Senior Community Service Employment Program

Job cuts puts seniors in jeopardy, By Shaya Tayefe Mohajer (AP), April 17, 2011, Contra Costa Times: “For $700 a month, 65-year-old Esmeralda Calderon cares for children part time through a federal community service job that’s in jeopardy because of cuts to the proposed federal budget for 2011. It’s the only source of income for a woman who has no one to rely on and lives alone in public housing in a gritty Hollywood neighborhood. Under the Department of Labor’s Senior Community Service Employment Program, more than 75,000 elderly Americans living in poverty in all 50 states earn their keep by the slimmest of margins. To qualify, participants must be over 55 and earning less than 125 percent of the federal poverty level – $13,600 a year. In the budget bill signed Friday by President Barack Obama, the program was slashed by 45 percent, from $825 million to $450 million a year. Advocates say it could mean as many as 58,000 fewer jobs if states or national groups are forced to discontinue the program because of the reductions…”