Welfare Reform Turns 15, But Here’s Why No One’s Celebrating

by Julianne Hing on August 24 2011, 6:56PM

In 1996 seven in ten families living in poverty received cash assistance. Today, that number’s down to only three in ten.

Topics: Economy

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Job Creation Under TANF Emergency Fund Threatened in Welfare Budget

by Michelle Chen on August 31 2010, 4:02PM

A unique welfare program is creating a surprising number of new paychecks, but it may soon fade away without renewed support from Congress.

Topics: Economy, On Gender

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Schwarzenegger’s Budget: Let Them Eat Cake

by Seth Freed Wessler on May 17 2010, 9:55AM

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday outlined his 2011 budget, offering no less than the promise of total desperation for low income families. The budget eliminates the state’s welfare-to-work program and cuts subsidized child care beyond preschool. Eliminating CalWorks, the…

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Why Would You Sell Your Food Stamps? [VIDEO]

by Debayani Kar on February 23 2010, 9:51AM

ARC researcher and ColorLines journalist Seth Wessler joined Carmen Cordero of Vecinos Unidos, Irasema Garza of Legal Momentum, and Wanda Fossett of Community Voices Heard on GRITtv to discuss food stamps, poverty and why this might be the best…

Topics: Race and Recession

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Welfare Recipients Forced to Sell Food Stamps to Buy Basic Necessities

by Debayani Kar on February 19 2010, 7:16AM

ARC researcher and ColorLines journalist Seth Wessler joined Luz Santana of Vecinos Unidos on Democracy Now! this morning to discuss how people, especially women and mothers, are making ends meet through the recession. Seth profiled the work and experience…

Topics: Race and Recession

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SC Lt. Gov. Bauer: Free School Lunches Encourage ‘Stray Animals’ to ‘Breed’

by Channing Kennedy on January 23 2010, 9:54PM

image / Associated Press. That’s Bauer in the purple. At a recent town hall meeting, South Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer criticized the children of poor families, using an impressively dehumanizing metaphor and flunking basic causality in the process….

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New Push to Encourage Parents to Adopt Black Children [VIDEO]

by Guest Columnist on September 18 2009, 10:46AM

by Todd Johnson; originally published at TheGrio.com. Jordan Sarazin was in foster care just five months after she was born. But in 2006, everything changed. She was adopted by Magalie Jean-Gilles, who has spent nearly a decade caring for dozens…

Topics: Video & Multimedia

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Refining the Poverty Line

by Michelle Chen on September 1 2009, 7:51PM

One reason the government has spent nearly half a century fighting, and losing, the war on poverty, is that it doesn’t know where to draw the battle line. The Center for American Progress recently analyzed the inadequacy of the…

Topics: Demographics, Economy

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Addressing Poverty When Poverty Isn’t Cool

by Channing Kennedy on August 31 2009, 11:44AM

When the recession is ‘over’ and poverty once again loses its place in our national narrative, what will become of the movement for real addressing of systemic inequities? In the wake of Obama’s absence from New Orleans during Katrina’s…

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The Record-Breaking Great Recession: Food Stamps Edition

by Julianne Hing on August 25 2009, 4:18PM

Click detail to see full image. We all know the job cuts and housing losses in this recession keep reaching new and scarier heights. But check out the numbers of people receiving food stamps these days, via a new…

Topics: Health

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Schwarzenegger’s Blockbuster Budget Cuts Terminate the Safety Net [VIDEO]

by Channing Kennedy on August 13 2009, 9:37AM

When financial crisis hit, the California legislature didn’t raise taxes, end tax giveaways, or cut corporate welfare. Instead, they cut services to the people made most vulnerable by the recession — children, the elderly, the sick, victims of domestic…

Topics: Economy, Politics, Schools & Youth, Video & Multimedia

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Out of Wedlock: Queerness, Color and the Politics of Marriage

by Michelle Chen on August 11 2009, 11:47PM

When Washington declared war on “welfare as we know it” in the 1990s, it also embarked on a battle to save an age-old institution. Lawmakers coupled efforts to shrink public assistance with a campaign to promote marriage, in hopes…

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