Right-to-know law gives India’s poor a lever, By Lydia Polgreen, June 28, 2010, New York Times: “Chanchala Devi always wanted a house. Not a mud-and-stick hut, like her current home in this desolate village in the mineral-rich, corruption-corroded state of Jharkhand, but a proper brick-and-mortar house. When she heard that a government program for the poor would give her about $700 to build that house, she applied immediately. As an impoverished day laborer from a downtrodden caste, she was an ideal candidate for the grant. Yet she waited four years, watching as wealthier neighbors got grants and built sturdy houses, while she and her three children slept beneath a leaky roof of tree branches and crumbling clay tiles. Two months ago she took advantage of India’s powerful and wildly popular Right to Information law. With help from a local activist, she filed a request at a local government office to find out who had gotten the grants while she waited, and why. Within days a local bureaucrat had good news: Her grant had been approved, and she would soon get her check…”
Month: June 2010
State Budgets and Federal Stimulus
- States fear strain as feds curb spending, By Ronald J. Hansen, June 21, 2010, Arizona Republic: “With Congress increasingly reluctant to add to the nation’s debt, financial help is hard to find for state governments and individual casualties of the recession. Last week, the Senate rejected a bill that would have extended stimulus provisions to help the unemployed. Several attempts to extend higher Medicaid assistance have failed, too, leaving dozens of states, including Arizona, with looming budget holes that collectively total about $24 billion. Many still expect that the Medicaid money will materialize, if only because many states have expected the help for months and built it into budgets that begin in July. In Arizona, the federal money would mean an extra $394 million to help defray the medical costs of about 310,000 poor adults. Extending help for the unemployed would cost $40 billion nationwide. Without a share of that money in Arizona, weekly unemployment checks that are already among the smallest in the nation are $25 lower, and fewer people qualify for help at all. The push for austerity comes as Congress tries to balance the needs of the social safety net against the costs of soaring debt…”
- States struggle to balance budgets after Congress refuses to offer more stimulus money, By Beth Fouhy (AP), June 28, 2010, Grand Forks Herald: “For at least 30 cash-strapped states counting on federal stimulus money, the news was a stunning blow: A deficit-weary Congress had rejected billions in additional aid, forcing lawmakers into a mad scramble to balance their budgets. Now, with a new fiscal year just days away in most states, many governors are proposing to make up for the shortfall with tax increases, cuts in essential services and potential layoffs of thousands of public employees. ‘I support restraining federal spending, but cutting the only funding designed to help states maintain the very safety-net programs Congress mandates us to preserve will have devastating consequences,’ California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a letter to his state’s congressional delegation. California faces a whopping $19 billion deficit _ more than 20 percent of the state’s total budget _ despite deep cuts that have already been made to many programs. Its new fiscal year begins July 1, and a budget deal there is nowhere in sight…”
Report: Cost of Living – California
- Budget project issues ‘Making Ends Meet’ report, By Tom Abate, June 25, 2010, San Francisco Chronicle: “A single adult must earn nearly $32,000 to live in San Francisco, while two working parents with two young children must take in a little more than $84,000 to get by, according to an analysis released Thursday by a public policy group in Sacramento. The California Budget Project report, titled ‘Making Ends Meet,’ estimates the cost of supporting a family of from one person to four people in each of the state’s 58 counties. The study uses federal and state figures to average a range of expenses including housing, utilities, food, transportation, health care, taxes, clothing, laundry services, reading materials and bath products such as toothpaste. ‘We don’t assume any cable TV or smart phone expenses,’ said budget project director Jean Ross, noting that the phone category supposes a $23 a month landline…”
- Many S.J. families struggling, By Jennifer Torres, June 25, 2010, Stockton Record: “More than half of local families – including those whose earnings place them well into middle-income levels – could be struggling to maintain even a modest standard of living (no vacations, no college savings, no home ownership), according to a new analysis that suggests other measures of poverty fail to consider what it really takes to support a family in the state. The California Budget Project, a nonprofit research organization, on Thursday released an update to its periodic report, ‘Making Ends Meet: How much Does it Cost To Raise a Family in California?’ The report offers county-by-county estimates of the child care, transportation, health care, housing and other costs that confront families – and that, in many cases, strain monthly wages. In San Joaquin County, according to the report, a family of four, with two working parents, would need to bring in nearly $5,800 a month, or close to $70,000 annually, to cover basic bills without public assistance…”