- Group says child poverty on the rise, By Debra Pressey, February 14, 2013, Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette: “More than one in five Champaign County kids were living in poverty in 2011, according to the new Kids Count report released this morning. The county’s child poverty rate nearly doubled in 12 years, growing from 12 percent in 1999 to 23 percent in 2011. The child poverty rate in Vermilion County also grew in that same time span, from 19 percent to 35 percent. Done each year by the nonprofit, non-partisan Voices for Illinois Children, Kids Count takes a look at the health and well-being of children in the state…”
- Kids Count: Economics at root of children’s issues in Illinois, By Deirdre Cox Baker, February 15, 2013, Quad-City Times: “The future of children in Illinois was a common worry Thursday as a group of professionals gathered in the Quad-Cities to announce the Illinois Kids Count 2013 findings…”
- Kids Count report presents grim findings, By Pam Adams, February 14, 2013, Peoria Journal Star: “Illinois is a national leader in early childhood education, but state funding for pre-school programs has been cut substantially since 2010. The state has one of the lowest percentages of uninsured children in the nation, but childhood poverty rates keep increasing in the Tri-County Area…”
Day: February 15, 2013
Earned Income Tax Credit – North Carolina
Low-income taxpayers could lose N.C. credit, By John Frank, February 15, 2013, Charlotte Observer: “Lawmakers appear unwilling to extend a tax break for low-income workers, in what critics are calling the third strike against the state’s least fortunate in the first 10 days of the legislative session. More than 900,000 low- and moderate-income taxpayers received the modest tax break last year under the state’s earned income tax credit or EITC. The state credit was established in 2007, but it is scheduled to expire at the end of 2013 unless legislators act to extend it…”
Early Childhood Education
In Alabama, a model for Obama’s push to expand preschool, By Motoko Rich, February 14, 2013, New York Times: “President Obama’s call in his State of the Union address to ‘make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America’ rallied advocates across the country who have long argued that inequity in education begins at a very young age. In details that emerged early Thursday, the administration proposed that the federal government work with states to provide preschool for every 4-year-old from low- and moderate-income families. The president’s plan also calls for expanding Early Head Start, the federal program designed to prepare children from low-income families for school, to broaden quality childcare for infants and toddlers…”