- Poverty strikes a smaller percentage in southeast Louisiana in wake of Hurricane Katrina, By Katy Reckdahl, June 28, 2012, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “Southeast Louisiana bucked national trends and became less poor than it was a decade ago, largely because of new investment due to rebuilding efforts and because of the post-Hurricane Katrina diaspora, which forced many of the city’s poor families to find housing outside the region, according to an analysis of U.S. census data released Thursday by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. Calling the post-Katrina exodus ‘the largest population displacement since the Dust Bowl,’ the study noted that it ‘changed the map of poverty’ in the 13-parish region considered southeast Louisiana. Between 1999 and 2010, parishes that flooded after Katrina lost thousands of their poor residents: Orleans Parish lost 50,000, St. Bernard lost 4,000 and Plaquemines lost nearly 2,400. But the rest of the region showed little increase in poverty, suggesting that most poor people relocated outside the region…”
- Poverty strikes health, education across region, By Andrew Nash, June 28, 2012, Pittsburg Morning Sun: “The freezers at the Wesley House are running out of meat. One freezer contains just five packages of hot dogs, while another freezer holds three small packages of edamame beans and one package of deer hamburger. All told, freezers that should be full are empty and becoming more empty. These freezers are supposed to be full of proteins for those who need it – a surprisingly large number in this region. These pantries tend to get low from time to time during the year, but the cupboards are bare a little earlier this year. Bare cupboards and freezers at the Wesley House are just one symptom of an ongoing problem in the Four States region. Declining health statistics and poor economic conditions are two more symptoms. The pervasive problem in this region is poverty, and it’s not going to go away. Pick any figure that details the impoverished, and those in Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri will be among the worst of the bunch…”
Monthly Archives: June 2012
Student Homelessness in the US
Latest report: More than 1 million U.S. students are homeless, By Kate Santich, June 28, 2012, Orlando Sentinel: “In recent years, you’ve heard a lot about the growing number of homeless students in Central Florida’s public schools. But the problem isn’t limited to our region — or our state. Sadly, data released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Education show that, for the first time in history, the nation’s public schools reported more than 1 million homeless students. The number includes children enrolled in U.S. public preschools and kindergarten through 12th grade for the 2010-2011 school year. And the figure actually underestimates the number of homeless children by excluding infants, toddlers, preschool-aged children who aren’t enrolled in public programs and homeless children who are home-schooled…”
Homeless Bill of Rights – Rhode Island
Advocates: RI’s new homeless bill of rights a national model for preventing discrimination, Associated Press, June 27, 2012, Washington Post: “While cities across the nation enact laws against panhandling and outdoor sleeping, Rhode Island is being held up as a national model for protecting homeless individuals from discrimination. Advocates say the state’s new homeless bill of rights goes further than any other law in the nation to prevent discrimination against people who lack housing. The new law prohibits governments, police, healthcare workers, landlords or employers from treating homeless people unfairly because of their housing status…”
More on the Health Care Ruling and Medicaid
- Court’s decision could widen Medicaid gap, By Noam N. Levey, June 29, 2012, L.A. Times: “ President Obama, in his drive for a national healthcare overhaul, strove to provide a new guarantee that all Americans, no matter where they live, would have basic protection against sickness and disease, ending decades of variation among states. The Supreme Court did not dismantle that guarantee Thursday. But while upholding the Affordable Care Act, the court opened the door to something the president and other champions of the law sought to avoid — widening disparities between red and blue states in who gets healthcare. Under the court’s ruling, states will be free to elect not to cover all of their poor residents through their Medicaid programs. That may mean liberal states that have embraced the healthcare law such as California, Illinois and Maryland will effectively offer all of their residents health coverage. . .”
- Health Care ruling clears path for Colo. exchanges, By Ivan Morenokristen Wyatt, June 29, 2012, Businessweek: “Colorado Republicans who decried Thursday’s health care ruling said the state did the right thing by beginning to create insurance exchanges required under the law, rather than waiting for the federal government to create one. Democrats said that the decision clears the path for Colorado’s health plans and that Colorado more than other states would have been tripped up if the health law had been axed. State lawmakers last year created the Colorado Health Benefit Exchange, which forms a virtual marketplace to allow individuals and groups the ability to purchase health insurance at discounts like those in larger risk pools. About 13 percent of the state, or 656,000 state residents, had no health insurance as of 2011. . .”
- U.S. Supreme Court health care ruling leaves Medicaid expansion up to individual states, By Bill Barrow, June 28, 2012, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “In a defining moment in U.S. Supreme Court history, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberal bloc Thursday to announce a 5-4 decision upholding the most hotly debated provision of President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul. To do so, the Roberts majority framed the requirement for all Americans to purchase health insurance, along with an IRS penalty for not complying, as a tax, not the argument the administration preferred but enough to leave in place the linchpin of the insurance market changes. . .”
Health Care Ruling and Medicaid
- Uncertainty over whether states will choose to expand Medicaid, By Robert Pear, June 28, 2012, New York Times: “After the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a huge expansion of Medicaid in the 2010 health care law was an option and not a requirement for states, experts disagreed on whether states would take the option. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who is an opponent of the health law, predicted that many states would choose not to expand Medicaid. Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University professor who supports the law, predicted that ‘only a small number of states’ would pass up the expansion, given the generous financial terms of the deal authorized by Congress. And Matt D. Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, which represents state officials, said his initial sense was that many states would accept the expansion…”
- Supreme Court ruling to aid poor, uninsured — and California’s budget, By Chad Terhune, June 28, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “With the federal healthcare law upheld, California stands to receive as much as $15 billion a year to extend coverage to millions of the poor and uninsured starting in 2014, and efforts will now intensify to get ready for that influx of new patients. ‘It’s a huge undertaking ahead of us,’ said Peter Lee, executive director of the California Health Benefit Exchange, which plans to start enrollment in October 2013. ‘The biggest challenge is getting reliable information out to the uninsured.’ The state has nearly 7 million uninsured, or about 20% of the population, according to the California HealthCare Foundation…”
- Justices uphold individual mandate, set limits On Medicaid expansion, By Jordan Rau and Julie Appleby, June 28, 2012, Kaiser Health News: “The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday upheld nearly all of the landmark federal health law, affirming its mandate that most everyone carry insurance, but complicating the government’s plan to extend coverage to the poorest Americans. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. joined the court’s four liberals in upholding the mandate, the best-known and least popular part of the law. The court also upheld hundreds of other rules embedded in the law designed to help millions more Americans obtain insurance and to refashion the health care industry. But a majority of the justices voted that the government could not compel states to expand Medicaid, the federal and state program for the poor, by threatening to withhold federal money to existing Medicaid programs…”
- Mystery after the health care ruling: Which states will refuse Medicaid expansion?, By Charles Ornstein, June 28, 2012, ProPublica: “For many people without insurance, a key question raised by the Supreme Court’s decision today to uphold the Affordable Care Act is whether states will decline to participate in the law’s big Medicaid expansion. Although the court upheld the law’s mandate requiring individuals to buy insurance, the justices said the act could not force states to expand Medicaid to millions by threatening to withhold federal funding. Republican leaders of some states already are saying they are inclined to say thanks, but no thanks…”
- Health ruling won’t cure states’ ills, By Louise Radnofsky, Thomas M. Burton and Jennifer Levitz, June 28, 2012, Wall Street Journal: “No matter how the Supreme Court rules Thursday on the federal health-care law, states will face huge struggles paying for ballooning health expenses and swelling uninsured populations-a problem that has prompted some states to draft their own overhaul plans. In its most highly anticipated decision in years, the court is expected to determine the fate of President Barack Obama’s 2010 law by Thursday morning. The historic ruling could reshape the health-care industry, shift legal precedent and amplify the already-divisive role health care has played in this year’s elections. But for states, any outcome still leaves them poorly equipped to tackle an issue that has become one of their biggest financial headaches. The Medicaid program for low-income Americans takes up twice as large a share of their state budgets as it did 25 years ago and is crowding out education spending in places…”
Legal Defense for the Poor – Iowa, Michigan
- Iowa’s costs for defending poor rise, By Vanessa Miller, June 28, 2012, Cedar Rapids Gazette: “Just a handful of basic questions stand between accused criminals claiming to be indigent and trained attorneys willing to fight for them in court. Do you have a job? How much do you earn? How much are your monthly bills? Most of the time, according to legal experts and court officials, accused offenders applying for court-appointed attorneys answer truthfully – they are signing the paperwork under penalty of perjury after all. But, according to officials within the state’s judicial system, there is no systematic procedure in place to verify that recipients of court-appointed counsel are being honest about their finances. That means some of the accused could be taking advantage of an indigent defense system that is largely supported by taxpayers and already spread thin, with the gap between what is spent on public defense and what is paid back by accused offenders widening…”
- Poor people aren’t getting equal shake in court, governor’s panel warns, By Pat Shellenbarger, June 26, 2012, MLive.com: “Fridays in Ottawa County’s courts — when criminal defendants often are arraigned without legal representation — are referred to as ‘McJustice Days.’ In Sault Ste. Marie, attorneys representing the poor have little time to prepare and wait in line to meet with their clients in the courthouse’s unisex bathroom. In Wayne County, court-appointed attorneys haven’t received a raise in decades and say they often take on more cases than they can handle. And in a report approved June 22, the Michigan Advisory Commission on Indigent Defense urged the Legislature and Gov. Rick Snyder to increase funding and implement statewide standards for the state’s system of providing attorneys for indigent criminal defendants — a system that has been criticized as one of the worst in the country…”
Welfare-to-Work Program – California
California lawmakers again waging political warfare over welfare, By Chris Megerian, June 24, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “The bitter welfare battles that gripped American politics two decades ago were replayed in Sacramento this week, where a dispute over how hard the government should push poor people to rejoin the workforce threatened to derail the state budget plan awaiting the governor’s signature. The debate was as much about ideology as finances, and it carried particular weight in California, which has one-third of the country’s welfare recipients but only one-eighth of its total population. California’s welfare program has shrunk since President Clinton made good on his 1992 campaign promise to ‘end welfare as we know it’ by pressuring those receiving government checks to find work. But the benefits the state provides remain among the most generous and extensive in the nation, and California is one of the few states where families get monthly checks for children even if the parents are disqualified for not working or participating in other programs…”
General Assistance Program – Pennsylvania
Pa. to end program that ‘saved my life,’ man says, Associated Press, June 25, 2012, Patriot-News: “Jake Fleming had nothing: He would wash up in the bathroom of a fast-food joint and, as he tells it, didn’t have 99 cents to buy a hamburger. Determined to leave behind 30 years of alcohol and drug addiction, he entered detox for eight days in February 2008 and then lived in a recovery house while he sought daily addiction treatment for nine months. Pennsylvania’s Depression-era cash assistance program that he credits with paying his way back into the land of the living is now on Gov. Tom Corbett’s chopping block, while Republican-controlled Harrisburg is poised to shift the cash instead toward tax cuts for businesses and a business tax credit that helps subsidize private school scholarships…”
The Record Series on Poverty in Northern New Jersey
Hardship grows amid wealth: Residents face unexpected need in communities across North Jersey, By Harvy Lipman, June 24, 2012, The Record: “Karen Levi doesn’t think of herself as being poor. After all, she has a condo in Mahwah, 10 years’ experience in marketing and publishing and, before the recession struck, she was making $75,000 a year. But the fact of the matter is that Levi hasn’t had a full-time job in three years, even after returning to school last year to get her certification as a paralegal. A divorcée who supports a 20-year-old daughter in college, she took in $31,000 last year working a range of part-time jobs and collecting unemployment checks. When her jobless benefits run out for good at the end of this month, she’ll lose nearly two-thirds of her income. That will pretty much land her at the official federal poverty level of $11,170 for a single person – an amount that experts agree greatly underestimates the cost of living in a place like North Jersey…”
Homelessness – Washington, D.C.
‘Heart-wrenching’ Catch-22: Homeless families who turn to city for help find no rooms, risk child welfare inquiry, By Annie Gowen, June 23, 2012, Washington Post: “When Shakieta Smith, a homeless mother of two, called the District’s shelter hotline in March, she was told the city’s shelters were full — and then the intake worker added a chilling warning: If she and her kids had nowhere safe to sleep, she’d be reported to the city’s Child and Family Services Agency for a possible investigation into abuse and neglect. Since then Smith has spent her days looking over her shoulder and her nights worrying about her family’s uncertain future. Could Child Protective Services investigators find her and her two kids at a cousin’s apartment in Southeast, where they often stay? Would they sweep in and take Da’Quan and Da’Layah from their elementary school one afternoon? The fear haunts her. . .”
OECD 2012 U.S. Economic Survey
- OECD raises red flag on US long-term unemployment, By Lucia Mutikani, June 26, 2012, Reuters: “The lengthy spells many Americans are spending without work risk leaving a lasting scar of higher unemployment on the U.S. economy and training programs are needed to avert the damage, the OECD said on Tuesday. The warning from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development comes against the backdrop of stalled U.S. jobs growth and an uptick in the unemployment rate in May. In a report on the U.S. economy, the Paris-based OECD estimated the unemployment rate which the economy could sustain without generating inflation at 6. 1 percent, up from 5.7 percent in 2007. In May, the rate stood at 8.2 percent. ”However, structural unemployment may well already have risen more than this estimate would suggest, and there is a risk that it could increase still further, given the still high levels of long-term unemployment,” the OECD said. Before the 2007-2009 recession, many economists believed the so-called natural or structural rate of unemployment was around 5 percent. . .”
- OECD Sees U.S. Economic Growth, Stark Challenges, By Michael R. Crittenden, June 26, 2012, NASDAQ: “The U.S economic recovery may be gaining momentum, but the country faces stagnant wage growth, high comparative levels of poverty and income inequality and an educational system that provides few resources to those more likely to need help, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a new report. The OECD’s 2012 economic survey of the U.S. found that the U.S. economy has made some gains and is expected to grow moderately this year and next. A further deterioration of the European crisis or the potential for U.S. policymakers to allow for immediate sharp cuts in government spending could jeopardize the outlook, the report said. . .”
Suburban Poverty
- In suburban America, middle class begins to confront poverty, By Izhar Harpaz, June 23, 2012, NBC News: “The small communities that dot the picturesque mountain landscape outside Boulder, Colo., conjure up an image from long before the great recession. Here the manicured lawns and expensive cars are a testament to the achievements of a fiercely independent and educated middle class; a 21st century version of suburban bliss. But often these days, the closed doors of well-kept houses hide a decidedly different reality: hushed conversation about food stamps and Medicaid, depleted bank accounts and 401K’s, kitchen shelves stocked with groceries from food pantries..”
- Suburban families suffer through poverty, By Cary Aspinwall, June 25, 2012, Tulsa World: “Cindy Moore woke up one warm June morning to realize she had only a bag of rice to feed her three young grandchildren. So she and her sister drove the grandkids from Leonard to Bixby Community Outreach Center, where they received a cart full of groceries and some clothes to get by. ‘I promised my husband when he passed away that I’d take care of the family because that’s what you’re supposed to do,’ she said. ‘We might not have much, but we have love.’ Even in the area’s more affluent, rapidly growing suburbs, with relatively stable home values and employment rates, many families are hurting…”
US Households and the Recession
- Census Bureau: Millions more Americans shared households in face of recession, By Michael A. Fletcher, June 20, 2012, Washington Post: “Millions of economically pressed Americans cushioned themselves against the recession by doubling up in houses and apartments, according to a Census Bureau report released Wednesday. The number of adults sharing households with family members or other individuals jumped 11.4 percent between 2007 and 2010, the report said. Overall, such living arrangements accounted for 22 million households in 2010 – or 18.7 percent of all U.S. households, compared with 17 percent in 2007…”
- Toll of US recession: Family net worth plunged 35 percent in five years, By Mark Trumbull, June 18, 2012, Christian Science Monitor: “The toll of the great housing bust and financial crisis came into clearer focus Monday, as the Census Bureau released numbers showing a 35 percent drop in net worth for the median US household between 2005 and 2010. The numbers give a report card on the financial health of US families before and after the recession. The typical household saw its net worth – financial assets minus debts – fall from $102,844 in 2005 to $66,740 five years later, with the census giving those numbers in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars…”
Scientific American Series: Pollution, Poverty and People of Color
Scientific American Special Report: Pollution, Poverty, and People of Color:
- Living with Industry, By Jane Kay and Cheryl Katz (Environmental Health News), June 4, 2012, Scientific American: “From the house where he was born, Henry Clark can stand in his back yard and see plumes pouring out of one of the biggest oil refineries in the United States. As a child, he was fascinated by the factory on the hill, all lit up at night like the hellish twin of a fairy tale city. In the morning, he’d go out to play and find the leaves on the trees burned to a crisp…”
- Children at Risk, By Lindsey Konkel (Environmental Health News), June 6, 2012, Scientific American: “When doctors told Wanda Ford her 2-year-old son had lead poisoning, she never suspected that the backyard in her low-income neighborhood was the likely culprit. Ford knew that exposure to the heavy metal could be dangerous. So when she and her husband moved into the Lower Lincoln Street neighborhood, Ford, then pregnant, took steps to make sure their 100-year-old home was lead-free. ‘We never thought to test the soil – my son played in the backyard all the time,’ said Ford, whose son is now seven…”
- Don’t Drink the Water, By Liza Gross (Environmental Health News), June 12, 2012, Scientific American: “Jessica Sanchez sits on the edge of her seat in her mother’s kitchen, hands resting on her bulging belly. Eight months pregnant, she’s excited about the imminent birth of her son. But she’s scared too. A few feet away, her mother, Bertha Dias, scrubs potatoes with water she bought from a vending machine. She won’t use the tap water because it’s contaminated with nitrates…”
- A Michigan Tribe Battles a Global Corporation, By Brian Bienkowski (Environmental Health News), June 12, 2012, Scientific American: “Head in any direction on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and you will reach gushing rivers, placid ponds and lakes – both Great and small. An abundant resource, this water has nourished a small Native American community for hundreds of years. So 10 years ago, when an international mining company arrived near the shores of Lake Superior to burrow a mile under the Earth and pull metals out of ore, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community of the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa had to stand for its rights and its water…”
- Falling into the Climate Gap, By Doug Struck (Environmental Health News), June 19, 2012, Scientific American: “The Shore Plaza East apartments have a stunning skyline view of downtown Boston across the harbor: Waves lap at the foot of the eight-story building; sailboats carve foam trails in the water. These could be million-dollar condos. But, buffeted by winds and the threat of storm-water flooding, these apartments are subsidized housing, reserved for the poor…”
- Asthma and the Inner City, By Crystal Gammon (Environmental Health News), June 20, 2012, Scientific American: “On a clear spring day, the four-year-olds laughed as they ran out on the playground at the start of morning recess. Within minutes, one boy stopped, a terrified look on his face. Brenda Crisp and her staff immediately realized what was happening: Asthma attack…”
Food Insecurity – Mississippi
Program aims to reduce hunger in Mississippi, By Emily Wagster Pettus, June 22, 2012, Businessweek: “Mississippi has the highest obesity rate in the nation, yet it also has the highest percentage of households unable to afford enough food for a healthy lifestyle. It seems like a contradiction, but state Agriculture Commissioner Cindy Hyde-Smith says the two problems are intertwined with poverty. ”You think hunger-obesity — where’s the connection here? It’s because much of these people do not have access to healthy foods,” Hyde-Smith said Thursday during the announcement of a hunger-fighting effort. The nonprofit National Urban League and meat processor Tyson Foods Inc. are starting a yearlong program to alleviate hunger for about 19,000 people in three Mississippi counties — Hinds County, which is home to the capital city of Jackson, and Warren and Adams counties, which border the Mississippi River. . .”
States Cut Aid Programs in Budgets – California, West Virginia
- State leaders reach deal on remaining budget bills, By Wyatt Buchanan and Marisa Lagos, June 22, 2012, San Francisco Chronicle: “Another focus of negotiations was on the Cal Grants program, which provides college aid. Public university students will be spared any change, but new students at private and for-profit colleges will see that aid slashed by thousands of dollars starting in the 2013-14 academic year. The state also will impose strict graduation-rate requirements in order for schools to be part of the program. Some advocates for children immediately criticized the decision to eliminate Healthy Families. They are concerned about care being disrupted for those children if they are forced to find a new provider. They are also worried that health care access will decline for Healthy Family recipients and the 3.6 million children already in Medi-Cal, said Michele Stillwell-Parvensky, a spokeswoman for the Children’s Defense Fund. But others welcomed the change, including the Western Center on Law and Poverty. . .”
- W.Va. to cut child care, social program funding, By Lawrence Messina, June 22, 2012, Businessweek: “West Virginia plans to scale back child-care aid — freezing enrollment and then ending it for some families while increasing costs for the rest — and also will cut $9.5 million in annual funding for other social services, including a summer nutrition program for schoolchildren, state officials announced Thursday. The changes would drop an estimated 1,425 children from a program that helps their parents afford day care and other settings outside the home. The program served more than 24,000 children during the past budget year, at a cost of $54 million, according to figures provided by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources. Payment rates to day care centers and other providers won’t change. The estimate reflects income levels of current enrollees. DHHR revisits income qualifications every six months. The reasons behind the cuts vary. The state has exhausted a federal funding surplus. . .”
Medicaid and Health Care Reform Law
Medicaid’s future tied to court decision on health-care reform, By Phil Galewitz, June 19, 2012, Washington Post: “The future of the nation’s largest health insurance program – Medicaid – hangs in the balance of the Supreme Court’s decision on the 2010 health-care reform law. The state-federal program that covers 60 million poor and disabled people would be greatly expanded under the health-care reform law, adding 17 million people starting in 2014. But if the entire law is struck down, states for the first time since 2009 would be free to tighten eligibility and make it more difficult for people to apply. The law had barred such changes. And under another scenario – if the justices declare unconstitutional just the law’s expansion of Medicaid – the entire program enacted in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society agenda could be threatened, health experts say…”
African-American Unemployment – New York City
Blacks Miss Out as Jobs Rebound in New York City, By Patrick McGeehan, June 20, 2012, New York Times: “For months now, New York officials have been highlighting how the city has regained all the jobs lost during the long recession and then some. But by several measures, the city’s recovery has left black New Yorkers behind. More than half of all of African-Americans and other non-Hispanic blacks in the city who were old enough to work had no job at all this year, according to an analysis of employment data compiled by the federal Labor Department. And when black New Yorkers lose their jobs, they spend a full year, on average, trying to find new jobs — far longer than New Yorkers of other races. . .”
Payday Lending
Regions, Courting the Underbanked, Defends Payday Loans, By Maria Aspan, June 18, 2012, American Banker: “For banks trying to serve more low-income customers, Regions Financial (RF) could become both a shining example and a cautionary tale. The Birmingham, Ala., bank has spent the past year trying to attract the poor, the young, immigrants and other types of customers whom most banks have long ignored. It has rolled out check-cashing services, prepaid cards and payday loans, and it is expanding those services; last week, a senior executive announced plans to offer prepaid cardholders savings accounts with matching fund contributions and check-imaging technology for faster deposits. As Regions actively courts the long-ignored underbanked population, it has faced both praise and criticism. Wells Fargo (WFC) and a handful of other banks also offer such products, and Regions’ new “Now Banking” services are pretty familiar to anyone who has ever walked into a Western Union (WU) or a payday lender office. . .”
Civil Legal Assistance – New Jersey
Report: Greater number of Hudson County’s poor not receiving representation in civil cases, By Daniel Reyes, June 19, 2012, Jersey Journal: “An increasing number of the poor in Hudson County and across the state are finding themselves without legal assistance in civil cases, according to a recent report. The Civil Legal Assistance Gap, an annual report compiled by the Legal Services of New Jersey, says that cuts in funding combined with an increase in poverty has led to a higher percentage of people going without legal representation in civil cases…”