Increases in Energy Prices Raise Risk of Food Insecurity

Unexpected increases in energy prices can adversely affect food security, USDA reports. For poor families, rising energy prices create a difficult tradeoff between buying enough food, staying warm, or having enough gas for the car. Energy price shocks may be particularly detrimental to low-income households because they have fewer resources available to absorb an unplanned higher expense. A recent USDA study explored the relationship between energy price shocks and food security and found that price shocks in each energy source—gasoline, natural gas, and electricity—increased the probability of a household becoming more food insecure or food stressed. The magnitude of the response was higher for low-income households compared to the average response for all households. A 41% increase in natural gas prices, for example, led to the prevalence of food insecurity among low-income households rising from 12.4 to 14.7%.

Source: USDA, 7/13/17, Energy Shocks and Food Insecurity

Massive Budget Cuts Proposed for SNAP

"President Donald Trump's budget would drive millions of people off of food stamps, part of a new wave of spending cut proposals that already are getting panned by lawmakers in both parties on Capitol Hill.

Trump's blueprint for the 2018 budget year comes out Tuesday. It includes a wave of cuts to benefit programs such as Medicaid, federal employee pensions, welfare benefits and farm subsidies.

Cuts include a whopping $193 billion from food stamps over the coming decade — a cut of more than 25 percent — implemented by cutting back eligibility and imposing additional work requirements, according to talking points circulated by the White House. The program presently serves about 42 million people."

Source: StarTribune, 5/22/17, Read More >

Hartford Elementary School Hosts Community Job Fair

On Thursday, May 11, the Rawson Lighthouse School will be hosting their 2nd annual Community Job Fair. 

View flyer below for more information:

The Safety Net Helps People To Work

"An emerging body of research reveals that some social welfare policies actually encourage more people to work and to do so more productively. In this emerging liberal version of supply side economics, government programs enable more people to work, and to work in higher-productivity, higher-income jobs. The clearest example of a program that appears to increase labor supply and hence the nation’s economic potential is the earned-income tax credit (EITC). One study shows that a major expansion of the program in 1993 was a principal driver of higher employment among single mothers.

By 1999, 460,000 more women who headed their household were working than would have been without the EITC expansion. That is more than the number of such women who were pulled into the workforce by welfare reforms or a booming economy during the 90’s. In other areas, SNAP for example, the relationship between public programs and higher incomes and employment rates is more indirect and takes longer to play out. Research shows that low-income children who benefited early as Food Stamps were phased in were healthier and more likely to be working decades later than otherwise similar children in areas where the program arrived later."


Source: New York Times, 4/15/17, Supply Side for Liberals

More Lower Income Americans Worried About Hunger

Over the past two years, an average of 67% of lower-income U.S. adults, have worried "a great deal" about the problem of hunger and homelessness in the United States. Concern has also increased among middle- and upper-income Americans, but they still worry far less than do lower-income Americans.

Overall, 47% of Americans now worry about hunger and homelessness "a great deal," according to a March Gallup poll. Concern about hunger and homelessness now rank as high as, or higher than, concern about most other issues Gallup tested in its annual survey.

Source: Gallup, 3/30/17, Hunger Worries

Cuts in Funding for Anti-Poverty Programs?

"The majorities in Congress have advocated capping or “block granting” federal spending on Medicaid and SNAP — and the Trump administration is also expected to pursue a budget that restructures them. Over time, the effect would be major cuts to these programs. The more immediate effect would be to eliminate the programs’ ability to automatically adjust to meet increased need, whether from a weakened economy, natural disaster or public-health crises such as the opioid epidemic. Low-income programs that depend on annual appropriations are also at risk if the president and Congress follow through on plans to bring domestic spending to historically low levels."

 Source: Washington Post, 3/10/17, Read More->

New Budget Proposal Cuts Funding for Vital Programs

Governor Malloy’s recent budget proposal cuts $77,000 from the state’s nutrition assistance program, which helps fund food pantries, outreach, and the state food stamps program. It also cuts the Care4Kids subsidy by 7.7 million (6%) in fiscal year 2018, which starts this June, and over $12 million in the following year. Care4Kids helps low-income families pay for childcare.

Family resource centers in Hartford, East Hartford, and New Britain, among other cities which provide school-aged children with childcare before and after school, as well as adult education classes for people with limited English proficiency, would lose nearly $4 million. And school-based health centers would lose over $1 million next year, a 10% cut.

Source: CT Mirror, 2/14/17, CT Budget Tracker

Poverty has Moved to the 'Burbs'

Poverty in the United States has long been associated with large urban centers or rural communities, where it has historically been most concentrated. However, between 2000 and 2015, suburbs accounted for nearly half of the total national increase in the poor population. For the first time, suburbs became home to more poor residents than cities—those just outside of the country’s largest metro areas saw the number of residents living below the poverty line grow by 57%.

In 2015, 16 million poor people lived in the suburbs, outnumbering the poor population in cities by more than 3 million, small metro areas by more than 6 million, and rural areas by more than 8 million.

Source: Brookings Institution, 2/15/17, Poverty in the Suburbs

The Chance of Poverty is Strong For Children in U.S

"Out of all age groups, children are still most likely to live in poverty, according to new research from the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

Using the latest available data from the American Community Survey, NCCP researchers found that in 2015, while 30 percent of adults have low incomes, more than 40 percent of all children live in low-income families -- including 5.2 million infants and toddlers under 3.

Despite significant gains in household income and reductions in the overall poverty rate in recent years, 43 percent (30.6 million) of America's children are living in families barely able to afford their most basic needs, according to Basic Facts about Low-Income Children, the center's annual series of profiles on child poverty in America."

Source: NewsRoom, 2/9/17, Read More >

Financial Insecurity Takes a Toll On Cities

Having a high proportion of financially insecure residents (those with less than $2,000 in savings) can cost cities millions of dollars in lost revenue, unpaid public utility bills, and public benefit use, according to a new report from the Urban Institute. Residents with little or no savings are less likely to own homes and pay property taxes, more likely to miss water and other public utility payments, and more likely to become homeless and need financial help from the city.

The authors argue that cities should make financial empowerment for low- and middle-income families a priority, including financial coaching and providing incentives for savings.

Source: Urban Institute, 2/8/17, Financial Insecurity Costs Cities

SNAP Spending Continues to Fall

Spending on SNAP will continue to fall as the economy recovers and the number of SNAP participants falls, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently reported in updated spending projections.

CBO’s estimate of SNAP spending over the next 10 years, based on the SNAP rules now in place, is about 7% lower than its forecast from a year ago, mainly due to lower food prices. And, as the overall economy grows, SNAP’s share of the gross domestic product will drop under 0.3%, down from a high of 0.5% in 2015.

Source: Center for Budget & Policy Priorities, 1/27/17, SNAP Spending to Drop

Wage Disparity Trend Continues

"Top wage earners last year made 5.05 times what their lowest-income counterparts took home, the widest gap in data going back to 1979, according to the Labor Department. What’s worse, it shows the most recent improvement -- in 2014 -- was just a blip, and the trend is again moving in the wrong direction seen over almost four decades.

Americans near the top of the income scale, whose weekly earnings exceed those of 90 percent of all full-time wage and salary workers, made at least $2,095 in a typical week last year, according to the report released Jan. 24. Those in the bottom 10 percent earned less than $415."

Source: Bloomberg Markets, 1/26/17, Read More...

School Meals May Turn Organic

"Every year the National School Lunch Program spends almost $13 billion to feed over 30 million children. For years, school leaders and community activists have been working to improve the food purchased with those public dollars. Now advocates have a new tool to help achieve just such a lofty goal: It’s called the Good Food Purchasing Policy and after its successful passage in 2012 by the Los Angeles Unified School District and the city of LA, school districts and cities across the country are exploring its possibilities for shaping how public food, like school lunch, is procured.

The policy is similar to LEED certification, only for food instead of buildings.

Under the policy, suppliers must meet basic criteria across five values: supporting local economies; promoting health; providing a safe and healthy workplace and fair wages; protecting animal welfare; and promoting environmental sustainability."

Source: Alternet, 1/18/17,  Learn More...

SNAP Participation Declines In 2016

The number of people participating in SNAP has declined by more than 4 million, or 9%, since peaking in December 2012, reflecting the program’s responsiveness to an improving economy, as well as the effects of the reimposition of the three-month time limit for unemployed childless adults.

The share of the population participating in SNAP has returned to 2011 levels, and is projected to continue to fall. The number of SNAP participants in an average month of 2016 was 3.4% lower than in 2015. The SNAP caseload declines have been widespread; the share of the population receiving SNAP was lower in 2016 than in 2013 in 45 states.

SNAP spending also has fallen. SNAP outlays fell for the third straight year and were 4% lower in 2016 than in 2015. In 2016 SNAP spending dropped to its lowest point since 2010, and more than 11% below 2013 peak levels. (These figures refer to nominal spending, not adjusted for inflation.)

Source: Center for Budget & Policy Priorities, 12/29/16, SNAP Participation

Housing Affordability Still A Challenge In CT

Affordability remains a challenge for a state with the sixth-highest housing costs in the nation, according to an update from the Partnership for Strong Communities. Connecticut’s median monthly housing cost, at $1,398, after only Hawaii at $1,533; New Jersey, Maryland, California, and Massachusetts.

The nationwide median is $1,009. Some 49% of renters and 30% of homeowners are “burdened” paying more than 30% of their income toward housing costs, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Source: CT Mirror, 12/15/16, CT Housing Costs

Harvard Seeks to Eliminate the Stigmas of Poverty

A recent international panel came together at Harvard’s Center for European Studies for a two-day workshop that examined how different forms of exclusion contribute to the spread of poverty, and how social, political, and economic inclusion may reduce it. A key issue is how the poor are stigmatized, and how that itself fosters poverty.

Check out the full article in the Harvard Gazette >

Connecticut Income Inequality Increases

Connecticut’s problem of income inequality is especially acute. In 1970, Connecticut was the 36th most unequal state, today it is second. The Gini coefficient is the most commonly used measure of income inequality. It ranges from 0, a condition of perfect equality where all members of a population receive identical amounts, to 1, a condition of perfect inequality, where one member of a population receives everything. Between 1970 and 2015, the Gini coefficient for Connecticut increased from .337 to .492. Income inequality increased in every state over this time, but Connecticut, by far, had the largest increase. The increase was more than 50% greater than the average for the other states.

Source: CT Association for Community Action, 10/13/16  Income Inequality

Suburbs Offer No Escape From Poverty

Although recent Census Bureau figures show that the nation’s poverty rate fell significantly in 2015, experts are noting that blacks and other migrants from the inner city who move to the suburbs are not all escaping poverty. Blacks, Asians, and Latinos now represent a combined 35% of the suburban population.
But the suburbs aren’t idyllic for newcomers “of color.” Many don’t move far, often ending up in inner ring suburbs surrounding the city not the outer, more affluent neighborhoods. And they tend to live in “pockets,” often because of affordable housing or marginal areas where housing is least expensive. Suburban municipalities are strained to provide services to low-income minorities as the problems of the poor are shifted to towns and other suburban areas are less equipped to handle their needs.

Source: CBS News, 10/6/16, View Article...

SNAP Participation Continues To Drop

According to a state-by-state analysis 2,137,387 fewer people are participating in SNAP since July of 2015. The downward trend likely reflects a mix of factors: on the one hand, improved economic conditions have lessened financial need among some households,and harsh time limits have pushed certain jobless adults off the rolls. Connecticut’s participation rate has dropped 3.1%, bringing the total number of participants down to 425,511.

Source: Food Research & Action Council, 10/13/16,  Read More...

Technology Can Not End Poverty…Why?

According to a recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center, the number of Americans that have access to high-speed internet within their home has greatly decreased to 67%. Of those Americans, 13% rely on their smartphones for internet access.These findings all relate to a digital divide that exist among millions of individuals within the U.S. Besides limited access to technology, there are two other factors that have caused this divide to occur:

1. Changing economy- 8 in 10 middle-skilled jobs require an individual to attain technology-based skills
2.  Education divide-many academic institutions have struggled with providing students a curriculum that allows students to develop the skills that adhere to the pace of the job market.

Source: Desert News, 10/3/16, Why Technology Alone Can Not End Poverty