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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Tag: Basic needs

Disability and Poverty

  • Disability makes poverty likelier than ever: report, By Olivia Carville, September 25, 2014, Toronto Star: “Being disabled is increasingly a trigger for poverty and hunger, according to a new report profiling food bank clients across the GTA. The percentage of disabled people lining up at food banks has almost doubled since 2005, the Daily Bread Food Bank’s Who’s Hungry report states. Disability beneficiaries receive so little money from Ontario’s social welfare programs they are forced to live in poverty, Daily Bread executive director Gail Nyberg said…”
  • People with disability ‘twice as likely to experience poverty’ – charity, By Geraldine Gittens, September 24, 2014, Irish Independent: “People with a disability are twice as likely to experience poverty due to the extra costs they incur, a charity has warned. There is ‘substantial evidence’ that the additional costs of having a disability can place a household ‘at significant risk of poverty and deprivation’, according to new research acquired by Inclusion Ireland…”

Working Households and Basic Needs – Michigan

Report: 4 in 10 Michigan households struggle to make ends meet, By Emily Lawler, August 31, 2014, MLive: “Jessie Robinson got her paycheck last week, and started the process of deciding which bills to pay. ‘I am constantly going through all of the bills and figuring which stuff is going to be turned off first and paying those bills first,’ Robinson said. Her family is one of 40 percent of households in the state that despite working, doesn’t have enough money to pay for basic needs according to a new report from United Way. The report measures the state’s 2012 ‘ALICE’ households; an acronym for those that are Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed…”

Poverty and Living Standards in the US

Changed life of the poor: better off, but far behind, By Annie Lowrey, April 30, 2014, New York Times: “Is a family with a car in the driveway, a flat-screen television and a computer with an Internet connection poor? Americans — even many of the poorest — enjoy a level of material abundance unthinkable just a generation or two ago. That indisputable economic fact has become a subject of bitter political debate this year, half a century after President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty…”