U.S. unemployment rate for blacks projected to hit 25-year high, By V. Dion Haynes, January 15, 2010, Washington Post: “Unemployment for African Americans is projected to reach a 25-year high this year, according to a study released Thursday by an economic think tank, with the national rate soaring to 17.2 percent and the rates in five states exceeding 20 percent. Blacks as well as Latinos were far behind whites in employment levels even when the economy was booming. But throughout the recession, the unemployment rate has grown much faster for African Americans and Latinos than for whites, according to the study by the Economic Policy Institute. Moreover, the unemployment gap between men and women has reached a record high — with men far outpacing women in joblessness…”

• Kids Count report targeting low weight babies, By Harold Reutter, January 13, 2010, Grand Island Independent: “Although Nebraska is making progress in a number of areas on the well-being of its children, there are a number of areas that should still cause concern. Those conclusions were part of the annual Kids Count in Nebraska 2009 report released Wednesday by the organization Voices for Children in Nebraska. Annmarie Bailey Fowler, host for the Tuesday webinar that preceded the Wednesday release of the Kids Count report, said the 2009 report focused on the area of infant and maternal in addition to immigrant children. She said that indicator was picked because there had been no improvement in the trend of low birth weight babies over time…”
• Report: Nebraska’s infant mortality rate jumps, By Erin Andersen, January 13, 2010, Lincoln Journal Star: “It’s not just children of in poverty or of immigrants who have a rough go of it in ‘the good life’ state, according to the 2009 Kids Count report. In 2007 (the latest year of statistics) Nebraska’s tiniest and youngest citizens died at the highest rate in five years — 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 births, said Dr. Magda Peck, associate dean and professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center…”
• Report: Immigrants’ children fastest growing youth population in Nebraska, By Erin Andersen, January 13, 2010, Lincoln Journal Star: “Nearly one in eight Nebraska kids were born to immigrants in 2008 — making them the state’s fastest growing youth population. But statistics find these kids face more barriers than children of U.S.-born parents, according to the 2009 Kids Count report released Wednesday. Sixty-one percent of children born to immigrants live in poverty — compared with 13.4 percent of Nebraska children as a whole…”
• Immigrant kids’ needs highlighted, By Cindy Gonzalez, January 13, 2010, Omaha World-Herald: “The latest ‘Kids Count in Nebraska’ report ventures into atypical and politically charged territory: immigration. Usually, authors present only a general report card on how children fare in Nebraska. They compile statistics on subjects such as dropout rates, infant mortality and juvenile crime. This year, Voices for Children, a statewide research and policy group that released the 85-page report, chose to highlight barriers faced by immigrant children and parents…”

Southern schools mark two majorities, By Shaila Dewan, January 6, 2010, New York Times: “The South has become the first region in the country where more than half of public school students are poor and more than half are members of minorities, according to a new report. The shift was fueled not by white flight from public schools, which spiked during desegregation but has not had much effect on school demographics since the early 1980s. Rather, an influx of Latinos and other ethnic groups, the return of blacks to the South and higher birth rates among black and Latino families have contributed to the change. The new numbers, from the 2008-9 school year, are a milestone for the South, ‘the only section of the United States where racial slavery, white supremacy and racial segregation of schools were enforced through law and social custom,’ said the report, to be released on Thursday by the Southern Education Foundation, a nonprofit group based here that supports education improvement in the region. But the numbers also herald the future of the country as a whole, as minority students are expected to exceed 50 percent of public school enrollment by 2020 and the share of students poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches is on the rise in every state…”

• L.A. leads New York, Chicago in abuse of low-wage workers, survey says, By Patrick J. McDonnell, January 6, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Low-wage workers in the Los Angeles area are even more likely than their counterparts in New York and Chicago to suffer violations of minimum wage, overtime and other labor laws, according to a new UCLA study being released today. The study found that almost nine out of 10 low-wage workers surveyed in Los Angeles County had recently experienced some form of pay-related workplace violation, or “wage theft.” Almost one in three reported being paid less than the minimum wage and nearly 80% said they had not received legally mandated overtime…”
• As wage theft rises, states and cities crack down, By Sophia Tareen and Laura Wides-Munoz (AP), December 17, 2009, BusinessWeek: “Fabian Gutierrez logged more than 60 hours a week slicing meat and stocking shelves with cheeses and milk at a neighborhood grocery for less than minimum wage and no overtime. The 32-year-old Mexican immigrant said he put up with the situation for months because he was desperate to support his wife and young daughter. And like many co-workers, he was afraid to challenge his boss. ‘All of us took abuse. We were disrespected,’ said Gutierrez, who found help at a workers’ rights center, joined with other workers to sue the owner of La Fruteria and now works at another grocery store that he says treats him better. Across the nation, the long-simmering problem of employers who don’t pay their workers appears to be getting worse, especially for immigrant laborers…”

Trying to explain a drop in infant mortality, By Erik Eckholm, November 26, 2009, New York Times: “Seven and a half months into Ta-Shai Pendleton’s first pregnancy, her child was stillborn. Then in early 2008, she bore a daughter prematurely. Soon after, Ms. Pendleton moved from a community in Racine that was thick with poverty to a better neighborhood in Madison. Here, for the first time, she had a full-term pregnancy. As she cradled her 2-month-old daughter recently, she described the fear and isolation she had experienced during her first two pregnancies, and the more embracing help she found 100 miles away with her third. In Madison, county nurses made frequent home visits, and she got more help from her new church. The lives and pregnancies of black mothers like Ms. Pendleton, 21, are now the subject of intense study as researchers confront one of the country’s most intractable health problems: the large racial gap in infant deaths, primarily due to a higher incidence among blacks of very premature births…”

Blacks hit hard by economy’s punch, By V. Dion Haynes, November 24, 2009, Washington Post: “These days, 24-year-old Delonta Spriggs spends much of his time cooped up in his mother’s one-bedroom apartment in Southwest Washington, the TV blaring soap operas hour after hour, trying to stay out of the streets and out of trouble, held captive by the economy. As a young black man, Spriggs belongs to a group that has been hit much harder than any other by unemployment. Joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions — 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population. And last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment in the District, home to many young black men, rose to 11.9 percent from 11.4 percent, even as it stayed relatively stable in Virginia and Maryland…”

More welfare going to parents here illegally, By Timothy Pratt, October 27, 2009, Las Vegas Sun: “Jose Silva had just obtained an appointment in three weeks to see whether his family would be eligible for monthly welfare benefits. ‘Now I just have to not eat until then,’ he joked, standing with his wife on the sidewalk outside the state office on Flamingo Road. Silva has been without a steady job for a year, one of tens of thousands of workers still reeling from the bottom dropping out of the Las Vegas Valley’s construction industry, the region’s second-largest employer after tourism. If approved for assistance, the Silvas will belong to the fastest-growing category of families in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Bearing the confusing government label of ‘non-qualified non-citizens,’ this category refers to families with parents who are not U.S. citizens and children who are. Since the recession began in late 2007, the average monthly caseload of these families has grown 96 percent, according to state records. About 4,250 of these families of mixed immigration status were on the program’s rolls in September, making it the second-largest category in TANF, after single-parent households…”

The aid workers who really help, October 8, 2009, The Economist: “As the dust settled after the attacks of September 11th 2001, officials in America and elsewhere started tracking cross-border flows of money from migrants, in the hope of nabbing terrorists. Remittance agencies were regulated more heavily; cash transfers from foreign workers were monitored. Not much was discovered about terrorism, but lots of new data emerged on the economics of migration. It was a happy side-effect. Over the past few years migration experts have gained a clearer view of how some 200m people working abroad affect the lives of compatriots who stay home. The impact, it turns out, is huge and benign. Obviously, migrants help their homelands by remitting cash on a vast scale. Armies of itinerant nannies, dishwashers, meatpackers and plumbers shift more capital to poorer countries than do Western aid efforts. (This may long have been true, but without the data who knew?) The World Bank says foreign workers sent $328 billion from richer to poorer countries last year, more than double the $120 billion in official aid flows from OECD members. India got $52 billion from its diaspora, more than it took in foreign direct investment…”

Blacks, Native Americans more likely to go to foster care, By Michelle Cole, September 28, 2009, The Oregonian: “Child abuse doesn’t discriminate by race in Oregon. Authorities say the abuse rate is the same for white families as it is for minorities. And yet, Native American children are six times more likely to be placed in Oregon foster care than white children and African Americans are four times more likely than whites. Children from both of those minority groups remain in state care longer. Meanwhile, Hispanic children are less likely to be taken into state protective custody. If they do go to a foster home, they’re returned to their families sooner. New research from Portland State University underscores what child welfare officials have known for years: Some minorities are disproportionately represented in the state’s foster care system…”

Cost of racial disparities in health care put at $229 billion between 2003, 2006, By Kelly Brewington, September 18, 2009, Baltimore Sun: “Racial health disparities cost the United States $229 billion between 2003 and 2006 - money that could help cover an overhaul of the nation’s health care system, according to a new report by Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland researchers. Minorities are generally sicker and more likely than whites to die of numerous diseases, and until now, medical experts and advocates fighting to close those gaps have made their pleas on moral grounds. But the new figures aim to break down the issue into dollars and cents at a time when everyone is trying to figure out how to rein in soaring health care costs…”

• Close Oregon’s achievement gap by starting early, study urges, By Kimberly Melton, September 14, 2009, The Oregonian: “A new report from the Chalkboard Project highlights a persistent achievement gap between Latino students and white students in Oregon that starts as early as third grade. It suggests the key to narrowing the gap is to start working with students early. The report, released Monday, echoes the conclusion of an earlier study of the achievement gap between black and white students in Multnomah County that recommended focusing more on prevention than intervention…”
• A blueprint for closing the gap, Editorial, September 15, 2009, The Oregonian: “As a new study of Oregon’s achievement gap makes clear, the state should put more effort into early intervention and dig deeper into what works. The stubborn gap in academic achievement in Oregon between Hispanic students and their white classmates used to be somewhat of a mystery. Not any more. The main causes of this gap are well-diagnosed. So are at least some of the solutions, plus the areas desperately needing further research…”

Massachusetts cuts back immigrants’ health care, By Abby Goodnough, August 31, 2009, New York Times: “State-subsidized health insurance for 31,000 legal immigrants here will no longer cover dental, hospice or skilled-nursing care under a scaled-back plan that Gov. Deval Patrick announced Monday. Mr. Patrick said his administration had struggled to find a solution ‘that preserves the promise of health care reform’ after the state legislature cut most of the $130 million it had previously allotted immigrants, to help close a budget deficit. Although their health benefits will be sharply curtailed in some cases, Mr. Patrick portrayed the new program as a victory, saying the services that the affected group tends to use the most will still be covered…”

Iraqi immigrants face lonely struggle in U.S., By Kirk Semple, August 12, 2009, New York Times: “Not long after the Iraq war began in 2003, Uday Hattem al-Ghanimi was accosted by several men outside the American military base where he managed a convenience store. They accused him of abetting the Americans, and one fired a pistol at his head. Now, after 24 operations, Mr. Ghanimi has a reconstructed face as well as political asylum in the United States. On July 4, his wife and three youngest children joined him in New York after a three-year separation. But the euphoria of their reunion quickly dissipated as the family began to reckon with the colder realities of their new life. Mr. Ghanimi, 50, who has not been able to work because of lingering pain, is supporting his family on a monthly disability check of $761, food stamps and handouts from friends. They are crammed into one room they rent in a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in a city whose small Iraqi population is scattered. And Mr. Ghanimi’s wife and children do not speak English, deepening their sense of isolation…”

Once a dream, U.S. life is hard reality for Iraqis, By Kristin Collins, July 26, 2009, Charlotte Observer: “It was the hope of America that sustained them through Iraq’s long years of war. First, they believed the United States’ promises that their country would be free after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Then, as the fighting continued, they were thankful for the good-paying jobs the U.S. military provided. And finally, their lives in peril, they traded their homeland for a new start in North Carolina.  About 200 Iraqis have moved to this state since 2007, officials say. They are part of a wave of more than 20,000 who have come to the U.S. after being targeted by terrorists in Iraq or working for the U.S. government there. But as they arrive in the midst of a recession, their expansive hopes are being replaced by a struggle with poverty and social isolation…”

• Achievement gap still splits white, black students, By Libby Quaid (AP), July 14, 2009, Washington Post: “Despite unprecedented efforts to improve minority achievement in the past decade, the gap between black and white students remains frustratingly wide, according to an Education Department report released Tuesday…”
• Black-white achievement gap smaller in Va. than Md., By Nick Anderson, July 15, 2009, Washington Post: “The achievement gap between black and white students is smaller in Virginia than in Maryland, according to a federal analysis released yesterday that illuminates how states compare on a key measure of academic disparity…”
• Young students improve, but later minority achievement gap remains, By Greg Toppo, USA Today, July 14, 2009: “For decades, public schools have focused on closing the stubborn achievement gap that separates African-American children from their white peers. New data out today from the U.S. Education Department show that the effort may have a limited shelf life for kids…”
• Racial student achievement gap stands wide in state, By Gayle Worland, July 15, 2009, Wisconsin State Journal: “Wisconsin is the only state in the nation where the achievement gap between black and white students in reading and math in both fourth and eighth grades exceeds the national average, according to a U.S. Department of Education report released Tuesday…”

With USA in a recession, rural Mexico feels the pain, By Chris Hawley, July 9, 2009, USA Today: “Not long ago, this remote Mexican mountain town was in the middle of a construction boom — as families proudly built their American-style dream homes, using cash sent home by relatives working in the USA.  Work on those houses has stopped, leaving shiny steel rebar jutting awkwardly out of concrete walls all over this town of 4,500. Meanwhile, residents have been forced to cut back on staples such as rice and corn. Eggs, meat and milk are now out of reach for many families…”

Government to require verification of workers, By Julia Preston, July 8, 2009, New York Times: “The Obama administration will require businesses that win federal contracts to use a government electronic database system to verify that their employees have legal immigration status to work in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Wednesday.  After a six-month review, Homeland Security officials decided to go ahead with a worker-verification plan based on the electronic system, called E-Verify. The system, which the Bush administration sought to put into effect in its final months, is meant to prevent federal contractors from hiring illegal immigrants…”

Job losses show wider racial gap in New York, By Patrick McGeehan and Mathew R. Warren, July 12, 2009, New York Times: “Unemployment among blacks in New York City has increased much faster than for whites, and the gap appears to be widening at an accelerating pace, new studies of jobless data have found.  While unemployment rose steadily for white New Yorkers from the first quarter of 2008 through the first three months of this year, the number of unemployed blacks in the city rose four times as fast, according to a report to be released on Monday by the city comptroller’s office. By the end of March, there were about 80,000 more unemployed blacks than whites, according to the report, even though there are roughly 1.5 million more whites than blacks here…”

U.S. shifts strategy on illicit work by immigrants, By Julia Preston, July 2, 2009, New York Times: “Immigration authorities had bad news this week for American Apparel, the T-shirt maker based in downtown Los Angeles: About 1,800 of its employees appeared to be illegal immigrants not authorized to work in the United States.  But in contrast to the high-profile raids that marked the enforcement approach of the Bush administration, no federal agents with criminal warrants stormed the company’s factories and rounded up employees…”