More college students battle hunger as education and living costs rise, By Tara Bahrampour, April 9, 2014, Washington Post: “When Paul Vaughn, an economics major, was in his third year at George Mason University, he decided to save money by moving off campus. He figured that skipping the basic campus meal plan, which costs $1,575 for 10 meals a week each semester, and buying his own food would make life easier. But he had trouble affording the $50 a week he had budgeted for food and ended up having to get two jobs to pay for it…”
Tag: Cost of living
Social Security Benefits
Social Security raise to be lowest in years, By Stephen Ohlemacher, October 13, 2013, USA Today: “For the second straight year, millions of Social Security recipients, disabled veterans and federal retirees can expect historically small increases in their benefits come January. Preliminary figures suggest a benefit increase of roughly 1.5%, which would be among the smallest since automatic increases were adopted in 1975, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.Next year’s raise will be small because consumer prices, as measured by the government, haven’t gone up much in the past year…”
Poverty in New Jersey
- Poverty in N.J. reaches 52-year high, new report shows, By Brent Johnson, September 8, 2013, Star-Ledger: “Poverty in New Jersey continued to grow even as the national recession lifted, reaching a 52-year high in 2011, according to a report released today. The annual survey by Legal Services of New Jersey found 24.7 percent of the state’s population — 2.1 million residents — was considered poor in 2011. That’s a jump of more than 80,000 people — nearly 1 percent higher than the previous year and 3.8 percent more than pre-recession levels…”
- Poverty hitting 50-year highs in N.J., By Alfred Lubrano, September 8, 2013, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Poverty in New Jersey has reached levels not seen in 50 years, as more than two million people from Sussex to Cape May Counties founder in a deepening struggle to keep themselves and their families fed, housed, and healthy. The troubling findings, part of a report spotlighting poverty in 2011, were released Sunday by Legal Services of New Jersey’s Poverty Research Institute. The report is called ‘Poverty Benchmarks 2013…'”