- Proposed cuts to Mich. budget hurts poor, By Karen Bouffard, August 6, 2009, Detroit News: “Services for the poor would be decimated under cuts proposed to close Michigan’s $1.8 billion budget hole, according to more than two dozen groups who asked Lansing lawmakers Wednesday to protect vulnerable people from shouldering the state’s economic woes. The coalition of faith-based and human services organizations — from the Food Bank Council of Michigan to the Association of United Ways and the Michigan Catholic Conference — said disproportionate cuts to the state departments of Human Services and Community Health would obliterate the social safety net at a time when unemployment in the state has spiked to 15.2 percent…”
- Welfare to work program is latest budget victim, By Susan Haigh (AP), August 9, 2009, Hartford Courant: “A 13-year-old initiative that helps needy people move from welfare to work is the latest victim of Connecticut’s budget impasse. Programs ranging from on-the-job training to child care stopped as of July 1 for thousands of people – mostly women – who receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, a state cash assistance program that can last 21 months. The July and August executive orders, issued by Gov. M. Jodi Rell to run the state without a permanent two-year budget in place, slashed funding for the Jobs First program, leaving just enough money to cover some staff at the state Department of Labor.
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty