Cuts to child care subsidy thwart more job seekers, By Peter S. Goodman, May 23, 2010, New York Times: “Able-bodied, outgoing and accustomed to working, Alexandria Wallace wants to earn a paycheck. But that requires someone to look after her 3-year-old daughter, and Ms. Wallace, a 22-year-old single mother, cannot afford child care. Last month, she lost her job as a hair stylist after her improvised network of baby sitters frequently failed her, forcing her to miss shifts. She qualifies for a state-run subsidized child care program. But like many other states, Arizona has slashed that program over the last year, relegating Ms. Wallace’s daughter, Alaya, to a waiting list of nearly 11,000 eligible children. Despite a substantial increase in federal support for subsidized child care, which has enabled some states to stave off cuts, others have trimmed support, and most have failed to keep pace with rising demand, according to poverty experts and federal officials. That has left swelling numbers of low-income families struggling to reconcile the demands of work and parenting, just as they confront one of the toughest job markets in decades…”
Day: May 24, 2010
Global Death Rates for Children
- Global death rates drop for children 5 or younger, By Denise Grady, May 23, 2010, New York Times: “Death rates in children under 5 are dropping in many countries at a surprisingly fast pace, according to a new report based on data from 187 countries from 1970 to 2010. Worldwide, 7.7 million children are expected to die this year – still an enormous number, but a vast improvement over the 1990 figure of 11.9 million. On average, death rates have dropped by about 2 percent a year from 1990 to 2010, and in many regions, even some of the poorest in Africa, the declines have started to accelerate, according to the report, which is being published online Sunday by The Lancet, a medical journal. Some parts of Latin America, north Africa and the Middle East have had declines as steep as 6 percent a year…”
- Study: fewer kids dying than previously thought, By Maria Cheng (AP), May 23, 2010, Washington Post: “Child deaths worldwide seem to have fallen faster than officials thought, as a new study estimates far fewer children are dying every year than previously guessed by the United Nations. Using more data and an improved modeling technique, scientists predicted about 7.7 million children under 5 would die this year, down from nearly 12 million in 1990. The study was published online Monday in the British medical journal, Lancet. The new estimate is substantially lower than UNICEF’s last estimate of child deaths from 2008. Then, the agency said about 8.7 million children were dying every year of preventable causes such as diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria…”
Medicaid and Dental Care in Rural Wisconsin
Too few dentists, too much pain in rural Wisconsin communities, By David Wahlberg, May 23, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “When Rob Homerding’s teeth started to crumble and ache, he tried to find a dentist who would take Medicaid. He and his wife called 20 dentists around Monroe, where they live, but no one would treat him. By the time he saw a dentist two years later, a dozen teeth had to be pulled. His daughter’s friends made fun of his gap-ridden mouth. He stopped smiling. ‘It probably wouldn’t have gotten this bad if I had found a dentist earlier,’ said Homerding, 38, a butcher in New Glarus. Dental care can be difficult to find in rural parts of Wisconsin and throughout the country – especially for people on Medicaid, the state-federal health plan for the poor, and those with no insurance…”