- Recession bites the poor, By Jazmine Ulloa, November 7, 2009, Brownsville Herald: “At least ‘from a technical perspective,’ as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in September, some economists believe the recession is very likely over. But a study released this week emphasized high levels of poverty among children in the United States – a problem that has long been pervasive in the country, even during positive economic times, public policy analysts say. The study in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youth will be on food stamps at some point in childhood, and the most recent recession could push the numbers up. The findings come from an analysis of 30 years of national data in a time span of economic highs and lows, including the early 1980s recession…”
- Food stamps: a canary in the coal mine?, By Douglas C. Lyons, November 7, 2009, South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “It’s an eye-popping statistic, no matter how you cut it: 90 percent of all black youngsters in the United States will be on food stamps at some point of their childhood. The statistic comes from a Washington University in St. Louis study and published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. Its author, Mark Rank, was quoted as saying the study ‘… shows that the period of childhood, rather than a period of safety and security, is really a time, for a lot of kids, of economic turmoil and risk…'”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty