Middle-class areas shrink as income gap grows, new report finds, By Sabrina Tavernise, November 15, 2011, New York Times: “The portion of American families living in middle-income neighborhoods has declined significantly since 1970, according to a new study, as rising income inequality left a growing share of families in neighborhoods that are mostly low-income or mostly affluent. The study, conducted by Stanford University and scheduled for release on Wednesday by the Russell Sage Foundation and Brown University, uses census data to examine family income at the neighborhood level in the country’s 117 biggest metropolitan areas. The findings show a changed map of prosperity in the United States over the past four decades, with larger patches of affluence and poverty and a shrinking middle…”
Day: November 16, 2011
States and Medicaid Cuts
Many states cut Medicaid payments as stimulus ends, By Doug Trapp, November 16, 2011, San Antonio Express-News: “Fourteen states and the District of Columbia cut Medicaid physician pay for fiscal year 2011, down from 20 states in fiscal 2010. But continuing state budget deficits could lead to more new fee cuts than those already adopted for fiscal 2012, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The foundation’s 11th annual survey of state Medicaid programs concluded that continued Medicaid budget pressure on many states led them to expand cost-saving measures in 2011 and 2012. These moves included increasing enrollment in Medicaid managed care, reducing or ending optional benefits such as dental care, tightening prescription drug formularies, enacting or hiking co-payments and, most frequently, reducing Medicaid fees to doctors, according to the Kaiser report, released on Oct. 27…”