UN rethinks how to measure, define ‘poor’, By Jina Moore, November 5, 2010, Christian Science Monitor: “The United Nations is starting to rethink that question. The UN Development Program yesterday unveiles this year’s Human Development Report and the Human Development Index (HDI), the annual statistical extravaganza that offers an alternative to GDP as a measure of well-being. This year, the HDI does something new for the poor: It multiplies them. The report introduces a new measure for poverty. Called the ‘multidimensional poverty index’ (MPI), it’s a different way of thinking about who is or isn’t poor. The old way was (comparatively) easy: Count the number of people who live on less than $1.25 a day. The report still does that, but it augments that income standard with a, well, multidimensional index…”
Human development report shows great gains, and some slides, By Neil MacFarquhar, November 4, 2010, New York Times: “The world has made significant progress in income, education and health over the past 40 years, but the gains have been uneven and in some places war and the ravages of AIDS shortened life spans, according to a United Nations report on Thursday. Over all, average life expectancy around the globe jumped to 70 years in 2010, up from 59 in 1970. School enrollment through high school reached 70 percent of eligible pupils, up from 55 percent, and average per capita income doubled to more than $10,000 in the 135 countries for which numbers were available. The statistics cover about 92 percent of the world’s population…”
Hunger in Philadelphia: The safety net is torn, By Alfred Lubrano, November 5, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Myra Young fits a nebulizer mask over her son Todd’s face to beat back his chronic asthma. Inhaling vaporized medicine that keeps him breathing, the 4-year-old with large eyes leafs through a children’s Bible to pass the time. Young, 41, is an unemployed nursing assistant who lost her job in 2007 caring for Todd during his two-month hospitalization. She watches nervously as the whirring machine eats electricity. The power to Young’s two-bedroom rental in Kensington will be cut in two weeks because the bill has climbed to $770. She lives in the poorest place in Pennsylvania – the First Congressional District. According to a national poll, the district is the second-hungriest in America. Young, who is separated, is not without help. She receives monthly welfare payments of $205, along with $362 in food stamps, and $674 in Supplemental Security Income for Todd’s illness – part of the safety net meant to aid the poor. Young’s husband, a hotel kitchen worker, chips in as well. But all that help still keeps mother and son stuck at the poverty level – not nearly enough to pay the $625 rent, and feed Young’s hungry child and his voracious breathing machine. Because Young hasn’t worked since Todd’s hospitalization, it’s harder for her to get jobs; employers are wary of her two years away from nursing…”
Inquirer Editorial: We are what we eat, Editorial, November 5, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Hunger isn’t confined to a single zip code. But there are few places where its impact is more evident than within this city’s First Congressional District, rated the second-hungriest in America. Inquirer reporter Alfred Lubrano recently detailed how that hunger, rooted in poverty, can paradoxically lead to obesity. Many among the poor are overweight not from eating too much, but because they eat the wrong foods…”
Jobs data highlight the challenges for Washington, By Catherine Rampell, November 5, 2010, New York Times: “Good, but not good enough. As President Obama said himself, that was the message in Friday’s Labor Department report, which showed that the United States economy added 151,000 jobs in October. It was certainly a welcome change after four months of job losses but not strong enough to make a dent in unemployment. Nearly 15 million people are still out of work, and the unemployment rate remains at 9.6 percent. The jobless rate has not fallen substantially this year largely because job growth has been barely fast enough to absorb new entrants to the labor force. And even if the economy suddenly ramps up and starts adding 208,000 jobs a month – the average during the best year of job creation this decade – it would take 12 years to fully close the gap between the growing number of American workers and the total number of jobs available, according to Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project…”
Unemployment rate holds at 9.6%, but job market shows signs of life, By Don Lee, November 5, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “The nation’s sluggish job market showed signs of life in October: Employers added a net 151,000 jobs over the month, and private-sector job creation was the strongest since April, the Labor Department said Friday. However, the better-than-expected job gains weren’t large enough to bring down the unemployment rate, which remained stuck at 9.6% for the third month in a row. A broader measure of unemployment and underemployment, which includes part-time workers who can’t find full-time jobs, dropped a notch to 17% last month…”
Unemployment drops in 85% of metro areas in September, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), November 3, 2010, USA Today: “Unemployment fell in more than 85% of the nation’s largest metro areas in September, a sharp improvement from the previous month. The Labor Department said Wednesday that the jobless rate dropped in 321 of the country’s 372 metropolitan areas, while remaining the same in 20 and rising in 31. That compares to 230 metro areas that saw their rates fall in August and is the largest number of areas reporting improvement since April…”
