middle class that’s shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government’s safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families. ‘Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too ‘rich’ to qualify,’ said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty…”

• Short-staffed and budget-bare, overwhelmed state agencies are unable to keep up, By Melissa Maynard, December 13, 2011, Stateline.org: “On the face of it, the backlog the Hawaii Public Housing Authority is experiencing seems a simple matter of supply and demand. Some 11,000 families are on the authority’s waiting list, hoping against the odds that they can get one of only 6,295 public housing units. In a state where housing is notoriously expensive, the only people with a real shot at getting a unit are the homeless and survivors of domestic abuse. Even for them, the waiting can take years. ‘The waitlist is so extensive and the homeless problem is so great that a lot of people are getting preference over working families,’ explains Nicholas Birck, chief planner for the Hawaii Public Housing Authority. ‘They never make it to the top.’ But there’s another, hidden problem at play in Hawaii’s housing backlog. Lately, the authority hasn’t had enough employees to manage turnover in vacant units. As a result, 310 homes have been sitting empty, even with all the people languishing in waitlist limbo. For many of the vacant units, all it would take is a few simple repairs and a little bit of administrative work to give a family a home - and get the authority’s backlog shrinking rather than growing…”
• Anatomy of a backlog: How Vermont fell behind on adult protective services, By Melissa Maynard, December 14, 2011, Stateline.org: “Cerebral palsy does not thwart Chris Osborne’s passion for chess and all kinds of music, from hard rock to opera. But Chris, who is 25 and lives near Burlington, does depend on others to dress, feed and bathe him, as well as to clean and change his feeding tube. He can communicate only through a digital device or an eye-gaze board, which allows him to spell words by looking at the letters. Last year, Chris’ mother, Nancy Osborne, and her fiancé, Art Demarais, began to suspect that the professional caretaker living with Chris in his apartment had stopped doing key parts of his job. Sometimes, when Chris came home to visit, Nancy noticed that her son was caked in dirt and covered with rashes. Chris had made multiple trips to the emergency room to treat infections related to improper cleaning of his feeding tube. And he often complained of being hungry: Thin to begin with, Chris lost 23 pounds in six months…”
• Overcoming a backlog: How Texas conquered a mountain of food stamps applications, By Melissa Maynard, December 15, 2011, Stateline.org: “Two years ago, the 316 offices in Texas where people go to sign up for food stamps were the very image of a government backlog. Long lines of frustrated people, many of them hungry, snaked through dingy spaces designed to handle much smaller crowds. The back offices weren’t much better. Desks of state employees were littered with piles of applications - in boxes under workers’ desks and stacked on top of them - that hadn’t yet been entered into the state’s computer systems. Texas was the worst state in the country at performing a straightforward task: giving food stamp applicants a yes or no within 30 days in normal cases and 7 days for emergency cases. That’s the standard set by the federal government, which oversees the state-run program. According to state data, at the height of the backlog in November 2009, Texas processed only 57.5 percent of new applications on time. In reality, the problem was much worse because stacks of pending applications weren’t properly being counted as part of the problem…”

Aid for child care drops when it is needed most, By Sabrina Tavernise, December 13, 2011, New York Times: “With states under pressure to cut their budgets and federal stimulus money gone, low-income working parents are facing a paradox. Just when they have to work longer hours to make ends meet, they are losing access to the thing they need most to stay on the job: a government subsidy that helps pay for child care. The subsidy, a mix of federal and state funds that reimburses child care providers on behalf of families, is critical to the lives of poor women. But it has been eaten away over the years by inflation and growing need and recently by state budget cuts, leaving parents struggling to find other arrangements to stay employed…”

More custodial parents fall below poverty line as child support payment rates drop, By Marjorie Cortez, December 11, 2011, Deseret News: “A growing number of custodial parents fell below the poverty line in 2009 as fewer received the full amount of child support owed to them. A new Census Bureau report showed that nationwide, 41.2 percent of noncustodial parents received the full amount of child support owed them in 2009, down from 46.8 percent in 2007. The report, ‘Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2009,’ also found that the proportion of parents owed child support and received either full or partial payments fell from 76.3 percent to 70.8 percent over the same period…”

• Report: Child homelessness up 33% in 3 years, By Marisol Bello, December 12, 2011, USA Today: “One in 45 children in the USA - 1.6 million children - were living on the street, in homeless shelters or motels, or doubled up with other families last year, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness. The numbers represent a 33% increase from 2007, when there were 1.2 million homeless children, according to a report the center is releasing Tuesday.  ’This is an absurdly high number,’ says Ellen Bassuk, president of the center. ‘What we have new in 2010 is the effects of a man-made disaster caused by the economic recession. … We are seeing extreme budget cuts, foreclosures and a lack of affordable housing.’ The report paints a bleaker picture than one by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which nonetheless reported a 28% increase in homeless families, from 131,000 in 2007 to 168,000 in 2010…”
• Child homelessness continues to rise, By Lindsay Fiori, December 14, 2011, Racine Journal Times: “Child homelessness has gone up across the nation including in Wisconsin and Racine since the Great Recession began in 2007, according to figures released Tuesday. Nationwide child homelessness went up 38 percent from the 2006-07 school year to the 2009-10 school year, the most recent year for which national data is available. During that same time, the number of homeless children in Wisconsin grew 48 percent, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Center on Family Homelessness. Locally, the number of homeless students attending Racine Unified grew 3 percent between 2006-07 and 2009-10. But 2006-07 had an usually large number of homeless students so a more accurate increase is found by looking at 2005-06 to 2009-10, when the number of homeless students increased by 26 percent, according to district data…”
• Homelessness hits families as shelters feel squeezed, By Annysa Johnson, December 12, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Robyn Greif lay beneath the covers in an Oak Creek motel, the sounds of her small children around her, thinking for the first time in days: ‘We don’t have to rush somewhere. We can feed our kids. We can shower today.’ The family of seven had driven from South Carolina in search of work for Greif’s husband, Sean, but had run out of money. They had spent three nights sleeping in their minivan because the area shelters were full. The Salvation Army paid to house them at the motel, at least through last weekend, and their prospects for permanent housing look good. But the Greifs represent a troubling trend in this time of economic turmoil: the growing number of homeless families - at a time when shelters are filled beyond capacity and state and federal dollars earmarked to run them are being cut…”
• Report: Confusion over ‘homelessness’ can mean less food aid to needy, By Pamela M. Prah, December 13, 2011, Stateline.org: “Many low-income Americans who have lost their homes to foreclosure and are living with friends could be eligible for more food stamp assistance and not even know it, says an advocacy group that is urging states to ask better questions to ensure people get the proper level of assistance. The federal food stamp program allows, but doesn’t require, states to offer a “homeless shelter deduction” that essentially increases the level of benefits for anyone without a permanent residence. Currently 26 states offer the deduction ‘and in those states, very few households claim the deduction,’ says a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C…”

New U.S. data shows continuing drop in child abuse, By David Crary (AP), December 13, 2011, USA Today: “Fears that persisting economic woes would increase child abuse in the U.S. have proved unfounded, according to the latest federal data. A comprehensive new report, to be formally unveiled Wednesday, shows overall abuse and neglect figures declining slightly between 2008 and 2010, and child fatalities dropping by 8.5 percent during that span…”

• How some states rein in charter school abuses, By Kathleen McGrory and Scott Hiaasen, December 10, 2011, Miami Herald: “Florida’s charter school law, which makes it easy to open charter schools and difficult to monitor them, has spurred a multimillion dollar industry and a school boom - all while leading to chronic governance problems and a higher-than-average rate of school failure. Nationally, about 12 percent of all charter schools that have opened in the past two decades have shut down, according to the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance & Governance. In Florida, the failure rate is double, state records show…”
• Florida charter schools: big money, little oversight, By Scott Hiaasen and Kathleen McGrory, December 10, 2011, Miami Herald: “Preparing for her daughter’s graduation in the spring, Tuli Chediak received a blunt message from her daughter’s charter high school: Pay us $600 or your daughter won’t graduate. She also received a harsh lesson about charter schools: Sometimes they play by their own rules. During the past 15 years, Florida has embarked on a dramatic shift in public education, steering billions in taxpayer dollars from traditional school districts to independently run charter schools. What started as an educational movement has turned into one of the region’s fastest-growing industries, backed by real-estate developers and promoted by politicians. But while charter schools have grown into a $400-million-a-year business in South Florida, receiving about $6,000 in taxpayer dollars for every student enrolled, they continue to operate with little public oversight. Even when charter schools have been caught violating state laws, school districts have few tools to demand compliance…”
• Profits and questions at online charter schools, By Stephanie Saul, December 12, 2011, New York Times: “By almost every educational measure, the Agora Cyber Charter School is failing. Nearly 60 percent of its students are behind grade level in math. Nearly 50 percent trail in reading. A third do not graduate on time. And hundreds of children, from kindergartners to seniors, withdraw within months after they enroll. By Wall Street standards, though, Agora is a remarkable success that has helped enrich K12 Inc., the publicly traded company that manages the school. And the entire enterprise is paid for by taxpayers. Agora is one of the largest in a portfolio of similar public schools across the country run by K12. Eight other for-profit companies also run online public elementary and high schools, enrolling a large chunk of the more than 200,000 full-time cyberpupils in the United States…”
• New Mexico legislators look to curb charter school costs, By Ben Wieder, December 12, 2011, Stateline.org: “One of Albuquerque’s charter schools, Academia de Lengua Y Cultura, offers a dual-language middle-school curriculum, with teachers in some classes giving lessons in English and Spanish on alternating days. Across town, the Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School, which takes students from sixth grade through high school, emphasizes seminar discussions and offers advanced international diplomas. The Southwest Secondary Learning Center, meanwhile, reinforces math, science and engineering lessons by allowing students to maintain and fly real airplanes. They represent three of New Mexico’s more than 80 charter schools. While some of those schools look and act like private institutions - their leaders have freedom to run them as they see fit as long as students meet state standards - they are part of the public school system, charge no tuition and receive nearly all of their funding from state monies. But unlike other states, where average per-student funding for charters is typically lower than it is for other public schools, a legislative report released last month found that charters in New Mexico receive an average of 26 percent more funding per student than traditional public schools. The report suggested that lawmakers change how schools are funded to address that…”
• Number of charter school students soars to 2 million as states pass laws encouraging expansion, Associated Press, December 7, 2011, Washington Post: “The number of students attending charter schools has soared to more than 2 million as states pass laws lifting caps and encouraging their expansion, according to figures released Wednesday. The growth represents the largest increase in enrollment over a single year since charter schools were founded nearly two decades ago. In all, more than 500 new charter schools were opened in the 2011-12 school year. And about 200,000 more students are enrolled now than a year before, an increase of 13 percent nationwide…”
• More whites drawn to charter schools, By Jennifer Smith Richards, December 12, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “Charter schools statewide and in Franklin County have become much more racially diverse over the past decade, state enrollment data show. In the 2000-01 school year, when charters still were new in Ohio, 87 percent of the 748 Franklin County charter students were members of minorities. In the 2010-11 school year, roughly 33,000 students attended local charters, and 63 percent were nonwhite. The local shift mirrors one statewide, where the total percentage of black, Latino, Asian, American Indian and multiracial students has dropped from 86 percent to about 60 percent in the past 10 years. The reason for the shift, experts say, is twofold: Parents now have more charter schools from which to choose, which makes the option attractive to a wider range of parents. And many schools now are marketing to suburban families instead of focusing on students from urban districts such as Columbus…”

• Dave Camp: Bill would reduce federal unemployment benefits, crackdown on welfare fraud and abuse, and create jobs, By Barrie Barber, December 12, 2011, Saginaw News: “U.S. Rep. Dave Camp has introduced broad legislation to reduce the maximum number of weeks of federal unemployment compensation, extend a payroll tax holiday, reform some Medicare provisions and extend a welfare program set to expire at the end of the year. Camp, R-Midland, said the provisions, among other changes, would encourage employers to hire new employees, and crackdown on fraud and abuse in welfare and tax credit programs…”
• Unemployment benefits remain hot topic in Michigan, By Tim Martin (AP), Detroit Free Press: “In Michigan, where the unemployment rate has soared above the national average for years, any proposal with the potential to affect jobless benefits stirs emotions at the state Capitol. That’s certainly the case with Republican-sponsored legislation recently approved by the Senate and awaiting a vote in the House. The bills would help stabilize Michigan’s sagging unemployment trust fund, which because of the high jobless rate has shelled out more money in benefits than it has collected in payments from employers financing the system. Michigan has borrowed money from the federal government to help make jobless benefit payments, racking up a $3 billion debt…”
• Unemployment benefits on the chopping block in D.C., By Daniel Malloy and Dan Chapman, December 12, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Laid off from her temp job in Virginia last March, Lynette Green moved with her two kids to Atlanta in June in search of a job. She ran through her state unemployment payments and got a federal extension. ‘The benefits are very important; they help me pay my bills,’ said Green, 32, who lives in Atlanta’s West End and finally found work three weeks ago. ‘I used the money mainly for my kids, for their transportation and clothing when they started school.’ Extended federal unemployment benefits, which can last up to 73 weeks, expire Dec. 31. The U.S. House will vote Tuesday on continuing to pay the benefits through January 2013. Supporters of the extension say it’s needed in the toughest job market in generations. Those who want to reduce the benefits, mainly Republicans, say payments that can run nearly two years are disincentives to work…”
• The state of the long-term unemployed, By John Ydstie, December 12, 2011, National Public Radio: “Millions of Americans wake up each morning without a job, even though they desperately want to work. It’s one of the depressing legacies of the financial crisis and Great Recession. NPR and the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted a poll of people who had been unemployed or with an insufficient level of work for more than a year. The results document the financial, emotional and physical effects of long-term unemployment and underemployment. The federal government currently counts 5.7 million Americans as long-term unemployed, which it defines as people out of work for 27 weeks or more. The NPR/Kaiser poll used a slightly different measure, surveying people out of work for a year or more…”

Why the US teen birthrate hit a record low in 2010, By Jennifer Skalka Tulumello, December 12, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Increased use of birth control, and, some say, other wide-ranging variables such as abstinence-only education and a poor economy, are playing key roles in driving the US teen birthrate to a record low, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reported in November that the rate declined 9 percent from 2009 to 2010, with 34.3 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19. That marks the largest single-year drop since 1946-47 - and the lowest level ever reported in the United States. Teenage birthrates have tracked a relatively steady downward trend since 1991, when the rate was 61.8 births per 1,000 teens. (The rates were 52.2 in 1981, 64.5 in 1971, and 88.6 in 1961.)…”

Economic mobility has fallen, study says, By Walter Hamilton, December 1, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “There’s nothing more American than going from rags to riches. Or so the image goes. The reality, according to a recent study, is far less rosy. The ability to go from poor to rich - or at least to climb out of poverty - has become much harder to do in the last three decades, according to an analysis by Wells Fargo Securities. The percentage of low-income people who moved up the economic ladder slowed sharply from 1980 to 2009, compared with the previous dozen years, the study found. The drop in economic mobility, combined with recently declining government aid to the poor, has left many Americans with no way to dig themselves out of poverty…”

Northeast states cut heating aid to poor, By Andrew Miga (AP), December 11, 2011, Boston Globe: “Mary Power is 92 and worried about surviving another frigid New England winter because deep cuts in federal home heating assistance benefits mean she probably can’t afford enough heating oil to stay warm. She lives in a drafty trailer in Boston’s West Roxbury neighborhood and gets by on $11,148 a year in pension and Social Security benefits. Her heating aid help this year will drop from $1,035 to $685. With rising heating oil prices, it probably will cost her more than $3,000 for enough oil to keep warm unless she turns her thermostat down to 60 degrees, as she plans. ‘I will just have to crawl into bed with the covers over me and stay there,’ said Power, a widow who worked as a cashier and waitress until she was 80. ‘I will do what I have to do.’ Thousands of poor people across the Northeast are bracing for a difficult winter with substantially less home heating aid coming from the federal government…”

SF becomes first US city to top $10 minimum wage, By Beth Duff-Brown (AP), December 12, 2011, San Francisco Chronicle: “David Frias works two minimum-wage jobs to squeak by in one of the most expensive cities in America. Come New Year’s Day, he’ll have a few more coins in his pocket as San Francisco makes history by becoming the first city in the nation to scale a $10 minimum wage. The city’s hourly wage for its lowest-paid workers will hit $10.24, more than $2 above the California minimum wage and nearly $3 more than the working wage set by the federal government. It won’t put much more in Frias’ wallet. But it gives him a sense of moving on up…”

• Maine gov seeks Medicaid cuts to bridge budget gap, By Glenn Adams (AP), December 6, 2011, Boston Globe: “Saying Maine cannot afford one of the country’s most generous Medicaid programs over the long term, Gov. Paul LePage on Tuesday proposed tougher eligibility standards and other changes that would leave more than 60,000 people without coverage they are now receiving. In a news conference Tuesday, LePage said an analysis of state spending in current fiscal year, which ends in June, shows a shortfall of $120 million in Medicaid, known in the state as MaineCare. The shortfall for the 2012-13 fiscal year is an additional $101 million ‘that we know of,’ he said, creating a $221 million gap. The 361,000 people now on Medicaid ‘is pushing one-third of our population,’ said the Republican governor, while the national average is about 20 percent…”
• Medicaid, seniors’ tax break loom over Colorado’s next budget, By Tim Hoover, December 11, 2011, Denver Post: “Gov. John Hickenlooper helped end a standoff over the state budget between Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the last legislative session, but a fiscal fracas shaping up for 2012 may prove much harder to quell. That’s because this time the Democratic governor himself is squarely in the middle of it, recommending a 2012-13 budget that would suspend a property tax break for seniors that would cost the state $98.6 million. The Senior Homestead Exemption allows Coloradans 65 and older who have lived in their homes for at least 10 years to exempt 50 percent of the first $200,000 of the property value of their homes from taxes. But Republicans say they don’t want to delay the tax break for additional years. Instead, they say, Hickenlooper should be trying to seek a federal waiver to trim the cost of Medicaid, the state and federally funded health care program for the poor that takes nearly a third of the state’s general fund…”
• State Medicaid cuts concern clients, By JoAnne Young, December 10, 2011, Lincoln Journal Star: “Ron and Laura Trautman tried to have a baby for 10 years before Christopher and Adam were born May 17, 2007. One of the twins, Christopher, was born with multiple birth defects. His physical problems kept him in Omaha Children’s Hospital for 15 months. So far, he’s had 29 surgeries, with more to come. At 4, he still has a tracheostomy and eats through a gastrostomy button feeding device. He’s about three years behind in development. ‘With all the surgeries he’s had, we’re lucky to have him,’ his dad said. Medicaid helps the Waverly family with nursing care for Christopher so the parents can work and go to school…”

Unemployment benefit applications fall to 9-month low, latest sign of improving job market, Associated Press, December 8, 2011, Washington Post: “A steady decline in the number of people applying for weekly unemployment benefits is the latest signal that the economy has strengthened and businesses may be poised to step up hiring. Applications fell last week fell to a seasonally adjusted 381,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s the lowest level since late February. And a four-week average for applications, which smooths week-to-week fluctuations, fell for the ninth time in 11 weeks to an eight-month low. The downward trend in unemployment benefit applications bolsters the view that the economy has improved from its spring slump, when many feared another recession was likely. Consumer confidence is up, retailers reported a strong start to the holiday shopping season and the unemployment rate fell last month to its lowest point in two and a half years…”

Feds OK some Medicaid changes, but thousands could lose coverage, By Patrick Marley and Jason Stein, December 9, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Federal officials on Friday gave preliminary approval to some of Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed cuts to Wisconsin health-care programs for the poor but said they likely couldn’t decide on other cuts before the new year - an outcome that could force tens of thousands of people off BadgerCare Plus next year. On Nov. 10, the state asked President Barack Obama’s administration to sign off on spending cuts to Medicaid programs like BadgerCare Plus to relieve a $554 million deficit in state and federal money through June 2013. State lawmakers this summer gave the Walker administration broad authority to balance the health-care budget but said if the federal government didn’t approve the state’s plan by Dec. 31 the state must remove 53,000 childless adults from the program by July to save money…”

• Feds crack down on FoodShare fraud on social media websites, By Jason Stein, December 6, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Federal officials unveiled new rules Tuesday to crack down on fraud in public food benefits, including targeting illegal sales on social media sites and investigating recipients who report their cards lost repeatedly. The Journal Sentinel reported in June that area residents had offered to buy and sell benefits on sites such as Facebook. A state official also said Tuesday that one Wisconsin resident has already been disqualified from the state’s food assistance program for using social media to sell benefits. A U.S. Department of Agriculture official said Tuesday that his agency was taking action after Internet trafficking of food assistance benefits had been highlighted by both the media and state officials around the country…”
• Food stamp use on the rise, By Phil Izzo, December 6, 2011, Wall Street Journal: “Food-stamp use jumped in the U.S. in September as 11 states tapped into the program for disaster assistance. Food stamp rolls have risen 7.8% in the past year, the Department of Agriculture reported, though the pace of growth has slowed from the depths of the recession…”

California’s healthcare spending per person among lowest in U.S., By Duke Helfand, December 7, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “For more evidence that the Golden State has lost some of its luster, consider this news from the federal government: California spends less per person on healthcare than all but eight states. New data show that total spending by insurers, government agencies and individuals amounted to $6,238 per resident in 2009, well below the national average of $6,815. That puts California on a bottom tier with Arkansas, Georgia, Texas, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Idaho. Healthcare analysts blame the low spending largely on the fact that the state has more than 7 million people who are uninsured, or about 1 in 5 Californians. As a result, many of these people seek medical treatment only when they are severely ill or injured.Healthcare analysts blame the low spending largely on the fact that the state has more than 7 million people who are uninsured, or about 1 in 5 Californians. As a result, many of these people seek medical treatment only when they are severely ill or injured…”

New Louisiana Medicaid system needs oversight board, watchdog group says, By Bill Barrow, December 8, 2011, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “The leaders of an independent public policy group raised questions Thursday about whether Gov. Bobby Jindal’s overhaul of the Louisiana Medicaid program can yield the predicted savings without curtailing needed health care services for beneficiaries. In a comprehensive report, the Louisiana Public Affairs Research Council called for the Legislature to take an active role in oversight of the Bayou Health program that will shift about 900,000 Medicaid recipients and about $2 billion annually to privately run managed-care networks. The PAR report prompted a quick rebuttal from Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein. Jindal’s top health care lieutenant framed the governor’s signature health care as nearly sure bet to improve health outcomes and said it is set up to operate with as much or more transparency an accountability as any state Medicaid system around the country…”

• Income gap stays wide in District, narrows in suburbs, By Carol Morello and Ted Mellnik, December 7, 2011, Washington Post: “The income gap between whites and blacks living in the District is one of the widest in the country, new census statistics show. That stands in stark contrast to the Washington suburbs, where the gaps have become some of the nation’s narrowest. The per capita income for whites in the District is more than triple what it is for blacks, and the difference has only widened since 1990. In several suburbs, including Prince George’s, Loudoun and Stafford counties, incomes for blacks and whites are closer than ever, and today whites earn $1.30 or less for every $1 that blacks earn. Demographers and city activists say the difference reflects four decades of upper- and middle-class blacks abandoning the city for the suburbs, coupled with a more recent resurgence of affluent whites moving to the District. Some speak of the city’s middle class as a vanishing phenomenon, propelled in part by rising housing prices…”
• Census: Widening income gap as blacks leave cities, By Hope Yen (AP), December 8, 2011, Detroit News: “Affluent black Americans who are leaving industrial cities for the suburbs and the South are shifting traditional lines between rich and poor, according to new census data. Their migration is widening the income gap between whites and the inner-city blacks who remain behind, while making blacks less monolithic as a group and subject to greater income disparities. ‘Reverse migration is changing the South and its race relations,’ said Roderick Harrison, a Howard University sociologist and former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau. He said a rising black middle class is promoting a growing belief among some black conservatives that problems of the disadvantaged are now rooted more in character or cultural problems, rather than race. But Harrison said most black Americans maintain a strong racial identity, focused on redressing perceived lack of opportunities, in part because many of them maintain close ties to siblings or other blacks who are less successful…”

• Students in big-city schools show gains in latest NAEP ‘report card’, By Amanda Paulson, December 7, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Students in America’s largest cities are making gains in math, in many cases faster than students in the nation as a whole. Reading scores in those large cities - just as in the nation - have largely remained flat for the past two years. And in some cities - including Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, and Houston - students have made particularly striking gains over the past eight years, while in other cities progress has lagged…”
• D.C. schools have largest black-white achievement gap in federal study, By Lyndsey Layton, December 7, 2011, Washington Post: “D.C. public schools have the largest achievement gap between black and white students among the nation’s major urban school systems, a distinction laid bare in a federal study released Wednesday. The District also has the widest achievement gap between white and Hispanic students, the study found, compared with results from other large systems and the national average. The study is based on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, federal reading and math exams taken this year by fourth- and eighth-graders across the country…”
• DPS ratings on national report card rise, but still among worst big cities in reading, math, By Chastity Pratt Dawsey, December 7, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “The Detroit Public Schools scores on the Nation’s Report Card have inched up, but the district continues to rank worst among large cities in reading and math, results released today show. DPS fourth- and eighth-grade students were among those in 21 cities that took the rigorous National Assessment of Educational Progress tests this year as part of the Trial Urban District Assessment…”
• Some New York City scores drop in U.S. student tests, By Winnie Hu, December 7, 2011, New York Times: “New York City students scored slightly lower on federal math tests this year compared with 2009, according to scores released Wednesday morning, even as scores of their counterparts in other big cities inched upward. The results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation’s report card, showed that the city’s fourth-grade math average dropped 3 points to 234 (on a scale of 500) from 2009, the last time the exams were taken. While federal education officials cautioned that the changes were too small to be significant, that dip diverged from the trend nationally and for other large cities. In 2011, the average fourth-grade math score rose by one point nationally, and two points for cities with populations of 250,000 or more…”
• Baltimore students remain in bottom third on test vs. other cities, By Liz Bowie, December 7, 2011, Baltimore Sun: “Baltimore’s scores on a rigorous national math and reading test were in the bottom third of other large urban school districts across the country, though students showed some progress in math. The scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress were released Wednesday morning at a press conference at City Springs Elementary and Middle School in Baltimore…”

• Researchers warn proposed changes to Florida’s Medicad could drop 600,000 poor children from rolls, By Sonja Isger, December 7, 2011, Palm Beach Post: “Proposed changes to the state’s Medicaid program that would have parents pay a monthly $10 premium per person for coverage threatens to undo the strides Florida has made in getting health care to the state’s poorest children, researchers warned Wednesday. The premium, combined with several other changes state lawmakers approved last session but that await a federal OK, could lead to 800,000 parents and children leaving the program, concluded a team from the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University. About 82 percent of those who would drop out of Medicaid coverage would be children, 98 percent of whom live below federal poverty levels, the report stated…”
• Study: Fla. Medicaid premiums too high, By Kelli Kennedy (AP), December 7, 2011, Miami Herald: “New premiums and copay proposals for Florida Medicaid beneficiaries, including $100 for every non-emergency ER visit, are among the highest in the country and a new study warns it could cause hundreds of thousands to drop out because they can’t afford to pay them, according to a report released Wednesday by Georgetown University…”

• In Ohio’s poorest county, people do what it takes, By Jessica Alaimo, December 4, 2011, Coshocton Tribune: “Brock Brewster’s truck dominated the single-lane road in western Pike County and rumbled over an extension cord. This extension cord has been strung across this Latham road for two years. It powers the lights of a white-and-brown trailer, using the electricity from a home across the road. It’s the only source of electricity for the trailer’s owner, who said she uses it to power her lights. She uses a wood stove to stay warm…”
• The new poor: Situational poverty on the rise locally, By Kristina Smith Horn, December 3, 2011, Port Clinton News Herald: “For most of his life, Gilbert Turner was a successful businessman. At 16, his family moved from Mississippi to Danbury Township, where he worked two jobs — one at U.S. Gypsum and one at the now-closed Standard Products. Turner worked hard, saved his money and built a prosperous hotel and restaurant business in Port Clinton and Toledo that he ran with his wife. Turner, who still retains a bit of the Southern drawl of his youth, reminisces about buying a new car in the 1940s and parking it in downtown Port Clinton…”
• Education a fresh start for those in poverty, By Kurt Moore, December 6, 2011, Marion Star: “When Kalya Wiseman got pregnant as a teen, her first plan was to be a young housewife. ‘It totally didn’t work out,’ she said. The search was on for a new plan. ‘I realized I needed to get an education so I could go to college and have a better life for me and my son.’ Wiseman, 20, is among students enrolled at Marion County Jobs for Ohio’s Graduates. Its students refer to it as their second chance, and sometimes as their only hope as many struggle to not fall into a cycle of poverty…”
• Poverty: Charity care on rise in county, By Leonard Hayhurst, December 6, 2011, Coshocton Tribune: “Coshocton Hospital won’t turn a patient away. But with the economy still struggling, fewer come in with adequate medical insurance or the money to pay. Uncompensated care at the hospital has risen more than $3 million since 2008, hospital spokeswoman Mary Ellen Given said. Factoring inpatient and outpatient charity care and cases where the hospital absorbed the leftover cost from Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, the hospital spent $8.8 million in 2010 for uncompensated care compared with $7.1 million in 2009 and $5.1 million in 2008…”
• Poverty: Mental illnesses compound issue, By Russ Zimmer, December 5, 2011, Lancaster Eagle Gazette: “Tim Schrack walks 20 minutes, rain or shine, to his second-shift job coating and shipping seat-belt brackets. He’s estranged from almost his entire family and on his own for the first time in his 56 years of life. Schrack is bipolar, a condition he’s ignored — to his detriment — for decades. Schrack, by his own account, is the happiest he’s ever been. ‘I just never thought I could make it on my own,’ a grinning Schrack said inside his new apartment…”
• More Licking County kids getting lunch aid, By Seth Roy, December 4, 2011, Newark Advocate: “The soles of a student’s shoes were coming apart one day at school, and a teacher asked when he might get a new pair. ‘He said, ‘We’re poor; we can’t get new shoes,” Stevenson Elementary art teacher Shannon Montgomery said. ‘At this age, the kids are much more open about it.’ Schools across the country have seen their population of students in poverty rise in recent years. Heath’s population of students receiving free or reduced price lunches rose from 26 percent to 37 percent from 2006 to 2010; 42 percent of Stevenson’s population receives some lunch assistance…”
• Seasonal employment makes winter difficult, By Kristina Smith Horn, December 5, 2011, News-Messenger: “Each year, Val Kochensparger is laid off from her job just before Christmas. She collects unemployment for 8 to 10 weeks, and she and her husband rely on his income to help get them through the winter. When the ice clears off Lake Erie, usually in March, Kochensparger goes back to her job managing the ticket booth at the Miller Boat Line on Catawba Island…”

• 160,000 jobless Michiganders at risk of losing safety net, By Katharine Yung, December 5, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Unless Congress acts to continue extended unemployment benefits, it could be a grim holiday season for nearly 160,000 Michiganders. An end to the extended benefits would immediately impact 61,000 state residents who are getting this federal aid after exhausting their 26 weeks of state-funded assistance. Another 98,743 people who are receiving state benefits would no longer get additional help if they are still jobless after 26 weeks…”
• Jobless benefits a holiday uncertainty, By Catharine Candisky, December 4, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “For the second year in a row, thousands of unemployed Ohioans face the holidays uncertain about whether their jobless benefits will continue into the new year. Nearly 77,000 jobless Ohioans - more than a quarter of whom rely on unemployment to pay their mortgages, utility bills and grocery bills - will exhaust benefits in early January unless Congress agrees to fund another extension of federal assistance. By early April, 107,000 more workers would fall off the rolls, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said…”
• Clock ticking on Mainers’ unemployment benefits, By Susan McMillan, December 4, 2011, Morning Sentinel: “Maine is bracing for a new wave of need as extended federal unemployment benefits near their end. If Congress does not reauthorize extended benefits, 17,000 Mainers will see their benefits run out by May, Department of Labor spokesman Adam Fisher said. The department and its 12 regional Career Centers will increase outreach to unemployment claimants and add workshops to help the long-term unemployed find work…”

• Poverty rate in Asheville area rises faster than the nation’s, By Mark Barrett, December 4, 2011, Asheville Citizen-Times: “The Great Recession pushed Buncombe County residents into poverty more rapidly than Americans as a whole, U.S. Census Bureau figures suggest. Buncombe County’s poverty rate reached 17.1 percent last year while the national rate stood at 15.3 percent, according to Census Bureau estimates released last week. That’s a switch from the middle of the last decade, when the poverty rate in Buncombe was lower than the national rate…”
• Poverty in county on rapid rise, By Uriel J. Garcia, December 4, 2011, Arizona Daily Sun: “Almost all Arizona counties have seen a rise in poverty rates during the recession, and six — including Coconino County — posted ’statistically significant’ increases, according to statistics released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The increases in poverty levels from 2007 to 2010 were reflected in the state as a whole, where at least 1.1 million Arizonans, or 17.6 percent, were living in poverty in 2010. That was an increase from 14.1 percent in 2007. The county numbers released Tuesday showed a range of poverty rates, from 12.7 percent in Greenlee County to 34.5 percent in Apache County…”

• For jobless, little hope of restoring better days, By Motoko Rich, December 1, 2011, New York Times: “People across the working spectrum suffered job losses in recent years: bricklayers and bookkeepers as well as workers in manufacturing and marketing. But only a select few workers have fully regained their footing during the slow recovery…”
• U.S. unemployment rate falls to 8.6% in November, raising hopes for growth, By Neil Irwin, Washington Post: “The unemployment rate plummeted to its lowest level in more than two years in November, as employers hired at a steady clip, according to new report that offers hope for the job market entering the holiday season. The jobless rate fell to 8.6 percent last month, from 9 percent in October, the lowest level since the economic free-fall of March 2009, the Labor Department reported Friday morning. But the improvement in the job market was not quite as strong as that drop would suggest: About half the decline was attributed to people dropping out of the labor force, no longer counting themselves as even looking for work…”
• Signs of hope in jobs report; unemployment drops to 8.6%, By Catherine Rampell, December 2, 2011, New York Times: “Somehow the American economy appears to be getting better, even as the rest of the world is looking worse. In the midst of the European debt crisis, lingering instability in the oil-rich Middle East and concerns about a Chinese economic slowdown, the American unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped last month to 8.6 percent, its lowest level in two and a half years. The nation’s employers modestly increased their hiring, too, the Labor Department said Friday. The figures come just a few months after economists were warning that the economy’s prospects were waning…”

• One in four face fuel poverty, says Consumer Focus, December 2, 2011, BBC News: “The proportion of homes in fuel poverty in England and Wales has risen from 18% to 24% in two years, estimates suggest. Consumer Focus calculated that nearly 5.7 million households are in fuel poverty - when more than 10% of their disposable income is spent on fuel. The watchdog said the issue was particularly acute in Wales, where 41% of households were in fuel poverty…”
• One in four households suffer from fuel poverty, By Donna Bowater and James Kirkup, December 2, 2011, The Telegraph: “New calculations by Consumer Focus show more than five million households are now forced to spend more than 10 per cent of their income on heating and lighting their homes. The previous forecast of 4.1 million households was made before the big six energy suppliers increased huge price rises last summer. The figure has risen 25 per cent from last year when a fifth of homes were struggling with fuel poverty after sharp increases in energy bills in the autumn. It means the Government is unlikely to meet its legal obligation to end fuel poverty within five years…”

• Budget pressure on help for low income families with heating bills, By Brett Neely, November 30, 2011, Minnesota Public Radio: “A federal program that helps low income families pay their heating bill is coming under intense budget pressure. The Low Income Heating Assistance Program sent Minnesota more than $152 million last year. That money helped 172,000 households, including many seniors, the disabled and the poor, pay their heating bills. The average grant from the LIHEAP program was just over $500 for the winter. But with austerity the new buzzword in Washington, the program’s funding is drying up fast - just as many households prepare for higher heating bills…”
• A costly winter ahead for home heating oil users, By Les Christie, December 1, 2011, CNNMoney.com: “Bill McLaughlin is bracing himself for a tough winter. He and his wife, Cindy, live in Brewer, Maine and neither of them are working. Bill, who’s 59, is disabled and Cindy lost her job more than a year ago. And now the cold is setting in. During any winter in Maine, paying for the oil that heats their home is a big expense. But this winter, it will be especially taxing. The price of heating the average home with oil is expected to jump 10% this year to an average of $2,535 over the winter heating season (October 1 through March 31), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). That’s 45% higher than just two years ago, when the average bill was just $1,752…”

Lines grow long for free school meals, thanks to economy, By Sam Dillon, November 29, 2011, New York Times: “Millions of American schoolchildren are receiving free or low-cost meals for the first time as their parents, many once solidly middle class, have lost jobs or homes during the economic crisis, qualifying their families for the decades-old safety-net program. The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture, which administers the meals program. Eleven states, including Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee, had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth. The Agriculture Department has not yet released data for September and October…”

Latin America poverty level lowest in 20 years, says UN, November 30, 2011, BBC News: “Poverty in Latin America is at its lowest level for 20 years, the UN’s regional economic body, Eclac, says. From 1990 to 2010, the rate fell from 48.4% to 31.4%, which means 177 million people currently live in poverty. Eclac says the main reason for the reduction in poverty and inequality is the rise in household incomes. But progress is hindered by the big gaps between productive and better paid sectors and work that is poorly paid and of low productivity, Eclac says…”