County’s child poverty highest in decade, report says, By Marga K. Cooley, July 14, 2011, Santa Maria Times: “The number of children in Santa Barbara County who qualify for free and reduced-cost lunches – 54 percent – and those who live below the federal poverty level, were the highest of the decade in 2010, according to a recent report on children’s welfare. ‘The data shows what we know, that there’s great economic concern for families in our county, and that’s increasing,’ said Joy Thomas, outreach and education specialist for KIDS Network, which produced the 2010 Children’s Scorecard along with the UCSB Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and a variety of public agencies and community-based organizations. Thomas said many of the numbers are due to the general state of the economy, but some are prolonged, significant issues, such as the achievement gap in student test scores…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty