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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Month: August 2019

August 5 – 9, 2019

Seventy-two million Americans rely on Medicaid for health care.

 

Tennessee’s innovative Medicaid program is offering bonuses to mental health providers who help make sure their Medicaid patients get preventive help and treatment for physical ailments too.

 

Boston Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Brigham and Women’s plan to spend about $3 million over three years, saying that housing plays a critical role in health.

 

Studies show poor children living in “high opportunity” areas have a better chance at success. A program in the Seattle area to help families move to better neighborhoods has seen promising results.

 

The St. Louis area’s segregation makes improving social mobility and access to economic opportunity more difficult.

 

Suburban poverty has long been on the rise. Today, by some researchers’ count, there are roughly 3 million more Americans living in poverty in suburbs than in cities.

 

Many low-income college students across the country are skipping meals, buying cheap junk food, or devoting time that could be spent learning to searching for free food events.

 

Massachusetts lawmakers are working this summer to target more resources at the state’s lowest-income students. But first, there’s no agreement on how many students are in poverty in state schools.

 

July 29 – August 2, 2019

The U.S. economy is slowing down, but it keeps creating jobs at a healthy pace. Employers added 164,000 jobs last month — as analysts had projected — and the unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%.

 

Ohio’s Medicaid enrollment has declined more than 8% in the past two years, raising questions about whether the more than 250,000 former

 

The ruling continues the legal obstacles to the Trump administration?s desire to compel poor Americans to work in exchange for public health insurance.

 

White House advisers argued against funding a program under the Affordable Care Act.

 

Georgia gets bad news on Medicaid waiver funding
The Trump administration rejected a conservative proposal for a Medicaid waiver for Utah that had limits similar to Georgia’s.

 

The administration failed to include its analysis of how many schoolchildren would be affected by food stamp changes in its formal proposal, according to a lawmaker who was briefed on the figures.

 

The policy is already law in some states and cities, and has become a talking point for Democratic leaders and presidential candidates. But while it has helped lift some Americans out of poverty, it has cost others their jobs.

 

 

The influx comes at a time when the foster care system is scrambling to adjust to major federal changes.

 

L.A. officials are the subject of criticism for what many residents see as a failure to handle the homeless problem. But across the country, L.A. is considered to be a model for getting people into housing.

 

A new state law dramatically increases the time tenants have before they are evicted. Tenant advocates say the law is great news; landlords say it’s forcing them to act like the department of social services.