States help ex-inmates find jobs, By Steven Greenhouse, January 24, 2011, New York Times: “Faced with yawning budget gaps and high unemployment, California, Michigan, New York and several other states are attacking both problems with a surprising strategy: helping ex-convicts find jobs to keep them from ending up back in prison. The approach is backed by prisoner advocates as well as liberal and conservative government officials, who say it pays off in cold, hard numbers. Michigan, for example, spends $35,000 a year to keep someone in prison – more than the cost of educating a University of Michigan student. Through vigorous job placement programs and prudent use of parole, state officials say they have cut the prison population by 7,500, or about 15 percent, over the last four years, yielding more than $200 million in annual savings. Michigan spends $56 million a year on various re-entry programs, including substance abuse treatment and job training…”
Day: January 24, 2011
Arizona Republic Series: Losing Ground, Arizona’s Middle Class
- Arizona’s middle class: Defining American ideal, By Betty Beard, January 23, 2011, Arizona Republic: “America’s middle class has never been easy to define, measure or study. It’s loosely seen as those falling between the impoverished and the rich, the vast group that makes enough money to aspire to the American dream. The dream varies depending on the individual. But generally, “middle class” means enough to live on, with a little bit more. It means in typical times, you can support a household, buy a home and pay a mortgage, afford medical care, help the kids with college costs and plot out a comfortable retirement. With the ‘little bit more,’ you can indulge – an upgraded smartphone, a relaxing vacation, a better car. ‘It’s a headache trying to define,’ said John Russo, of the Center for Working Class Studies at Ohio’s Youngstown State University. It would seem obvious that the middle class could be defined by money – perhaps broadly, such as those between the 20th and 80th percentiles in income, or more narrowly, such as those earning a certain percentage below or above the median income. In Arizona, the median income last year was almost $33,000. But Philadelphia-based economist Joel Naroff said that defining the middle class based solely on income can be misleading…”
- Arizona’s middle class: Poverty casts longer shadow, By Betty Beard, January 24, 2011, Arizona Republic: “Gas prices hover near $3. Medical costs are on the rise, and child care can be expensive. And there’s always an emergency home repair that just wasn’t in the budget. It’s hard to climb back to a middle-class lifestyle after a tumble into joblessness and poverty, as many Arizonans are finding. In September, the U.S. Census Bureau said Arizona had the nation’s second-worst poverty rate in 2009, behind Mississippi. The percentage of impoverished Arizonans was said to have increased to 21 percent in 2009 from 18 percent in 2008. The one-year change highlights the devastating impact of the Great Recession in Arizona, which typically falls in the upper third of the 50 states for high poverty rates. The lower-middle class, in particular, faces a shaky short-term outlook…”
- Arizona’s middle class in crisis: Many are barely hanging on, By Betty Beard, January 23, 2011, Arizona Republic: “Arizonans are coming to terms with a harsh reality: Life is different now. Fundamentally, profoundly different. More than 3 1/2 years after home prices peaked, and three years after the recession began, the economic aftershocks continue. In the job-networking groups and the partially built subdivisions, in the nervous break-room conversations, many middle-class dreams are under siege…”