- Tennessee kids’ well-being up, but poverty is, too, By Adam Tamburin, August 17, 2011, The Tennessean.
- Louisiana ranks 49th nationwide in child welfare survey, By Katy Reckdahl, August 17, 2011, New Orleans Times-Picayune.
- Report: Arkansas ranks 47th in nation in well-being of children, By John Lyon, August 17, 2011, Arkansas News.
- Alabama ranks 48th for child health, well-being in Annie E. Casey Foundation 2011 Kids Count data, By Jeff Hansen, August 17, 2011, Birmingham News.
- State last in child welfare, By Ellen Ciurczak, August 17, 2011, Hattiesburg American.
- Oklahoma ranks 43rd in child well-being, By Mike Averill, August 17, 2011, Tulsa World.
- Study finds one of every four Texas children lives in poverty, By Gary Scharrer, August 17, 2011, San Antonio Express-News.
Tag: Mississippi
Poverty and Obesity – Mississippi
Tackling obesity amid poverty in a Mississippi county, By Debbie Elliott, August 9, 2011, National Public Radio: “The average life expectancy for men in Holmes County, Miss., is 65 years. That’s a full decade shorter than the U.S. average. So what’s killing people there? Researchers say it’s no coincidence that Holmes County is also one of Mississippi’s poorest, and most obese. Forty-two percent of the county’s residents are considered obese. Calvin Head, the county’s former transportation director, doesn’t have to see the statistics on paper. He saw the problem first hand: The school buses were overcrowded, but there were not more students…”
States and Minimum Wage Workers
- Texas leads nation in minimum wage workers, By Steve Clark, March 28, 2011, Brownsville Herald: “If there’s anything faintly resembling good news in a just-released report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it’s that Texas’ share of hourly workers at or below minimum wage among U.S. states fell from 14.3 percent in 2009 to 9.5 percent in 2010. This just barely qualifies as a positive, however, since the number of Texas hourly workers at or below the prevailing federal minimum wage still increased by 76,000 over 2009. At 9.5 percent, Texas ties with Mississippi in terms of U.S. states with the highest proportion of hourly-paid workers earning at or below federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour. Texas and Mississippi take top honors, therefore, in terms of having the lowest paid workers among all 50 states and the District of Columbia. To be fair, low wages are partly a function of lower cost of living. In Cameron County and the Rio Grande Valley, low wages and low cost of living – by some measures – go hand in hand, and are both a blessing and a curse in the view of economic development officials…”
- Lone Star State ties Mississippi in low pay count, By Patrick Danner, March 28, 2011, Houston Chronicle: “Texas tied with Mississippi for states having the highest percentage of hourly paid workers earning the minimum wage or less. Some 550,000 Texans, or 9.5 percent of hourly paid workers, made the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour or less last year. That’s up 76,000 workers, or 16 percent, from 2009, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported…”