Democrats try to revive child care subsidies, By Marisa Lagos, December 6, 2010, San Francisco Chronicle: “Democratic lawmakers, still fuming over Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to eliminate child care subsidies for poor families, will hit back today with a bill that would restore funding to the program and guarantee day care for about 55,000 children.Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, authored the measure, which relies on a number of sources to pay for the program through June 30, the end of the fiscal year. Lawmakers will take up the bill next month, when Democrat Jerry Brown takes office as governor – with Pérez hoping Brown will be more sympathetic than Schwarzenegger, a Republican. Supporters of the day care subsidy cheered the decision, saying that restoring the subsidies would allow working parents to keep their jobs and eventually transition off state assistance entirely. Supporters had warned that cutting the program could ultimately cost taxpayers more than keeping it, because many parents, unable to afford child care, would quit their jobs and apply for welfare in order to stay home with their children…”
Day: December 6, 2010
UN Rural Poverty Report
Rural areas face challenges to eradicate extreme poverty, By James Melik, December 6, 2010, BBC News: “Some 350 million people living in rural areas being lifted out of extreme poverty in the past decade, according to The Rural Poverty Report, published by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a United Nations (UN) agency. However, in spite of this, more than a billion people around the world still continue to suffer. The UN describes extreme poverty as living on less than $1.25 (80p) a day. But factors such as human development, a lack of basic needs, vulnerability, livelihood, unsustainability and social exclusion are also considered in the report, which reflects on rural areas across the world and the implications for global food security. The last report came out in 2001 but, according to IFAD’s president Kananyo Nwanze, ideally it should come out more frequently. ‘You shouldn’t have to wait 10 years for a report of this nature,’ he says…”