• State budget cuts force cuts in child care, By Tiffany Aumann, August 21, 2009, Newark Advocate: “Some local child care centers are reducing staff hours and benefits and looking at possibly cutting part-time care programs as the result of cuts to state child care subsidies that will go into effect Sunday. ‘It has a lot of directors and day cares scrambling to figure out how to make ends meet,’ said Margaret Riggs, director of Southtowne Kids Care in Heath. ‘We’re watching and cutting where we can and just hope we stay full (enrollment)…’”
• Child care centers are in ‘dire straits’, By James McGinnis, August 20, 2009, Buck County Courier Times: “Each year, Pennsylvania state government provides subsidies for an estimated 235,000 children from low-income families. Child care programs for low-income families in Bucks County could be shut down next month due to the inability of state lawmakers to pass a budget. The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare said it has no money to distribute. And subsidies for day care centers have stopped…”

Jobless rate captures only part of pain, By Mark Niquette, August 21, 2009, Columbus Dispatch: “Considering the number of people she knows personally who are out of work, Amy Drake had suspected that the unemployment rate reported in recent months was too low. “It seemed like, statistically, it should be higher than what we hear in the news,” said Drake, 44, whose Columbus job in information-technology communications was eliminated in March. That’s why it was both illuminating and disturbing for Drake to learn that the unemployment rate, widely used as a key economic indicator and political weapon, wouldn’t include her if she hadn’t looked for a job for a month. Although it’s often assumed that the jobless rate includes all unemployed workers or is based on official claims for unemployment benefits, it actually comes from a monthly survey of about 60,000 households nationwide — and it counts only those who have actively looked for work during the past four weeks…”

• State cuts could impact child-care subsidies, By Tiffany Aumann, July 11, 2009, Newark Advocate: “On Friday, parents and employees at Montessori Community School donned badges that read “I’m at work today because I have child care” and posed for photographs as part of a last-minute campaign to tell Ohio legislators they fear for the future of child-care access and quality under 2009-10 state budget proposals. Child-care advocates think budget cuts being considered could deeply hurt low-income families that receive subsidies, as well as the caregivers who watch the children each day…”
• Enrollment freeze for state’s low-income child care program, Healthy Families, By Lora Hines, July 16, 2009, Press-Enterprise: “Beginning today, California’s health care program for low-income children will freeze enrollment for the first time in its 10-year history because of the state’s ongoing budget crisis.  Healthy Families needs $90 million from the state to cover an estimated 1 million children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal and too little to afford insurance, according to California’s Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, which operates the program. That gap adds up to $270 million because the federal government kicks in $2 for every $1 the state spends on the program…”
• California’s needy may bear brunt of budget crisis, By Steve Gorman, July 15, 2009, US Daily: An ill-timed pregnancy and domestic abuse left Amanda Garcia facing a dire future last year at the prime of life, until California’s welfare-to-work program enabled her return to college after her baby was born.  Now the state’s budget crisis is clouding her second chance for a college degree and a professional career. Garcia, 19, who aspires to become a police officer and a lawyer, just learned this month that her childcare assistance may be stopped…”

• Free lunch?, By Simone Sebastian, July 5, 2009, Columbus Dispatch: “More poor children are eating free at school, but that’s actually a good thing for many districts’ finances. The reason? Federal subsidies increase.  A week rarely went by last school year without a plea for help from another newly poor family in South-Western schools. Parents were losing their jobs and wanted to know how the district could help…”
• N.J. offering free meals to kids from low-income families throughout summer, By Kristen Alloway, July 8, 2009, Star-Ledger: “Eleven-year-old camper Bryan polished off his baked chicken, vegetables and corn bread and eagerly headed back for seconds.  For Bryan, and more than 40 other children from predominantly low-income families at the Salvation Army in New Brunswick, it was their second free meal of the day — breakfast was pancakes — courtesy of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey and the federal government…”
• More Wichita kids go hungry, By Roy Wenzl, July 5, 2009, Wichita Eagle: “The recession has hurt Wichita’s poor people and their children much harder and faster than social service agencies predicted when it started last year, food charities say.  Agencies that track poverty are compiling rapidly rising statistics about Wichita children going hungry, prompting the Wichita Community Foundation to call a July 13 summit of local leaders to figure out how to feed them…”

• Budget cuts hurt Ohio poor, By Mark Curnutte, July 6, 2009, Cincinnati Enquirer: “As Ohio lawmakers and Gov. Ted Strickland continue to wrangle over the state budget, county social service agencies are clear on one message: Further budget cuts are cutting into muscle, not bone, as the recession entangles more people in need of benefits…”
• Coalition defends CalWorks, which governor targets for cuts, By Duane W. Gang, July 7, 2009, Press-Enterprise: “A statewide coalition of counties pushed back against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday, saying a welfare-to-work program targeted for cuts is vital to boosting the state’s economic recovery.  Schwarzenegger earlier this year called for the elimination of CalWorks and, on Friday, said waste and fraud in the program and other social welfare efforts is contributing to the state’s fiscal woes…”