A look inside America’s poorest county, By Nomaan Merchant (AP), February 13, 2011, Kansas City Star: “In the barren grasslands of Ziebach County, there’s almost nothing harder to find in winter than a job. This is America’s poorest county, where more than 60 percent of people live at or below the poverty line. At a time when the weak economy is squeezing communities across the nation, recently released census figures show that nowhere are the numbers as bad as here – a county with 2,500 residents, most of them Cheyenne River Sioux Indians living on a reservation. In the coldest months of the year, when seasonal construction work disappears and the South Dakota prairie freezes, unemployment among the Sioux can hit 90 percent. Poverty has loomed over this land for generations. Repeated attempts to create jobs have run into stubborn obstacles: the isolated location, the area’s crumbling infrastructure, a poorly trained population and a tribe that struggles to work with businesses or attract investors…”
Day: February 14, 2011
Legal Aid – Massachusetts
State’s bills soar for legal aid to poor, By Milton J. Valencia and Matt Carroll, February 14, 2011, Boston Globe: “The state last year paid private lawyers $155.6 million to represent poor clients, almost 25 percent more than anticipated under a 2005 state law that was passed to make their pay more equitable with other states, according to a Globe analysis of the spending. At the same time, the state has failed to take several other actions recommended in 2005 that would have limited the state’s dependence on private lawyers – and the fees they received – and better defined who qualifies as an indigent defendant…”
Free and Reduced-Price Lunch Program – Ohio
School-lunch aid up in Ohio, local suburbs, By Catherine Candisky, February 13, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “The federal free and reduced-price lunch program for low-income children now feeds more than four of every 10 Ohio students. New statistics from the Ohio Department of Education show that the proportion of students receiving the tax-funded benefit – regarded as one of the most-reliable indicators of poverty – has increased nearly 50percent in the past five years to a record high. Although the program has long been a staple in urban and rural districts, some of the largest spikes in recent years can be seen in suburban schools surrounding Columbus, not often seen as the front lines of poverty…”