Mergers, program cuts recommended to trim state budget, By Cy Ryan, October 29, 2010, Las Vegas Sun: “Merging agencies, shifting programs to local government and cutting benefits to low-income residents are among proposals to save millions of dollars as the state faces a financial crunch. The fiscal staff of the Legislature on Thursday outlined more than 20 ideas for efficiencies and savings in the upcoming budget. State agencies have produced initial budgets with 10 percent reductions. The legislative financial division has additional suggestions the 2011 session might consider…”
Month: October 2010
Welfare Reform and Single Mothers
Welfare reform failing poor single mothers, By Melinda Burns, October 28, 2010, Miller-McCune: “The women at the bottom in America, single mothers on public assistance, are sometimes called ‘drawer people,’ the subjects of case files that stay in the welfare manager’s drawer, year after year. They are mothers who quit work or can’t work because they are ill or disabled, or illiterate, or victims of abuse, or the sole caregivers for an elderly parent or chronically sick child. These so-called hard-to-serve single mothers may include women who fail to apply for the 70 jobs in one month required to qualify for a federal cash grant. They may want to go to school full time, which is against welfare rules in some states. They may be approaching the five-year lifetime limit for cash assistance that most states impose. Or they may simply not own a car…”
Infant Mortality Rate – Philadelphia, PA
Researchers fight to save the region’s tiniest babies, By Josh Goldstein, October 25, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Delivered by cesarean section 11 weeks early, Quinzel Kane Jr. was so tiny that his 1.6-pound body nearly fit in his father’s hand. A week later, the child developed a leaky bowel – a common problem in underweight babies – and was rushed to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. Over the next few months, specialists there would fight to keep him from becoming part of a grim statistic: the high infant mortality rate in pockets across the region. Philadelphia’s infant mortality rate stands among the nation’s highest – rivaling Detroit’s and Baltimore’s – and is on par with those of Uruguay in South America and Bosnia in eastern Europe. But the rates are high too in some suburban towns, such as Upper Darby and Norristown. And while murders grab far more attention here, the number of infant deaths is actually greater across the region…”