- Senate reaches bipartisan deal on unemployment benefits extension, By Paul Kane, March 13, 2014, Washington Post: “Senate negotiators struck a bipartisan deal Thursday that would renew federal unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, allowing for retroactive payments to go to more than 2 million Americans whose benefits expired in late December. Ten senators, evenly divided among Democrats and Republicans, announced the pact and set up a timeline in which the legislation could pass the Senate in late March. Its outcome in the House remains up in the air, however…”
- Senators strike bipartisan jobless benefits deal, By Alan Fram (AP), March 14, 2014, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Chalk up one partisan election-year battle that senators seem likely to resolve when they return from recess later this month — the fight over renewing expired benefits for the long-term unemployed. Bipartisan Senate negotiators said Thursday that they’d struck a $9.7 billion compromise over the issue, agreeing to a five-month extension paid for by boosting some federal revenues. Approval seemed likely by the Democratic-led Senate when it returns in late March from a weeklong recess. That would throw the issue into the Republican-run House, where its fate is uncertain…”
Day: March 14, 2014
City Minimum Wages
Studies look at what happened when cities raised minimum wage, By Lynn Thompson, March 12, 2014, Seattle Times: “Ten years ago, San Francisco raised its minimum wage from $6.75 to $8.50 an hour, a 26 percent increase. Since then, it has gone up at regular intervals to its current $10.74 an hour, the highest big-city starting wage in the country. The city has slapped other mandates on businesses, including paid sick leave and a requirement to provide health-care coverage or pay into a pool for uninsured residents. What have the effects been on employment? Almost none, according to economists at the University of California, Berkeley, who have studied San Francisco, eight other cities that raised their minimum wages in the past decade, and 21 states with higher base pay than the federal minimum…”
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – Delaware
- Food stamp use increasing in Delaware, By William H. McMichael, Jon Offredo and James Fisher, March 9, 2014, News Journal: “Each Delaware community experienced different problems. In New Castle County, it was the loss of good-paying jobs. In Smyrna, thousands of newcomers seeking an affordable life stumbled into economic troubles. In Rehoboth Beach, younger workers and seniors struggled to make ends meet. In each, increasingly, many Delawareans needed help with food. The number of state residents receiving food stamps has nearly tripled over the past 10 years, far outpacing the relatively small increase of 14 percent in population…”
- Food Stamps in Delaware: Rising need ‘a big deal’ in Smyrna, By Jon Offredo, March 9, 2014, News Journal: “There’s something about the once quiet farming community around Smyrna that has attracted Christina Quiros and thousands of others over the past 10 years. Mostly, it’s a better way of life, a cheaper cost of living and the promise of a new beginning. Quiros, 40, joined her husband last summer. A former police dispatcher, she thought finding a job would be easy. He already had moved to the area to look for work, which he found for a time…”
- Food Stamps in Delaware: One NCCo community looks to recover, By William H. McMichael, March 9, 2014, News Journal: “A once-prosperous swath of homes and businesses across New Castle County has seen first-hand the impact of lost jobs and lost opportunity. Here lived workers from Chrysler, MeadWestvaco, MBNA, Avon and the dozens of businesses that supported those major employers. Those jobs have disappeared. And across the area, which stretches from the state’s western border south of Newark to the Christina River, the use of food stamps over the past decade has grown dramatically, even as the population has fallen…”
- Food Stamps in Delaware: Shopping trips involve careful planning, By Jon Offredo, March 9, 2014, News Journal: “Erick Coleman reaches in and grabs five fried chicken strip dinners from one of the freezers lining the frozen food aisle at Food Lion in Newark. ‘This is a meal right here,’ Coleman, 42, said, clutching the boxes of Hungry Man. ‘If I could afford it, I’d never eat these again.’ Like others across Delaware, Coleman hits the supermarket twice a month. He and his girlfriend plan out what they need, scour the newspapers for coupons, and keep an eye out for must-grab in-store deals like the two half-gallon containers of orange juice for $5 they place in their cart, or the two packages of shredded cheese for the same price…”
- Food Stamps in Delaware: Coastal Sussex changes hit some hard, By James Fisher, March 9, 2014, News Journal: “Rehoboth Beach is Delaware’s biggest coastal resort, its air thick with the scent of vinegary french fries and sloppy cheesesteaks. There’s even a store at the beach offering bacon-infused ice cream. The coastal town draws many vacationers interested in owning beach homes or condos, and willing to pay high prices in a community that has seen the median sales price grow to $647,000 for a single-family home. But the area is also seeing a rising use of food stamps, according to data from the state Department of Health and Social Services. In 2003, 260 people received the food assistance in the Rehoboth ZIP code of 19971, which had 10,000 residents then…”