- Kids on food stamps jump double digits, By Mark Curnutte, January 7, 2010, Cincinnati Enquirer: “The Dow Jones Industrial Average and other economic indicators continued to inch upward Thursday, but a new national analysis suggests that even more children will be hurled into poverty before the recovery takes hold. In fact, Ohio saw an 18 percent increase and Kentucky an 11 percent rise in the number of children receiving federal food stamp assistance between August 2008 and August 2009, according to the analysis ‘The Effects of the Recession on Child Poverty.’ The analysis was released Thursday by the Brookings Institution and First Focus, a bipartisan advocacy organization working to make children and families a priority in federal policy and budget decisions. In that 12-month span, 3.4 million additional children went on food stamps…”
- Food stamp usage grows in sagging economy, By Margie Peterson, January 4, 2010, Allentown Morning Call: “Not long ago, John was a homeowner with a car, a job and his pride. Once solidly middle class, the machine operator from Bethlehem lost his job and began the painful descent into the burgeoning ranks of the nouveau poor. ‘I never in a million years thought I would lose my job,’ said John, a Persian Gulf War veteran and married father of two children who asked that his last name not be used. ‘It’s hard not being the breadwinner of the family. We used to give donations and everything, and to have it turn around on you is really unbelievable. We’re hanging onto our house by a thread.’ With unemployment hovering around 10 percent, he has plenty of company. Local advocates for the poor say they are seeing new demographics of people seeking government help such as food stamps. From September 2008 to September 2009, the number of Pennsylvanians getting food stamps increased by 18.9 percent. Northampton County saw the number of households participating rise by 23.8 percent during that time, while Lehigh County had an 11.7 percent increase…”
Day: January 8, 2010
Job Losses and Unemployment in the US and Europe
- In Europe and U.S., data shows a murky job outlook, By Matthew Saltmarsh and Peter Goodman, January 8, 2010, New York Times: “The euro area has joined the United States in reaching a 10 percent unemployment rate as the American economy lost more jobs than expected in December, according to statistics released Friday. The latest data tempered hopes in Europe and the United States for a rapid recovery that did not depend on large doses of government support. Before the American report was released, many analysts were predicting that the number of jobs there might increase for the first time since the recession began in December 2007. But the estimated net loss of 85,000 jobs, while a vast improvement over the situation for much of last year, pointed to continued reluctance on the part of employers to hire new workers. In Europe, which typically lags behind the United States, job losses continued to mount as the unemployment rate inched up to 10 percent in November, from 9.9 percent, hitting the highest level since 1998, a year before the euro was created…”
- U.S. job losses in December dim hopes for quick upswing, By Peter S. Goodman, January 8, 2010, New York Times: “The American economy lost another 85,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate remained at 10 percent, setting back hopes for a swift recovery from the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The latest monthly snapshot of the national job market released by the Labor Department on Friday provided one potentially encouraging milestone: Data for November was revised to show that the economy gained 4,000 net jobs that month, in contrast to initial reports showing a loss of 11,000 jobs. That was the first monthly improvement since the recession began two years ago. But the December data failed to repeat the trend, and the report disappointed economists who had generally been expecting a decline of perhaps 10,000 jobs…”
Welfare Enrollment – New York City
Welfare rolls grow in city, but increase is modest, By Julie Bosman, December 16, 2009, New York Times: “As the number of New Yorkers applying for food stamps, enrolling in Medicaid and checking into homeless shelters climbed last year, the welfare rolls presented something of a riddle: they continued to fall. But last month, nearly 355,000 people in the city received welfare payments, a 4 percent increase over the year before, according to city officials, who predict that if the economy does not recover, the growth will continue for at least 18 months. City welfare officials and advocates for the poor disagree on why it took so long for the rolls to grow – the rise began in the summer – but the trend is a reflection of the national welfare reform of the 1990s, which also may be a factor in why the growth has been so slow. Even with the increases, the caseloads are still 23 percent lower than when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took office in 2002 and are just a third of the number at the enrollment peak in 1995…”