- U.S. adds 192,000 new jobs; unemployment rate dips to 8.9 percent, By Neil Irwin, March 4, 2011, Washington Post: “The missing piece of the U.S. economic recovery – job creation – is finally starting to fall into place. Employers added 192,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department said Friday, and the unemployment rate edged down to 8.9 percent from 9 percent, the third straight month of decline. While the job numbers received a boost from people returning to work after being marooned at home during the January snowstorms, the report was still the most solid evidence yet that the economic recovery is gaining momentum…”
- Spurred by private hiring, job growth gathers steam, By Catherine Rampell, March 4, 2011, New York Times: “The waiting game still is not over, but it may be soon. The nation’s employers added 192,000 jobs in February, up from a gain of 63,000 the previous month, the Labor Department reported on Friday. While February’s number represented the fastest growth in nearly a year, it was partly the result of a bounce back from unusually depressed hiring in January, when major snowstorms shuttered offices and factories around the country. Taken together, the job growth for the first two months of 2011 has not been much better than it was last fall. Still, economists say they are hopeful that the pace will soon pick up, assuming higher global energy and food prices do not derail the recovery…”
Day: March 4, 2011
Community Development Block Grants
- Block grants could face major cuts as federal funds to fight poverty tighten, By Henri E. Cauvin, March 3, 2011, Washington Post: “Community development block grants have been a vital source of federal anti-poverty money for decades, supporting affordable housing, job training and an array of other programs serving low-income communities. When President Obama, in his 2012 budget, proposed cutting funding for CDBGs, as they are known, by about $300 million, local officials across the country worried about their already-battered finances. Then House Republicans offered their take on the nearly $4 billion grant program. Not only did they urge cutting the program by more than half, to $1.5 billion, they also endorsed making the cuts in the middle of the current fiscal year, part of the $61 billion in proposed cuts that have helped set up the budget battle. Even with Congress having voted this week on smaller cuts to keep the government funded through March 18, the far bigger trims proposed by the Republicans are still on the table. Cuts might not be finalized, but their seeming inevitability has made clear to America’s cities that they face a new reality in Washington…”
- Milwaukee agencies brace for impact of federal cuts in aid to poor, By Georgia Pabst, February 27, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Programs designed to help the poor such as Head Start, energy assistance, education and training could be cut drastically under federal budget proposals that have been made by President Barack Obama and the U.S. House. Local and national officials who work in programs that assist low-income people are watching carefully as the House and the U.S. Senate take up measures to fund federal programs for the remainder of the year and the 2012 budget, but they say it seems clear that many programs aimed at those with low incomes will be trimmed. One of the biggest cuts proposed by Obama is to reduce Community Service Block Grants by half – from $700 million to $350 million. The grants go to anti-poverty agencies such as Milwaukee’s Social Development Commission…”
Childhood Obesity – Ohio
30 percent of Ohio kids overweight, study shows, By Catherine Candisky, March 3, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “Despite increased efforts to combat childhood obesity, the percentage of overweight children in Ohio remains at more than 30, virtually unchanged in the past five years, a state health department study released yesterday found. State officials said the findings mirror national data for all states. The causes are no surprise: lack of exercise, poor diet, poverty, lack of access to healthy foods. The study included some alarming statistics. For example, 40 percent of third-grade students drink more than two sugar-sweetened drinks a day, and youngsters who watch three or more hours of television a day were more likely to be overweight and obese than those who spend less time on the couch. Still, officials say the good news is that childhood obesity has not gotten worse…”