Poverty Law News

Attorneys/Legal Services

Responses to the Rising Debt of Law Students
Equal Justice Works has published Financing the Future, a report on how high law school tuition and the capacity for repayment affects law graduates contemplating public service. The average amount borrowed in law school by the class of 2005 was $78,763 at a private school and $51,056 at a public school, and the median entry-level salary for an attorney at a civil legal services organization was $36,000. The report concludes that high debt and low salaries affect recruitment and retention in the government and nonprofit workforce and threaten to strike a debilitating blow to the future of full-time public service.

Consumer

Payday Lending Sinks Borrowers in Debt
America's working families pay billions of dollars in excessive fees every year, as payday lenders across the nation routinely flip small cash advances into long-term, high-cost loans with annual interest rates in the range of 400 percent, according to this report from the Center for Responsible Lending. The report finds that 90 percent of payday lending revenues are based on fees stripped from trapped borrowers; the typical payday borrower pays back $793 for a $325 loan.

Disability

United Nations Adopts Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities
On December 13, 2006, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The convention requires ratifying nations to adopt nondiscrimination laws and to eliminate existing laws that discriminate against persons with disabilities.

Elections

Seventh Circuit Affirms Indiana Law That Requires Voters to Show Photo ID
In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court's finding that an Indiana law that requires individuals voting in person to show government-issued photo identification does not impose an undue burden on voters' rights in violation of the Constitution.

Employment

Changes in Low-Wage Labor Markets
The Congressional Budget Office has published a report examining trends in low-wage labor markets between 1979 and 2005. The report documents changes in the lower half of the hourly wage distribution and analyzes the reasons for those changes. The report finds that median household income of workers earning low hourly wages fell in real terms between 1979 and 1990, but rose between 1990 and 2005.

Food Programs

Disqualified Recipient Reporting
The Food and Nutrition Service has published a proposed rule that codifies prisoner verification and death matching procedures mandated by legislation and previously implemented through agency directive. The rule will require that state food stamp agencies use disqualified recipient data to screen all program applicants prior to certification to assure that they are not currently disqualified from the program and thus ineligible to participate. The proposed rule also addresses requirements that state food stamp agencies participate in a computer matching program using a system of records that adhere to provisions of the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988. This rule responds to the General Accounting Office's finding that the disqualified reporting subsystem process could be improved to enhance state agency ability to identify currently disqualified food stamp recipients.

Participation in WIC or Food Stamps Reduces Risks
This report from the Economic Research Service finds that both joint or separate participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the Food Stamp Program reduces the risk of child abuse or neglect and several nutrition-related health problems, such as anemia, failure to thrive, and nutritional deficiency.

Latinos and Food Insecurity
Nearly one in five Latinos (19.6%) faces food insecurity each year, compromising their health and well-being. Sin Provecho: Latinos and Food Insecurity reports on the impact and associations of hunger, food insecurity, and obesity on the Latino community, as well as the ability of federal food assistance programs to address and alleviate these conditions. The paper assesses the root causes of food insecurity among Latinos, including economic and geographic barriers and legal immigrant restrictions, which prevent access to affordable, nutritious foods and assistance.

Housing

Safe Homes Act Protects Victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence
Effective January 1, 2007, the Safe Homes Act protects the health and safety of survivors of domestic and sexual violence who live in rental and subsidized housing in Illinois. The Shriver Center has posted brochures and flyers, in both English and Spanish, describing the provisions of this new law.

New Orleans Housing Authority Plans to Demolish Public Housing
The Housing Authority of New Orleans has announced plans to demolish more than 4,500 public housing units. A transcript of the November 29 public meeting at which HANO announced the plan is available here.

Rental Costs Continue to Climb
The cost of affordable rental housing climbed again in 2006, outpacing the wages of those who need it most, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition's annual Out of Reach report. The report provides data for every state, metropolitan area, and county in the country showing how much a household must earn to afford a modest market-rate rental home. The report also provides local wage and income data for comparison purposes.

Social Security/SSI

Disabled and Elderly Refugees Sue Federal Government to Restore SSI Benefits
Elderly and disabled humanitarian immigrants fleeing persecution abroad have filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia seeking restoration of their supplemental security income benefits. Plaintiffs, represented by Community Legal Services, the Hebrew and Immigrant Aid Society, and pro bono counsel at Ballard Sparh Andrews & Ingersoll, claim that bureaucratic delays in processing green card and naturalization applications have caused nearly 6,000 disabled and elderly refugees and asylees to be terminated from SSI.

Poverty Law News
January 5, 2007