Welfare rolls up in ’09; more enroll in assistance programs, By Richard Wolf, January 25, 2010, USA Today: “Welfare rolls rose in 2009 for the first time in 15 years, but the 5% increase was dwarfed by spikes in the number of people receiving food stamps and unemployment insurance. The cash-assistance program that once helped more than 14 million people served an average of 4 million in the 2009 fiscal year, up from 3.8 million in fiscal 2008. By comparison, there were more than 37 million people receiving food stamps in September, an increase of 18% from the year before. The number receiving unemployment benefits more than doubled, to about 9.1 million. The disparity has caused some of those involved in passing the 1996 welfare overhaul to question whether it’s failing to help victims of the recession…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty