- Food stamp use soars, and stigma fades, By Jason DeParle and Robert Gebeloff, November 28, 2009, New York Times: “With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children. It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs. Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare…”
- Food stamp estimate sparks poverty debate, By Lindsey Tanner (AP), November 28, 2009, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “The estimate was startling and made headlines around the country: Almost half of all U.S. kids will be on food stamps at some time during childhood. How could it be true in the land of plenty, in the midst of an obesity epidemic, skeptics wondered. Surprisingly, many statisticians and policy analysts say the projection seems about right. Where they differ, along ideological lines, is in interpreting what it all means. Most would agree that people on food stamps aren’t necessarily starving, and some might not be even close to it. It’s also clear that people who need food stamps the most often don’t get them…”
- Food-stamp administration: Pa. ranks high, N.J. low, By Alfred Lubrano, November 28, 2009, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Critical of how some states administer food stamps for the hungriest Americans, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has ranked state performance, with Pennsylvania listed among the best and New Jersey among the worst. USDA officials indicated last week that certain states ‘have not served . . . taxpayers well,’ according to a letter from the agency to state food-stamp administrators that was first reported on by the Associated Press. The essential criticism is that although many people are eligible for food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, they do not receive them, in part because of bureaucratic processing difficulties…”
- One in six Alabamians get funds for food, By Kim Chandler, November 29, 2009, Birmingham News: “Nearly one in six Alabamians receive food assistance, according to the most recent numbers available from the state Department of Human Resources. The troubled economy is sending Alabamians in record numbers to sign up for help in feeding their families…”
Month: November 2009
Infant Mortality Rates
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…”
Census Small Area Poverty Estimates
- Poverty rate jumps in rural America, By Bill Bishop, November 23, 2009, Daily Yonder: “The difference in poverty rates between rural and urban counties narrowed in the 1990s and through the first few years of this century. From 2003 to 2008, however, poverty rates in rural America jumped. The number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by more than 3.2 million between 2003 and 2008 – and a disproportionate number of those newly poor people live in rural America. Newly released figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that 13.2% of Americans were living in poverty in 2008, the highest rate since 1997. In rural counties, however, that rate had climbed to 16.3%. The increase in the number of poor Americans was heavily weighted in rural communities. Rural counties were home to just over 16% of the nation’s population in 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But 33% of the increase in the number of poor Americans from ’03 to ’08 – more than one million people – was found in rural counties…”
- Poverty figures rise among O.C. schoolchildren, By Scott Martindale, November 29, 2009, Orange County Register: “More than 12 percent of school-age children in Orange County are living in poverty – the highest level since 2005 – with 3.5 times that number receiving free or subsidized meals daily, according to federal poverty data released this month. The number of impoverished children ages 5 to 17 jumped by 6,188 in a single year, to an estimated 67,062 now in Orange County. Meanwhile, a much larger portion of the county’s students – 43 percent – is receiving free or subsidized meals in school…”
- Child poverty highest and rising in rural Oregon, By Betsy Hammond, November 29, 2009, The Oregonian: “Rates of childhood poverty vary tremendously around Oregon, with students in rural areas by far the most likely to live in impoverished households, according to new estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. Statewide, the lowest rates are in Lake Oswego, Sherwood, Corbett and West Linn-Wilsonville. Six percent or fewer of school-age children in those districts live in households below the poverty level, the bureau reported this month…”
- Children living in poverty increases in Middle TN, By Janell Ross, November 27, 2009, The Tennessean: “While new U.S. Census Bureau figures show poverty has dropped in most of Middle Tennessee between 2007 and 2008, the area’s children remain disproportionately affected. Poverty for the population overall increased in Davidson and Wilson counties during the period but declined in nearby Rutherford, Sumner and Williamson counties. But children living in almost every part of the region were more likely than other age groups – including senior citizens – to live in poverty…”