- Crisis deepens Middle East poverty, says report, By Deena Kamel Yousef, June 24, 2010, Gulf News: “Significant parts of the Middle East are experiencing an increase in extreme poverty as the global economic slowdown increased unemployment and hunger spikes in the region, according to the 2010 United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report released Wednesday. About 6 per cent of people in the region lived on less than $1.25 a day in 2005 compared to 2 per cent in 1990. The global economic and financial crisis, which began in the advanced economies of North America and Europe in 2007, sparked abrupt declines in exports and commodity prices and reduced trade and investment, slowing growth in developing countries, the report said…”
- Millenium Development Goals hit by crisis but still achievable, UN says, By Uwe Hessler, June 23, 2010, Deutsche Welle: “The United Nations published its 2010 Millenium Development Goals Report simultaneously in New York, Paris and Berlin on Wednesday. The food crisis of 2008 as well as the 2009 economic crisis ‘didn’t stop progress’ in reaching the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), the report said, but had made the prime goal of halving global poverty by 2015 ‘more difficult to achieve.’ The number of people in the world living on less than the $1.25 (1.05 euros) per day global poverty line had substantially decreased from 46 percent in 1990 to 27 percent in 2005 – the latest available figure on global hunger given in the report…”
- Fiscal crisis slows U.N. poverty fight, By Edith M. Lederer (AP), June 24, 2010, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “The global economic crisis has slowed the fight against poverty but the developing world is still on track to meet a key U.N. goal of halving the number of people living on less than $1 a day by 2015, according to a report released Wednesday. The U.N. report cited new World Bank estimates suggesting that the crisis left an additional 50 million people in extreme poverty in 2009 and will leave 64 million impoverished by the end of 2010, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and eastern and southeastern Asia. Hunger may also have spiked in 2009 – with more than 1 billion people undernourished – as a consequence of the global food and financial crises. The effects of the crises are likely to persist with poverty rates slightly higher than they would have been had the world economy grown steadily at its pre-crisis pace, the U.N. said…”
Day: June 25, 2010
Senate Jobs Bill and State Budgets
- Aid bill’s defeat a blow to states, By Daniel Malloy and Tracie Mauriello, June 25, 2010, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “After failing to garner the needed 60 votes Thursday, U.S. Senate leaders prepared to scrap a bill that would have extended aid to states, unemployment benefits and a host of tax provisions, potentially blowing an $850 million hole in Gov. Ed Rendell’s budget. The cloture vote to end debate and advance the measure fell short, 57-41, with Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., joining a united Republican caucus to oppose more spending as Congress becomes increasingly debt-conscious. Lawmakers in Harrisburg, backed up against their yearly budget deadline, had one wary eye on Washington on Thursday…”
- Granholm: Senate’s funding failure will force devastating cuts, By Chris Christoff, June 25, 2010, Detroit Free Press: “Gov. Jennifer Granholm said today Michigan faces ‘devastating’ cuts in unemployment benefits, health care for low-income families and possibly funding for colleges and local communities as a result of the U.S. Senate’s failure Thursday to enact a $16-billion funding measure for states. Without its share, Michigan will lose extended unemployment benefits for 87,000 people starting July 1, and won’t receive more than $500 million in federal Medicaid payments that the administration had counted on for next year’s budget. Granholm called U.S. Senate Republicans obstructionists for blocking the funding bill, despite pleas from 47 governors who face deficits or large numbers of unemployed residents…”
Health Insurance Coverage in the US
Health safety net frays with fixes still years off, By Noam N. Levey, June 20, 2010, Chicago Tribune: “Despite passage of the landmark health care overhaul this spring, the nation’s health system is continuing to fray, raising the prospect that the country could experience a crisis before the law establishes a health care safety net in 2014. Three months after President Barack Obama signed the law, that unsettling possibility is increasingly casting a shadow over its implementation, which the White House and its Democratic congressional allies had hoped a wary public would begin to embrace. Instead, state governments struggling with budgets savaged by the recession are contemplating further cuts in health care aid for the poor, despite the promise of more federal dollars. At the same time, several million unemployed Americans and their families who have used federal assistance to hold on to health insurance from work will lose coverage in coming months as the special assistance program expires…”