- Criticism for cuts to programs that help people get off welfare, By Alfred Lubrano, July 4, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “In a GED classroom emptied by state budget cuts last Thursday, instructor Marylou Fusco began removing paper cutouts that her students – single mothers working to get off welfare – had made of their own hands that were tacked to a bulletin board. On the palms of the hands, the women had written their life goals: ‘Get off welfare.’ ‘Go to college.’ ‘Get my own place for me and my kids.’ After 15 years, the GED classes were quickly ended to reflect the new reality dictated by state budget line No. 5297.55: Cut the welfare-to-work program by $17 million – nearly 48 percent. The new reality postpones or ends the hopes and wishes scrawled across the women’s palms. Still more cuts were made in other programs meant to help the poor in a budget process that saw the Corbett administration push through a controversial last-minute Senate measure that shifts control of welfare funding from the legislature to his administration…”
- NJ reverses order to cut $15 from welfare checks, By Erik Larsen, July 6, 2011, Asbury Park Press: “The state of New Jersey has reversed an order to its 21 counties to make a $15 per person reduction in monthly welfare checks issued to single adults and childless couples. Mary Fran McFadden, director of the Ocean County Board of Social Services, said Tuesday that anyone affected by the change before the order was rescinded will be reimbursed. The benefits change was to begin last Friday, the start of the state’s new fiscal year. There are more than 3,100 county residents on General Assistance who stood to be impacted by the change…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty