Drawing the line at poverty, By Sarika Bansal, May 19, 2010, The Guardian: “I recently had the pleasure of meeting a construction worker named Lakshmi while taking a walk in Mumbai. She was on a much-needed break, and I was feeling chattier than usual. Lakshmi told me that she moved to Mumbai 10 years ago with her husband, and that they gave birth to two lovely children before he died last year. When he died, she could no longer afford rent for their single-room flat, and was soon after evicted. Today, she and her children live under a blue tarp tent with patchy electricity, no running water and few physical assets to their name. She earns Rs 120 (£1.80) every day she works at the construction site. Most of her wages are used to purchase groceries, with which she usually cooks thin rotis and watery lentils. Is Lakshmi’s family poor? According to the government of India, she is not. Since her income is technically sufficient to provide her family three meals a day, her household is above the nationally defined poverty line…”
Day: May 19, 2010
Head Start Centers and Eligibility
Inspectors find fraud at centers for children, By Sam Dillon, May 18, 2010, New York Times: “Federal undercover investigators found workers at federally financed child care centers frequently misrepresenting information about applicants’ job status and earnings to fraudulently register ineligible children, the Government Accountability Office said in a report issued Tuesday. The investigators posed as parents or guardians of fictitious children and used bogus pay stubs and other documents to seek to register for day care services at Head Start centers, the report said. In 8 of 15 undercover tests, employees lied on federal forms about the applicants’ family income and other information to gain approval for the ineligible children, the report said…”