|
|
 |
|
Poverty in the USA |
2008 FARM BILL CONFERENCE AGREEMENT CONTAINS
SIGNIFICANT DOMESTIC NUTRITION IMPROVEMENTS
Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, May, 23, 2008
The conference agreement on the 2008 Farm Bill makes numerous improvements in domestic food assistance programs to help low-income Americans put food on the table in the face of rising food and fuel prices. The nutrition title includes more than $10 billion over ten years in increases in these programs — including $7.8 billion for the Food Stamp Program, $1.26 billion for the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and $1 billion for the free fresh fruit and vegetable snack program, which is targeted to schools with high shares of low- income families.
|
1.5 Million More People on Food Stamps in March 2008 than in March 2007
Food Research & Action Center, June 11, 2008
Near-Record Number of Participants Plus Newest Jobless Rate Signal Growing Need
Connecting More People with Food Stamps and Temporarily Boosting Benefits
Can Help Stimulate Economy and Cushion Blow on Families
|
FACING DEFICITS, MANY STATES ARE IMPOSING CUTS THAT HURT VULNERABLE RESIDENTS
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, June 2, 2008
To date, at least 18 states have made or proposed budget cuts that threaten vital services for many residents, including some of the state’s most vulnerable residents.
When states cut spending, they lay off employees, cancel contracts with vendors, reduce payments to businesses and nonprofits that provide services, and cut benefit payments to individuals. All of these steps remove demand from the economy, which only worsens a downturn. Tax increases also remove demand from the economy by reducing the amount of money people have to spend.
|
Rising Food Costs Bearing Down Even Harder on Low-Income Shoppers
Food Research & Action Center, May 29, 2008
While the cost of food in the general Consumer Price Index rose by 5.1 percent from April 2007 to April 2008, the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan (the mix of food items on which low-income people rely) rose even faster. Over the same time period, the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan rose by 7.2 percent.
|
FARM BILL CONFERENCE AGREEMENT CONTAINS
SIGNIFICANT DOMESTIC NUTRITION IMPROVEMENTS
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, May 23, 2008
The conference agreement on the 2008 Farm Bill makes numerous improvements in domestic food assistance programs to help low-income Americans put food on the table in the face of rising food and fuel prices. The nutrition title includes more than $10 billion over ten years in increases in these programs — including $7.8 billion for the Food Stamp Program, $1.26 billion for the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and $1 billion for the free fresh fruit and vegetable snack program, which is targeted to schools with high shares of low- income families.
|
PULLING APART: Income Inequality Remains a Problem in Arizona
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, April 9, 2008
Fact sheet containing information on income inequality over the past two decades, including the changes in average incomes and income ratios.
|
2008 ARIZONA HUNGER FACTS
Association of Arizona Food Banks (AAFB), 2008
2008 ARIZONA HUNGER FACTS:
2008 Federal Poverty Guidelines Chart
Hunger Profiles Information
Report:Profiles of General Demographic Characteristics 2000 for Arizona counties and cities
|
Hunger 2008: Working Harder for Working Families
Bread for the World Institute, 2008
The scarcity of food is rarely the cause of hunger. There is more than enough food to feed everyone in the United States. The supermarket store shelves are stocked to the ceiling. But none of this matters if families have no money in their pockets. Poverty spoils every meal.
The lone homeless person may be the most conspicuous image of poverty in the national media. Less conspicuous, but a much larger group, are the families who cycle in and out of poverty. Families most at risk are those that are just a little better off than poor, surviving on low-wage jobs until suddenly they lose their financial footing because the main wage earner's job has been eliminated or one of the family members has a medical emergency.
Liberals and conservatives agree, no hard working family should have to raise their children in poverty—and yet the sad truth is that many are. Two-thirds of all children growing up in poverty in the United States have one or more working parents, and one-third have a parent working full-time, year round.
Three decades ago, a low-wage job was enough to lift a family of three out of poverty today, it scarcely comes close to getting them to the poverty line, and without food assistance and other government support a family struggling to get by in the low-wage economy would be on the absolute edge of desperation. Working Harder for Working Families focuses on families struggling to get by on these kinds of jobs, living in or on the edge of poverty. It recommends policies to support low-wage workers and help them and their families build assets.
|
Arizona's Federal Food Programs - State of the State for 2007
Food Research & Action Center, 2007
A profile of the Federal Food Programs in Arizona
|
Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation: A FRAC Report on Summer Food Programs
Food Research & Action Center, July 2007
FRAC’s annual analysis of participation in the summer nutrition programs underscores the benefits of the Simplified Summer Food Program. Originally developed as a pilot program by Congress in a limited number of states, the Simplified Summer Food Program reduces the administrative barriers that prevent many sites and organizations from participating in the program and from receiving full reimbursement. The dramatic increases in summer food participation in pilot states speak to its success. Over the past six years, the 13 states originally allowed to use the Simplified program have seen their summer numbers climb by 51 percent, while states never added to the pilot dropped by 16.5 percent.
|
THE IMPACT OF STATE INCOME TAXES ON LOW-INCOME FAMILIES IN 2006
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March 2007
Poor families in many states face substantial state income tax liability for the 2006 tax year. In 19 of the 42 states that levy income taxes, two-parent families of four with incomes below the federal poverty line are liable for income tax. In 15 of the 42 states, poor single-parent families of three pay income tax. And 29 of these states collect taxes from families of four with incomes just above the poverty line.
|
Making America Stronger: U.S. Food Stamp Program
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2007
Making America Stronger commemorates the 30th anniversary of the of the reforms achieved by the Food Stamp Act of 1977 by telling the story of how food stamps dramatically reduced the extent of severe hunger in our country, how they continue to help Americans in need, and how this essential program can achieve still more.
|
AN INTRODUCTION TO TANF
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, November 2005
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a block grant created by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, as part of a federal effort to “end welfare as we know it.” The TANF block grant replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which had provided cash welfare to poor families with children since 1935.
Under the TANF structure, the federal government provides a block grant to the states, which use these funds to operate their own programs.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
