- Washington area counties reflect health disparities, By Lena H. Sun, March 30, 2011, Washington Post: “The Washington area has some of the region’s healthiest counties, such as Fairfax and Montgomery, but also pockets of poor health in the District and Prince George’s County, according to a set of reports to be released Wednesday. The reports, which rank U.S. counties and cities based on how long people live and how healthy they are, reflect disparities that are closely linked to factors outside the doctor’s office, including high school graduation rates, poverty rates and the number of single-parent households…”
- Marin County named healthiest in California in new study; L.A. County ranks 26th, By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, March 30, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “The title of healthiest California county goes to Marin County – for the second year in a row. A new study released Wednesday named the Northern California county the healthiest in the state. The Bay Area county had lower rates of smoking, adult obesity and teen birth compared with other California counties, according to an annual rankings released by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation…”
Month: March 2011
US Census Report on Temporary Poverty
Poverty often a temporary state, U.S. census study finds, By Ari Bloomekatz, March 28, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Donny Ashley misses the days when he was just barely poor. Sure, he commuted more than three hours each day to work as an electrical apprentice, but the paycheck – about $575 a week – put his family of four over the federal poverty threshold. But then the economy turned, and he lost his job. His wife managed to get work as a nurse but lost that job about a month ago. Now, having burned through their savings, the Watts family has gone from barely poor to officially poor. ‘It’s not a good feeling to be, not necessarily above the poverty line, but somewhat, almost having your head above water where you can breathe. Now I’m drowning,’ Ashley said. ‘It’s a constant feeling of struggle, like no end in sight.’ A report released recently by the U.S. Census Bureau suggests that Ashley’s roller coaster ride along the poverty line is not unusual. The study found that poverty was often a temporary state for households: As some families moved out of poverty, others moved in. The report also showed that many of those families that escaped poverty continued to generate only minimal incomes…”
States and Minimum Wage Workers
- Texas leads nation in minimum wage workers, By Steve Clark, March 28, 2011, Brownsville Herald: “If there’s anything faintly resembling good news in a just-released report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it’s that Texas’ share of hourly workers at or below minimum wage among U.S. states fell from 14.3 percent in 2009 to 9.5 percent in 2010. This just barely qualifies as a positive, however, since the number of Texas hourly workers at or below the prevailing federal minimum wage still increased by 76,000 over 2009. At 9.5 percent, Texas ties with Mississippi in terms of U.S. states with the highest proportion of hourly-paid workers earning at or below federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour. Texas and Mississippi take top honors, therefore, in terms of having the lowest paid workers among all 50 states and the District of Columbia. To be fair, low wages are partly a function of lower cost of living. In Cameron County and the Rio Grande Valley, low wages and low cost of living – by some measures – go hand in hand, and are both a blessing and a curse in the view of economic development officials…”
- Lone Star State ties Mississippi in low pay count, By Patrick Danner, March 28, 2011, Houston Chronicle: “Texas tied with Mississippi for states having the highest percentage of hourly paid workers earning the minimum wage or less. Some 550,000 Texans, or 9.5 percent of hourly paid workers, made the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour or less last year. That’s up 76,000 workers, or 16 percent, from 2009, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported…”