- Most food stamp recipients have no earned income, By Sara Murray, September 26, 2011, Wall Street Journal: “Some 70% of households that relied on food stamps last year had no earned income, a new report shows. More than 40 million individuals and nearly 19 million households tapped the food stamp program in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While the recession technically ended in 2009, a sluggish economic recovery left millions out of work or underemployed and leaning on the government for assistance last year…”
- $7M plan may save the state $130M, By Catherine Candisky, September 29, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “The state hopes to avoid $130 million in federal penalties by giving working-poor families $10 a month in food stamps. Federal regulators recently levied nearly $33 million in fines against Ohio for having too few welfare recipients working or training for a job. Desperate to avoid that fine and another $100 million in pending fines, state officials announced their plan for boosting the so-called work-participation rate – padding the rolls. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services says that among its initiatives is temporarily adding more poor families – with jobs – to public-assistance rolls so they can be counted in the state’s work-participation rate…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty