Poverty Law News

Employment

Improving Unemployment Benefits Programs
On March 15, 2007, Maurice Emsellem, Policy Director at the National Employment Law Project, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, on legislative proposals to modernize the unemployment insurance program and create a new national wage insurance program.

Family Law

Marriage Programs
This issue brief from the Center for Law and Social Policy discusses the issues and challenges involved in adapting healthy marriage programs for disadvantaged and culturally diverse populations. It is unclear whether these programs, which were designed for and have mostly served white, middle-class, educated couples who are engaged or already married, can be effective with much more diverse populations, many of whom are neither married nor committed to marry.

Food Programs

Improving the Food Stamp Program
On March 13, 2007, James D. Weill, President of the Food Research and Action Center, testified before the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry, Department of Agriculture, on improving the Food Stamp Program to achieve greater gains for children's health and nutrition.

WIC Income Eligibility Guidelines
The Food and Nutrition Service has published income eligibility guidelines for the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). These guidelines are to be used by state agencies effective July 1, 2007.

Disclosure of Children's Free and Reduced-Price Meals
The Food and Nutrition Service has published a final rule establishing requirements for the disclosure of children's free and reduced price meals or free milk eligibility information under the Child Nutrition Programs. Within certain limitations, children's free and reduced price meal or free milk eligibility information may be disclosed, without parental/guardian consent, to persons directly connected to certain education programs, health programs, means-tested nutrition programs, and some law enforcement officials.

Health

How Health Insurance Fails People When They Get Sick
This study by the Access Project investigates gaps in health insurance coverage and the systemic problems that cause insured people to accrue medical debt, as well as the consequences of such debt for individuals and families. Medical debt had serious consequences for study participants related to access to care, financial security, employment, access to credit, and psychological quality of life.

The Basics of Medicaid and Medicare
To help explain the two programs, the Kaiser Family Foundation issued a new primer on the Medicare program and an updated version of its primer on the Medicaid program. Prepared by Kaiser staff, the primers provide an overview of the programs, who they serve, how the programs work and how they are financed. 

State Health Reform Initiatives
The Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices are launching a new series of live, interactive webcasts focusing on issues in the design and implementation of state health reform initiatives and coverage expansions. On March 28, the first webcast in the series will feature an expert panel discussing options for making coverage accessible and affordable through changes in the individual insurance market and purchasing arrangements like the “Connector” in Massachusetts.

Housing

Survey of Tenants Facing Eviction in New York City
The Brennan Center has published the results of a three-part survey examining the characteristics of tenants in New York City Housing Court, including age, income, whether there were children in the tenant's household, and race/ethnicity. Of the 1,687 tenants facing eviction who provided information to the study's authors, 67 percent had annual incomes under $25,000, a much higher percentage of low-income people than exist in the general population.

Juveniles

Improving the Child Welfare Workforce Through Litigation
The National Youth Law Center, in collaboration with Children's Rights, Inc., has published a review of efforts to strengthen the child welfare workforce through litigation in 12 jurisdictions throughout the country.

Kids' Share 2007
This Urban Institute study reports on trends in federal spending on children from 1960 to 2017, looking across over 100 major federal programs, including tax credits and exemptions. Overall, federal children's spending increased in real terms from $53 billion in 1960 to $333 billion in 2006, or from 1.9 to 2.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Yet as a share of federal domestic spending, children's spending declined from 20.1 to 15.4 percent. Meanwhile, spending on the automatically growing, non-child portions of social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, nearly quadrupled from 2.0 to 7.6 percent of GDP ($58 billion to $993 billion) over the same time period.

Welfare

Welfare Reauthorization
The Center for Law and Social Policy has submitted comments to the House Ways and Means Committee, Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, arguing that Congress should take action to restore flexibility and funding lost in the 2006 welfare reauthorization and HHS regulations.