- Census shows rising poverty, falling incomes in Madison, Dane County, By Steven Verburg, September 28, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “Household income in Dane County and Madison dropped more than twice as much as it did nationally in 2009, and the proportion of rich and poor increased while middle-income households dwindled, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. The data also showed rising levels of poverty, including among children, in the city and county. Experts said the numbers demonstrate the broad impact of the recent recession – described as the country’s worst since World War II but which officially ended in June 2009…”
- Milwaukee now fourth poorest city in nation, By Bill Glauber and Ben Poston, September 28, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Milwaukee emerged as America’s fourth-most impoverished big city in 2009, as the Great Recession rippled across the city and state, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Tuesday. Milwaukee’s poverty rate reached 27%, up from 23.4% in the previous year. Only Detroit (36.4%), Cleveland (35%) and Buffalo (28.8%) had higher poverty rates among cities with populations greater than 250,000. Milwaukee was ranked 11th in 2008. An estimated 158,245 Milwaukeeans lived in poverty last year. For a family of four with two adults and two children, the poverty threshold was an annual income of $21,954. What’s more, nearly 4 in 10 children in Milwaukee were considered poor, meaning an estimated 62,432 children lived in poverty last year, up from 49,952 in 2008…”
- Poverty rises slightly in Chicago area, By Dahleen Glanton and Lisa Black, September 29, 2010, Chicago Tribune: “Poverty inched higher in the Chicago area in the midst of the recession, pulling city and suburban families that once were considered middle class into the ranks of the poor, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Like the rest of the country, the Chicago area experienced heavy job losses, home foreclosures and lower median household incomes from 2006 to 2009, which forced some people out of their comfortable lifestyles into homeless shelters, food banks and unemployment lines…”
- Census reveals ‘new poor’ in many Twin Cities suburbs, By Jeremy Olson, September 28, 2010, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “Poverty and joblessness rose sharply in many Twin Cities suburbs last year, according to U.S. census estimates released Tuesday, along with a rise in what advocates call the “new poor” — families whose financial stability has crumbled in the economic recession. In Anoka County, for example, the unemployment rate shot up to 6.8 percent in 2009 from 3.3 percent in 2008. Child poverty in Dakota County more than doubled, to 8.2 percent in 2009, while the rate of uninsured residents increased in Washington County from 5 percent in 2008 to 6.7 percent in 2009…”
- Census survey data: Minnesotans’ incomes took a hit in 2009, By Elizabeth Dunbar, September 28, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “Minnesotans’ incomes took a hit and more residents were living in poverty in 2009 as the economic recession continued, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The estimated median household income in Minnesota fell to $55,616 compared to $57,288 in 2008, according to the American Community Survey data, which is calculated from surveys conducted with 2 percent of the U.S. population…”
- Michigan sees sharpest income plunge in nation, By Mike Wilkinson, September 29, 2010, Detroit News: “For most families in Michigan, the long-running recession has meant a simple, unrelenting truth: living with less. And census data released on Tuesday shows how much less — the state’s median household income fell by more than $12,000 over the last decade — the equivalent of trimming $1,000 from a family’s monthly budget. The drop was stunning in both its size and its singularity: No other state came close to losing the estimated 21.3 percent of its median income between 2000 and 2009, and no state endured the 6.5 percent drop seen from 2008 to 2009…”
- Poverty rate jumps locally, By Bill Bush and Rita Price, September 29, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “About half of all pay in Franklin County last year ended up in households with incomes north of $95,000, while those that made less than $20,000 got just over 3percent of the payout, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released yesterday. The comparison, based on cutting the county into fifths by income and looking at the households in the top and bottom 20 percent, comes amid troubling news about poverty and household incomes. The economic downturn pushed tens of thousands of additional Franklin County residents below the poverty line last year. The percentage of county residents living in poverty shot to 18.2 percent in 2009, from 15 percent the year before…”
- Census shows Cleveland is the second-poorest city in the United States, By Robert L. Smith, September 29, 2010, Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Hard times came to every corner of Northeast Ohio during a historic recession, as unemployment and its consequences rippled across the city and suburbs. The hammer of despair landed hardest in Cleveland, where one out of every three people lived in poverty at the end of 2009, making Cleveland the second-poorest big city in America — thank you, Detroit — according to estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The region weathered the Great Recession better than some other metro areas, but poverty rose in every outlying county except Medina, and many felt the pangs of hunger and fear for the first time…”
Day: September 29, 2010
TANF Emergency Fund – California
Stimulus-subsidized jobs in jeopardy, By Alexandra Zavis and Rong-Gong Lin II, September 29, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Michael Beightol has 12 years of retail experience, but that was no help when he was looking for a job earlier this year. ‘I must have put in 1,000 applications or more, and no one was hiring because of the economy,’ said the 34-year-old Covina resident, who is raising an 8-year-old daughter on his own. His luck changed when Los Angeles County offered to pay his salary at Americal Contractors Corp., a small, veteran-owned painting firm in Pomona that is teaching him a new career as an estimator. ‘I’m so happy that they had this program, because I feel like I am being a productive part of society instead of sitting at home doing nothing,’ Beightol said. Using funding from last year’s $787-billion stimulus bill, California counties have put to work more than 35,000 people by subsidizing their employment for up to a year, according to figures from July. Many of those jobs are now in jeopardy unless Congress extends the funding beyond Thursday, the end of the fiscal year…”
US Rebuilding Aid for Haiti
Haiti still waiting for pledged US aid, By Jonathan M. Katz and Martha Mendoza (AP), September 29, 2010, National Public Radio: “Nearly nine months after the earthquake, more than a million Haitians still live on the streets between piles of rubble. One reason: Not a cent of the $1.15 billion the U.S. promised for rebuilding has arrived. The money was pledged by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in March for use this year in rebuilding. The U.S. has already spent more than $1.1 billion on post-quake relief, but without long-term funds, the reconstruction of the wrecked capital cannot begin. With just a week to go before fiscal 2010 ends, the money is still tied up in Washington. At fault: bureaucracy, disorganization and a lack of urgency, The Associated Press learned in interviews with officials in the State Department, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the White House and the U.N. Office of the Special Envoy. One senator has held up a key authorization bill because of a $5 million provision he says will be wasteful. Meanwhile, deaths in Port-au-Prince are mounting, as quake survivors scramble to live without shelter or food…”