- Michigan jobless crowd state aid offices, By Chris Christoff, November 22, 2009, Detroit Free Press: “Michigan’s welfare system is gorged with new clients who often wait hours in crowded state offices to get food stamps and medical care. People such as Tricia Baysdell, 30, of Troy, who, like many, is battling the worst economy of her life. Last week, she waited five hours with her 9-year-old son at the Department of Human Services office in Madison Heights to apply for food assistance and Medicaid. She gave up waiting so she could pick up her other two children from school. Baysdell’s husband was laid off this month from his $70,000-a-year job at an auto supplier. He has been diagnosed with chronic leukemia and can’t receive unemployment pay because he can no longer work…”
- Demand for public assistance tied to job losses, By Joan Barron, November 23, 2009, Casper Tribune: “With Wyoming’s unemployment rate topping the 7 percent mark, workers in Department of Family Services field offices in Wyoming are seeing more and more people lining up for food stamps and other public help. Heather Babbitt, Family Services economic assistance administrator; Coleen Collins, deputy economic assistance administrator; Jacqueline Petroski, consultant with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, and Juliette Rule, public information officer, gave an update last week on what the department is doing to help field workers handle the higher workload. ‘I think what happens is we see more people walking in the door, with the recession, to see what they’re eligible for,’ Collins said. The increase has been primarily in the food stamp and Medicaid programs…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty