Childhood Hunger

Latest News on July 2009

July 31
Michelle Obama cultivating food policy

In three short months, Michelle Obama had accomplished what other food advocates could only dream about. Good food was no longer just virtuous. It was cool.

Washington Post
Jane Black
July 31, 2009

It was the ultimate photo op - 36 smiling fifth graders eating a healthful meal they’d cooked themselves at a picnic table in the first lady’s garden. The story line was as simple as it was seductive: They came. They planted. They harvested.

In three short months, Michelle Obama had accomplished what other food advocates could only dream about. Good food was no longer just virtuous. It was cool.

That was easy. Now what?

That’s the question Obama’s food-policy team is working on this summer. The garden was intended “as a jumping-off point for getting to what sometimes can be a complicated conversation about how we eat [and] the food choices we make,” Obama policy director Jocelyn Frye said in an interview. But as it moves beyond the symbolic to those meatier matters, the White House is grappling with the very issues that have challenged the so-called good-food movement for decades: How do you simplify and sell a new way of eating? That isn’t so easy. Food - unlike, say, the space program - is a fundamental and intimate part of everyone’s life. It’s culturally, politically and economically complicated. And there’s a fine line between government involvement and paternalism: It’s one thing to educate people about the importance of a healthful diet and quite another to tell them what to eat and where to buy it. The garden has been an unqualified success; the challenge now is to capitalize on Obama’s newfound clout to improve school lunches and access to fresh fruits and vegetables - and to make how we eat an integral part of the national health-care debate.

The plan’s main architects are Obama; Frye, 45, her Harvard Law School classmate; and Sam Kass, 29, a White House assistant chef and food-initiative coordinator. Part of the East Wing strategy is to keep doing what they’re doing - make fresh, healthful food seem accessible, even normal.

Obama often makes a point of telling her own story. As a working mother, she often took her daughters out to eat several times a week or ordered a pizza for dinner. When the girls began to gain weight, she says, her pediatrician suggested she rethink how the family was eating. By making a “small change in our family’s diet and adding more fresh produce for my family, Barack, the girls, me, we all started to notice over a very short period of time that we felt much better,” Obama said at the harvest event.

To create that down-to-earth feeling, Obama has invited local schoolchildren, not celebrity chefs, to the garden. She also has appeared at soup kitchens and community health centers to talk about the importance of a healthful diet. Produce from the garden is donated to Miriam’s Kitchen, which feeds Washington’s homeless.

“Accessibility and affordability have always been part of the message,” Frye said. “It’s why we partner with elementary-school kids. You pierce through all the constituencies and say, ‘It’s about kids.’ ” Pioneers of the local-food movement have long struggled with perceptions of elitism. Critics mocked their breathless praise of farmstead cheeses or the ultimate roast chicken, painting them as out-of-touch, arugula-loving yuppies.

“Michelle has used her position in a way that has made people realize this is a very simple, very American impulse,” said Josh Viertel, president of Slow Food USA, which promotes small farmers and artisan producers. “What they’re doing is normalizing something that should be normal.”

Obama hasn’t escaped criticism. In a recent op-ed column in the New York Times, food writer Amanda Hesser chided the first lady for implying that cooking is a chore when she breezily admitted that she was happy to leave the cooking to White House chefs. “Terrific local ingredients aren’t much use if people are cooking less and less,” Hesser wrote. “Cooking is to gardening what parenting is to childbirth.”

Frye and Kass counter that inspiring families to cook is part of the White House plan. Earlier this month, for example, Obama invited graduates of the Brainfood program, a Washington nonprofit that teaches life skills through cooking, to help prepare for a White House luau and the Fourth of July celebration.

Nineteen students shucked corn, washed lettuce, and made strawberry tiramisu.

“We’re really trying to highlight that it all leads to the table,” Kass said.

Kass also is working on a list of White House seasonal recipes that “is going to be a bigger part of what we do,” he said. “We are exploring new avenues to get real, practical recipes into the hands of mothers and fathers.”

What the White House isn’t doing is as significant as what it is. For example, the first lady has not championed local food. She has mentioned it - “If it’s fresh and grown locally, it’s probably going to taste better,” she said on the June harvest day - but focuses overall on freshness and seasonality.

Indeed, a key part of the White House strategy is to stay focused. Food reformers are working to change agricultural subsidies, environmental regulations, nutrition standards, and food labeling. The White House, Kass said, recognizes that all are important and interconnected. But to succeed, Obama is highlighting the issues that most directly affect children: “We’re focusing on kids, even though food and health are issues we all face,” Kass said.

Obama is taking August off and will relaunch her efforts in earnest in September. That is back-to-school time and when the debate will heat up in Congress over funding for child-nutrition programs, including school breakfasts and lunches. Staffers say Obama will continue to try to link the personal to the political by gardening, cooking, and eating with students.

Said Slow Food’s Viertel: “If they can let people see a family meal, if people see that the busiest man in the world takes time to sit down with his kids for dinner, that could have an incredible impact.”

July 30
Stimulus Law Bolsters Food Bank Offerings

Struggling to meet a demand for food that spiked with the unemployment rate, some food pantries have had to turn away people seeking help. Others are packing a little less food into each shopping bag they give out. But recently the nation’s food banks received a $100 million windfall of extra food, as part of the federal stimulus law.

New York Times
Michael Cooper
July 30, 2009

Volunteers prepare food bags at the food bank, which will benefit from additional federal aid.

The grant is a big boost for the food bank program, which usually gets $250 million a year from Washington, and the amount of food it can buy seems supersize, even for a field that routinely measures servings by the millions of pounds.

The stimulus money has bought $15.8 million worth of poultry, $15.5 million worth of canned fruit, $13.3 million worth of peanut products, $25.2 million worth of cheese and $29.4 million worth of pork, according to the Department of Agriculture, which administers the program.

That last item — about literal pork in the stimulus — prompted sniggering earlier this month when the Drudge Report posted a $1.191 million federal stimulus contract for “2 pound frozen ham sliced” on its Web site.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack responded that the food would ease hunger and noted that the two pounds mentioned in the contract referred to the size of the packaging, not the amount of ham. “In fact,” Mr. Vilsack said in a statement, “the contract in question purchased 760,000 pounds of ham for $1.191 million, at a cost of approximately $1.50 per pound.”

The extra food is being welcomed by food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens, which say they are seeing big increases in the number of people seeking food. A recent survey by Feeding America, a nonprofit organization whose network of more than 200 food banks helps 63,000 local charities distribute food, found that requests for emergency food assistance were up by 30 percent over the previous year.

Pari Blackman, the director of the GAP Food Bank in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., said 350 to 400 families now lined up outside her warehouse for food each week, up from 240 a year ago. Many of the newcomers, Ms. Blackman said, are people who have worked steadily for years but now find themselves unemployed and trying to make ends meet.

“I’m seeing a whole different dynamic coming in,” she said.

Clyde W. Fitzgerald Jr., the executive director of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina, where job losses in the textile, tobacco and furniture industries are taking a toll, said the extra food was vital to meet the rising needs. The stimulus law is nearly doubling the amount of food Mr. Fitzgerald expects to get from the federal government this year, to 5.2 million pounds, up from 2.9 million pounds. All told, he hopes to meet the growing demand by distributing 13 million pounds of food this year, up from 9 million pounds last year.

“The increased demand is so strong, and so sustained,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “This hasn’t been like a little blip. We’ve been at this for 12 months. Those who need food assistance are always going to be the first to be hit in a downturn, and the last to benefit in a recovery.”

July 28
Poverty Decreases School Readiness

Advances in neonatal care enable two-thirds of premature babies born with respiratory problems to be ready for school at an appropriate age, but those living in poverty are far less likely to be ready on time than their better-off peers, researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center report in the July issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Imperial Valley News (Chicago, Illinois)
University of Chicago
July 26, 2009

Although several medical factors including chronic lung disease, brain hemorrhage, and male gender were associated with lower school readiness, by far the most powerful factor determining school-readiness level was low socioeconomic status.

“The good news is premature babies are surviving. Neonatology has done a remarkable job in lowering mortality without increasing morbidity,” said study co-author Jeremy Marks, MD, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics. “The bad news is poverty leads to huge disparities in school readiness, with poor kids faring four times worse than others.”

The finding extends a study of babies born prematurely with immature lungs that the University of Chicago researchers began in 2000.

The researchers wanted to determine how many of them were ready to begin primary school when they reached school age, and to understand the factors associated with lack of school readiness among these children. The researchers were able to collect follow-up data on 137 of 167 (81 per cent) of the patients born prematurely with respiratory distress syndrome.

“As a single-center cohort study, we were pleased to be able to track such a high portion of the patients we had originally seen,” said Michael Msall, MD, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics. “We knew that premature infants are at increased risk for abnormal neurodevelopmental outcomes at two years. But we didn’t know what factors prevented these children from entering school on time.”

Using assessments of each child’s understanding of basic concepts, perceptual skills, receptive vocabulary, daily living functional skills, and whether children had sensory impairments or autism, the researchers assigned each child a school-readiness score. The multidimensional analysis also included standardized neurodevelopmental and health assessments, as well as measures of the family’s socioeconomic status.

“As an academic specialist, our expertise is in improving outcomes for preemies and treating babies with severe lung disease, intracranial bleeding and other complex diagnoses,” said Michael Schreiber, MD, professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago and the study’s lead author. “However, the stresses of poverty really put our neonatal ICU graduates behind the eight ball, developmentally.”

“We will continue to search for new and better therapies to improve the care of babies born prematurely,” Schreiber said. “However, society must provide the additional long-term resources these vulnerable children require if they are to ever reap the full benefits of our medical advances.”

July 28
For millions of workers, a minimum wage increase still falls short of a living wage [Op-Ed]

The hike in the hourly wage from $6.55 to $7.25 won’t lift many people from poverty. Nevertheless, it is a good thing.

Daily News (New York, New York)
Albor Ruiz
July 26, 2009

“It’s better than nothing…”

That was the reaction of Walter García, a restaurant cashier in Jackson Heights, Queens, when we told him about the federal minimum wage increase that became effective on Friday. “But it is not enough,” he added.

García, of course, is correct. Obviously, the hike in the hourly wage from $6.55 to $7.25 won’t lift many people from poverty. Nevertheless, it is a good thing.

To fully understand the urgency of even such an inadequate raise, imagine trying to survive - not to mention raise children - on $260 a week. That is what millions of workers across the nation earned until Friday.

Workers need and are entitled to real living-wage jobs. Right now, a heated battle over gaining a living wage is being fought in the Bronx.

Members of the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance, a coalition of local groups, businesses and unions, insist on the inclusion by the developer of a binding community benefits agreement that guarantees retail workers at least $10 an hour, plus benefits.

The Related Cos., the project’s developer, opposes the agreement because, according to them, requiring tenants to pay workers higher than the prevailing wage would doom the entire project. A public hearing on the controversial issue is set for tomorrow at 6 p.m. in the Lovinger Theater on the campus of Lehman College.

In truth, the new federal wage increase will benefit only an estimated 123,000 workers in the state of New York - and minimally. For minimum wage workers, weekly salaries will jump just $30 a week, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonprofit economic research group.

Because the minimum wage was raised to $7.15 in January 2007, the new increase will have even a less noticeable impact in the state.

Yet, as García said, it’s better than nothing.

Consider: The annual gross earnings after the wage increase for the more than 100,000 minimum-wage, full-time workers in the city (working 40 hours per week) is still only $15,080 annually. This is well below the $18,000 federal poverty level for a family of three and hardly enough to cover rent or put food on the table, but certainly not both. But for these workers, any little bit helps.

In 2007, after the minimum wage had been stagnant for 10 years, Congress finally passed a bill raising the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over the next two years. More than 2.1 million African-Americans and 2.3million Hispanics waited a decade for a boost in their pay.

The raise that became effective Friday was the last of the three increases approved by Congress.

Hopefully, low-wage workers will not have to wait another 10 years for a pay increase.

Researchers at the National Center for Children in Poverty, part of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, found that even at two and three times the federal minimum wage, full-time working parents are routinely unable to pay for basic necessities.

“Millions of American families scrape by on much less than what it takes to cover basic needs,” said Kinsey Alden Dinan, NCCP senior policy associate.

As a result, she said, parents are forced to place children in unreliable or low-quality care arrangements, live in overcrowded or unsafe housing, or may fall behind on utility bills and rent. “These are choices no family should have to make,” Dinan added. “But sadly, it’s the reality for more and more Americans.”

That’s why the Kingsbridge Armory workers deserve to win their fight for a living wage.

July 23
Poor Rural Children: The Forgotten Fifth

Federal anti-poverty efforts began in rural America. But discussions of poverty in the U.S. now largely exclude rural communities — even though a fifth of all poor children are rural.

One out of five poor children in the United States lives in a rural area, O’Hare reports. “Yet this group of vulnerable young Americans is seldom on the minds of the public or policy makers when they talk about child poverty in the United States,” O’Hare writes. “The image, rather, is overwhelmingly an urban one despite higher poverty rates in rural areas for decades.” Read the full article »

July 16
You Can't Get There From Here

Could farm country be as much of a food wasteland as inner cities?

Sightline Daily (Seattle, Washington)
Roger Valdez
July 16, 2009

The conventional wisdom is that food access issues are greatest in urban wastelands where there are high concentrations of low-income families. This, the argument goes, is because grocery stores and supermarkets abandoned the “inner cities” along with the mass exodus of many white middle-class residents. In their place grew up smaller convenience stores focused on selling beer and cigarettes. And there is lots of good data that make this case. (A National Housing Institute paper on the topic lays this out quite well and we have written about it here at the Daily Score as well.) But could farm country be a food wasteland too?

A recently released study from the Washington State Budget and Policy Center concludes that rural communities face the biggest barriers to healthy food:

Many rural residents in Washington must travel long distances to grocery stores and therefore have less access to affordable fruits and vegetables. By contrast, people who live in more metropolitan areas or in higher income communities are more likely to have access to stores that offer a greater variety of fruits and vegetables. The study maps out the average distance to full-service grocery stores and the results show clearly that rural areas have the biggest distances between people needing healthy food choices and stores that can meet that demand. 

The study points out what many other studies have and confirms what is intuitive about food insecurity: less income means a greater likelihood that someone in the household will go hungry.

The greatest struggle in Washington State is in rural counties among workers in “resource-based industries such as timber and fisheries.” 

So poverty means food insecurity, and food insecurity is greatest in rural areas. Why is this?  The study found that the volatility of fuel prices “impede the ability of lower income residents to reach…[stores] which are more likely than smaller groceries and convenience stores to sell healthy food at affordable prices.”

As our gasoline report showed people in the state are getting off the fossil fuels rollercoaster. But in rural areas this is not as much of an option as in our metropolitan centers.  The ironic thing is that these rural counties are most often the producers of food we find in our local grocery stores.

The lesson seems pretty clear. Create programs that increase wages, decrease costs of basic needs—food, housing, healthcare—for people struggling with poverty and find ways to get healthier food to the people who aren’t now getting it whether they are in rural or urban areas. And it turns out that part of solving the food insecurity problem might lie in better land use and transportation policies and transitioning workers in resource intensive industries to good paying green jobs.

July 15
Fresh approach to food stamps

Farm-grown produce, freshly picked by those who nurture crops from their start as seeds and then sold directly to consumers at farmers’ markets in New Jersey, is now available to those using debit cards that are part of the food stamp program. It’s the smartest use of federal funds we’ve heard of in a cow’s age.

Asbury Park Press (New York, New York)
Author not mentioned
July 14, 2009

New Jersey this month joined a number of other states that have linked food stamp clients to farmers selling at a variety of farmers’ markets through the use of the “Families First Electronic Benefits Transfer” debit card. A farmer with the proper wireless transmitting machine at his or her stall at a market simply swipes the debit card to complete the transaction. That’s all there is to it. Except for a bushel of benefits, all around.

One of the traditional fears about food stamps is that too often they are used for the purchase of less-than-nutritious items at supermarkets and convenience stores. With food stamps a currency at direct-from-the-farm markets in New Jersey, clients can broaden their buying spectrum — and reduce the incidences of trans-fat-laden products making up too high a percentage of their diets. Fact is, there aren’t a lot of junk foods sold at the stalls of farmers who have picked string beans and corn, peaches and tomatoes, and lettuces and kale that morning.

The new farmers’ market link also will help expand the state’s agriculture industry. When word spread that New York state farmers in the food stamp debit card program were seeing their market business soar as much as 60 percent, Millstone farmer George Asprocolas quickly signed up for the Jersey program. He’s one of 15 Garden State farmers who have equipped themselves with the debit-accepting machines and is doing business with food stamp clients at farmers markets in both his hometown and in South Toms River. “This is going to be a whole new opportunity,” he said.

“Certainly…more (farmers) will want to come on,” added state Agriculture Secretary Douglas H. Fisher.

We hope so. Right now, select farmers accepting the food stamp debit card will be selling at the Asbury Park Farmers’ Market, the Englishtown Auction and the Millstone Township Community Market in Monmouth County. In Ocean County, farmers with the food stamp debit card machine can be found at the Forked River Farmers’ Market, the Seaside Park Farmers’ Market, at farmers’ markets in Toms River and South Toms River, and at the Manahawkin Mart in Stafford.

If farmers play their cards right, they might be able to use their new clients to spread the word that shopping not only at local farmers’ markets but at farmstands is the most economical way to purchase Jersey Fresh produce. Seeds of change can sprout quickly, when properly nurtured.

July 14
Facing backlogs, state boosts staff for food stamps

Facing a growing backlog of hundreds of food stamp applicants, the state will use federal stimulus money to hire three workers and buy a new telephone system to deal with the problem.

The Providence Journal (Providence, Rhode Island)
Paul Davis
July 14, 2009

Donalda Carlson, associate director of individual and family support services at the Department of Human Services, will also seek permission to hire more workers to help with the surge in applications.

Also, on Saturday, employees at the Providence food stamp office will work overtime to help as many as 700 people seeking assistance, Carlson said. The Elmwood Avenue office is usually closed on weekends.

“We haven’t peaked,” said Carlson at a food stamp advisory board meeting Monday. The number of food stamp users jumped to a record 107,891 Rhode Islanders in June, a 13 percent increase since January. The number has been rising steadily since early 2008, when there were 80,821 users.

The new measures come a week after the agency was sued for failing to promptly process food stamp applications.

“There is no one answer to this problem,” but more workers, weekend hours and new phones will help, Carlson said. The state earlier posted job descriptions for 11 food stamp clerical workers, but it’s unclear how many of those positions have been filled. The Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice sued the DHS on July 6.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court, accuses the state of an “ongoing and persistent failure to timely process applications for Rhode Island’s poorest families.”

That delay, it alleges, “means that thousands of households are denied desperately needed assistance to help them feed their families, and suffer hunger as a result.” Under federal law, states are required to process food stamp applications within 30 days and to provide expedited help to the poorest families within a week.

“We’ll meet with representatives with the ACLU and others to talk about how to resolve the issue,” Carlson said.

At one point, Kathleen Gorman, director of the Feinstein Center for a Hunger Free America, in South Kingstown, asked Carlson if the Saturday opening is in response to the suit.

Carlson said she wasn’t sure. “Are we doing it because of the lawsuit, or are we doing it because we see our own crisis?” she said.

Food stamp offices elsewhere in the state are faring well, but the Providence office “is sorely challenged” by as many as 130 applications a day, Carlson said. “It’s backed up.” Antipoverty advocates urged the DHS to shorten the application form for the food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The form should be four pages, said Henry Shelton, coordinator of the George Wiley Center, in Pawtucket. A shorter form, he said, would save time “for both the worker and the applicant.”

“I watched a mother hold a baby under one arm while she tried to fill out the form,” said Wiley Center member Jack Colby. “We have to remember what the experience is like for real people.”

But Gorman argued that a shorter form is not a top priority. Making sure the system works is more important, she said.

The state in recent months has worked to make it easier for the recently impoverished to receive food stamps. Passage of the federal stimulus package led to major changes in the system, including a boost in benefits ranging from $2 to $24 a month.

As of April 1, the state added its own modifications. They include fewer financial barriers — a family of four making less than $40,792 may now be eligible — simpler application forms for the elderly, increased use of telephone interviews for applicants and the elimination of the asset test, which made it hard for those with savings or property to qualify.

Shelton said he was encouraged by some of the state’s measures, but noted that officials have been talking about replacing the old phone system for many months. “There’s progress,” he said, “but it’s at a snail’s pace. Meanwhile, there are a lot of hungry people out there.”

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU, called the measures “good steps” in addressing the issue. But, he added, “We will continue with our case until it’s clear the problem is resolved.”

July 13
American Children's Overall Health Mixed with Many Living in Poverty & Skipping Meals

According to a federal report the overall health of American children is mixed with a growing number of children living in poverty with unemployed parents facing the threat of hunger.

Top News (Little Rock, Arkansas)
Jason Ramsey
July 11, 2009

The federal report titled America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2009, is an annual compilation of statistics on child welfare from several government agencies, including the U. S. Census. It tracks trends in family life, health care, safety and education. According to the report as many as 18 % of children ages 17 and under were living in poverty in 2007, which was an increase from 17% in 2006. There was a fall in the percentage of children who had at least one parent working full time to 77% in 2007 from 78% in 2006.

The report said the number of children living in households with extremely low “food security”, where parents described children as being hungry or having skipped a meal or gone without eating for an entire day, increased from 0.6 % in 2006 to 0.9 % in 2007. Federal officials said the statistics pre-date the current economic downturn and forecast darker times for the country’s 74 million children 17 and under, when data on children’s lives during the recession become available.

Duane Alexander, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Heath, one of the government agencies that participated in the study said, “It foreshadows greater changes we’ll see when we look at these figures next year.”

There were however areas that showed the brighter side of the picture and preterm births was one of them. The rate of preterm births at 12.7 % in 2007 decreased from 12.8 % in 2006 while rate of low birth weight also showed a decline from 8.3 % in 2006 to 8.2 % in 2007.

“The exciting thing is that in almost two decades, this is the first chance we’ve seen of a possible turnaround,” Alexander said. “We’ll watch it and hopefully the downward trend will continue.”

On a similar happy note was a decrease in the percentage of teens that had a major depressive episode from 9% in 2005 to 8% in 2007. While Alexander said 89 % of children had health insurance in 2007, up from 88 % in 2006.

The report showed racial and ethnic backgrounds and living circumstances are undergoing dramatic shifts with the percentage of children who are Hispanic, increasing faster than it has for any other racial or ethnic group, from 9 % of the population in 1980 to 22 % in 2008. Children born to unwed mothers showed a sharp increase from 34% in 2002 to 40% in 2007. After years of decline the teen pregnancy rate inched up slightly for the second year in a row to 22.2 per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 17.

Commenting on the negative effect the current economic downturn could have on children’s health Daniel Armstrong, Ph. D., of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Florida said, “You have to look at the history of what has happened during other recessions,” he said, adding, “the history tells us that there will be areas that change.”

July 13
Report: Child Poverty Rising

A growing number of American children are living in poverty and with unemployed parents, and are facing the threat of hunger, according to a federal report released yesterday.

Washington Post
Annie Gowan
July 11, 2009

According to the report, “America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being,” 18 percent of all children 17 and younger were living in poverty in 2007, up from 17 percent in 2006. The percentage of children with at least one parent working full time was 77 percent in 2007, down from 78 percent in 2006. Those living in households where parents described children as being hungry, having skipped a meal or having gone without eating for an entire day increased from 0.6 percent in 2006 to 0.9percent in 2007, the report said.

Federal officials said the statistics predate the current economic downturn, and forecast harder times for some of the country’s 74 million children 17 and younger.

“It foreshadows greater changes we’ll see when we look at these figures next year,” said Duane Alexander, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Heath, one of the government agencies that participated in the study.

The report is an annual compilation of statistics on child welfare from several agencies, including the Census Bureau. It tracks trends in family life, health care, safety and education. Despite the small changes, the government said it reported only developments that were greater than the study’s margin of error.

Drawing on previously released Census data, the report painted a picture of a young population holding steady at about 24 percent, a proportion not expected to change through 2021.

But the report also showed that younger Americans’ racial and ethnic backgrounds and living circumstances are undergoing dramatic shifts. The percentage of children who are Hispanic, for example, has increased faster than for any other racial or ethnic group, from 9 percent of the population in 1980 to 22 percent in 2008.

In 2007, 40 percent of all children were born to unmarried women, up from 34 percent in 2002, according to the report, which reiterated a federal study of birth certificates released this year.

Experts say that trend reflects the lessening stigma of unwed motherhood, an increase in the number of couples who delay or forgo marriage and growing numbers of women who want to have babies on their own. At the same time, the teen pregnancy rate rose slightly for the second year in a row, to 22.2 per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 17, after years of decline.

Alexander said there were some bright spots in this year’s report, beginning with the finding that 89 percent of children had private or government-funded health insurance in 2007, up from 88 percent in 2006.

Experts are hoping that a very slight decline in the number of infants born preterm or with low birth weights after years of steady increases also could be the beginning of a trend. Preterm births were 12.7 percent of the total, down from 12.8 percent in 2006, and the proportion of low-birth-weight infants was 8.2 percent, down from 8.3 percent in 2006.

“The exciting thing is that in almost two decades, this is the first chance we’ve seen of a possible turnaround,” Alexander said. The report also showed that an estimated 14 percent of all children have special health-care needs. The most commonly reported conditions included allergies, asthma, attention deficit disorder, depression and headaches.

July 9
US food stamp tally up 1.2 million in two months

Enrollment in the major U.S. antihunger program, food stamps, grew by 1.2 million people in two months and stands at a record 33.8 million people, the government said on Wednesday.

Reuters
Charles Abbott
June 9, 2009

Food stamps helped one in nine Americans buy groceries during April, according to Agriculture Department figures. The average benefit of $133.28 per person was up $40 due to a short-term increase under the economic stimulus package.

Participation in food stamps grew by roughly 600,000 people, or 2 percent, in both March and April, the latest months for which figures were available. April was the fifth month in a row of record enrollment. The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, highest in 26 years, with further job losses expected. Food stamps cushion the impact of economic recession.

Many low-income families face an additional food challenge during the summer because most schools close their free lunch and breakfast programs during the summer.

“For every six low-income kids, only one gets a meal during the summer,” said Jim Weill of the antihunger group Food Research and Action Center. “It can be, even in good economic times, hugely difficult to maintain a decent diet for their kids.”

According to FRAC, summer food programs in 2008 reached 17 percent of low-income children who received free meals at school. FRAC said more children would be reached if the government had higher reimbursement rates, helped pay for transportation and provided start-up and expansion grants.

U.S. food stamp enrollment in recent months:

  • April - 33.758 million
  • March - 33.157 million
  • February - 32.556 million
  • January - 32.205 million
  • December 2008 - 31.784 million
  • November 2008 - 31.097 million
  • October 2008 - 31.050 million
  • Sept 2008 - 31.587 million
July 8
USDA to oversee school snack food: Senate ag chair

The U.S. Agriculture Department would be given the power to regulate all food sold in schools — including vending machine snacks — when Congress renews child nutrition programs, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee said on Tuesday.

Reuters (New York, New York)
Roberta Rampton

Chairman Tom Harkin said he hopes the committee will start work on legislation to reauthorize school lunch programs in October or November, with a goal to conclude the work by the end of the year.

“I can tell you it won’t be this month,” Harkin told reporters who asked when work would begin. He said precedence must go, for now, to his work on health care reform and on drafting the annual federal spending bills.

Agriculture Committee work on child nutrition will begin with a draft that gives the USDA the authority to oversee all food in schools, so nutrition programs are not “undermined” by junk food in vending machines, Harkin said at a confirmation hearing for the head of the USDA’s nutrition programs. Earlier this year, Harkin co-sponsored a bill focused on setting nutritional standards for food in school vending machines and stores to combat childhood obesity rates.

Kevin Concannon, the Obama administration’s nominee to run USDA’s food and nutrition programs, told Harkin he wants to work with other federal and state agencies to address health issues caused by poor eating habits.

“It’s a cultural thing. We’ve evolved to this over the past 30 or 40 years, and it’s going to take efforts on a number of fronts,” Concannon said.

Roughly 17 percent of school-age children are obese, triple the rate in 1980 and “an epidemic in the United States,” says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Obesity increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and other chronic illnesses. At present, USDA oversees the contents of school lunches and bars the sale of foods with minimal nutritional value, such as soda in the lunchroom. It does not control food sold in a la carte lines or school stores.

Concannon, who ran food stamp and public nutrition programs in Iowa, Maine and Oregon during his career, noted he has seen “pushback” from schools that count on revenue from vending machines to pay for student activities.

Concannon also said he wants people who rely on USDA food programs to be able to buy more food from farmers’ markets.

Food stamps, school lunch programs, and other nutritional assistance account for more than $75 billion, or two-thirds of USDA’s annual spending.

One in nine Americans uses food stamps to buy groceries, a record number due to recession and job losses, and more than 30 million children count on USDA-funded school programs for lunch.

The Obama administration, which has a goal of eliminating childhood hunger by 2015, proposed a $1 billion a year increase in child nutrition programs but has provided few details of how it would spend the money.

July 8
Boost in Food-Stamp Funding Percolates Through Economy

For grocery stores and farmers markets, the added food-stamp revenue has helped offset slower sales to other consumers.

The Wall Street Journal
Roger Thurow and Timothy W. Martin

The lush red strawberries caught the attention of Rachel Patrick, a mother of five shopping at a farmers market along the Mississippi River here. She selected two cartons and ignited a little-noticed chain reaction that is an important part of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan.

Ms. Patrick handed a plastic card loaded with her monthly food-stamp allocation to farmer Ed Kraklio Jr., who swiped it through his electronic reader. Mr. Kraklio now regularly takes in several hundred dollars a month from food-stamp sales, a vital new revenue stream that has allowed him to hire another assistant to help tend a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables. The new worker, in turn, spends her income in nearby stores, restaurants and gas stations.

An influx of stimulus cash into the food-stamp program has boosted business at Ed Kraklio’s stand at the Davenport, Iowa, farmers market.

The president’s stimulus plan has been aimed primarily at the top of the economy, pumping money into banks and car companies and state and city governments. But it also has put more money into the hands of the poorest Americans by boosting monthly food-stamp allocations. Starting in April, a family of four on food stamps received an average of $80 extra.

Money from the program — officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — percolates quickly through the economy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates that for every $5 of food-stamp spending, there is $9.20 of total economic activity, as grocers and farmers pay their employees and suppliers, who in turn shop and pay their bills.

While other stimulus money has been slow to circulate, the food-stamp boost is almost immediate, with 80% of the benefits being redeemed within two weeks of receipt and 97% within a month, the USDA says.

The quick influx of cash into the economy reflects the often desperate situation faced by millions of households struggling to put enough food on the table. For many families, monthly food-stamp allotments rarely last more than a few weeks, leaving them with dwindling grocery supplies — and sometimes bare cupboards — by the end of the month. Angie Minix rushes to her local Save-a-Lot grocery store on Chicago’s South Side at the start of every month, when her new food-stamp allocation appears on her card. So do many of her neighbors. “You can’t even get in the parking lot,” she says.

On a recent shopping trip, she headed straight to the fresh produce section. Before her increase in April to $606 from $525, Ms. Minix said she would rarely even troll the fresh-food aisles. Now, she talks about how she has introduced her two sons to cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce and cucumbers.

Employed by the state as a home aide, she has seen her hours cut and her mortgage payments rise. Still, the food-stamp boost has increased her purchasing power. “I can’t buy a new car, but I can feed my family,” she says.

For years, the food-stamp program was plagued by criticism that it was an inefficient way to help the poor. Many who qualified wouldn’t apply because of a lack of information, daunting paperwork or the embarrassment of handing over stamps in a grocery checkout line. And it did little to increase access to more nutritional food, since fresh produce remained scarce in poor areas.

In recent years, though, registration has been streamlined; many food pantries offer information and direct sign-up services. The switch from stamps to plastic cards offers a cloak of anonymity. Meanwhile, more farmers markets offering fresh produce in urban areas have adopted the technology to accept the cards.

Nationwide, enrollment in the program surged in March to about 33.2 million people, up by nearly one million since January and by more than five million from March 2008. In a recent research report, Pali Capital Inc. estimated that food-stamp spending will increase between $10 billion and $12 billion this year from $34.6 billion in 2008.

For grocery stores and farmers markets, the added food-stamp revenue has helped offset slower sales to other consumers.

“When we look at the acceptance of food stamps, it becomes part of a larger and longer strategy to us,” says Ken Smith, chief financial officer of Family Dollar Stores Inc., a Charlotte, N.C., chain with 6,600 outlets in 44 states. A recent customer survey estimated that about 20% of Family Dollar customers receive food stamps.

In Chicago, where the number of households relying on food stamps is up 15% over a year ago, according to the Chicago Community Trust, food-stamp receipts are cushioning the blows of the recession. Without the food-stamp increases, “we would have been hurting more,” says Joe Garcia, controller at Moo & Oink Inc., a meat retailer with four stores in the Chicago area.

Farmers markets in Iowa have been particularly aggressive in courting the business of food-stamp recipients. At the Davenport market, food-stamp purchases have boosted business at Sawyer Beef. As farmer Norman Sawyer’s sales increase, he says he plans to buy more fencing and water tanks to improve grazing areas for his cattle. “This has been a good deal for us,” he says.

July 7
ACLU sues state over food stamp delays

The Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice have sued the state Department of Human Services alleging that its failure to promptly process food stamp applications has left thousands of Rhode Islanders hungry and suffering in the midst of the worst economy in decades.

The Providence Journal (Providence, Rhode Island)
Cynthia Needham

The suit, filed Monday morning in U.S. District Court, accuses the state of an “ongoing and persistent failure to timely process applications for Rhode Island’s poorest families.” That delay, it alleges, “means that thousands of households are denied desperately needed assistance to help them feed their families, and suffer hunger as a result.”

Under federal law, states are required to process food stamp applications within 30 days and to provide expedited help to the poorest families within a week.

The suit, filed on behalf of all affected applicants, cites the case of Shalonda Spruill, a Warwick resident who lost her job in January. According to the complaint, Spruill applied for food stamps for herself and her 8-year-old daughter in mid-May. Because she had no income, no savings and no money for groceries, she should have been eligible for an expedited one-week processing. Instead, her application interview has been scheduled for July 15, a full two months after she applied.

In the interim, the suit says, Spruill relies on family to give her food for her daughter while she forgoes meals to save money.

“Statistics show that this is a widespread problem in this state and hundreds of people are being adversely affected by the delays in processing,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU.

Monday was a state holiday in Rhode Island and a spokeswoman for Governor Carcieri declined comment on the suit or on Spruill’s case, saying lawyers for the state had not yet had a chance to review them. Calls made to the cell phone of DHS Director Gary Alexander, who is named in the complaint, were not returned.

In an interview this spring, DHS officials reported that the department processes about 85 percent of applications for the federally funded, state-administered program within the 30-day deadline. At least some of the processing delays are due to the applicants’ inability to produce necessary documents, they said.

But lawyers for Spruill say that compliance rate demonstrates that the state “is failing to process hundreds of applications in a timely manner.”

DHS officials said they recognize that they are overburdened. Most caseworkers are carrying client loads of 1,000 or more.

That number has continued to rise as Rhode Island has slipped further into recession and the unemployment rate has climbed to a high of 12.1 percent in May.

According to state statistics, more than 1 in 10 Rhode Islanders participates in the food-stamp program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Donalda Carlson, administrator of child and family support services at DHS, has acknowledged that many of the people who are signing up are first-time enrollees. Since early 2008, well over 20,000 Rhode Islanders are enrolled in the food-stamp program.

Having once claimed some of the lowest participation rates nationwide, the state reported this spring that it was taking steps to handle the influx. It hired nine new case workers, modified its eligibility requirements and made simpler application forms for elderly people. The governor’s spokeswoman, Amy Kempe, said Monday that she believed most of the new hires were now on the job, though she could not say for sure.

An additional $947,000 in federal stimulus money was earmarked for Rhode Island’s food stamp program, including funds for more than a dozen new food stamp workers, according to officials.

It remains unclear how much, if any, of that money has been put to use.

“We are talking about a basic [service] that is being provided to individuals because their income is so precarious that help is needed,” Brown, of the ACLU, said. “When you see so many people facing delays, it can have serious consequences.”

July 6
School's Out, but Many Will Get Free Meals

Despite budget cuts, many schools and community groups are expanding their efforts to feed children from poor and struggling families this summer as the lingering recession deepens longstanding concerns that those who qualify for free meals go hungry once classes end.

By WINNIE HU
NYTimes.com
Published: July 3, 2009

REGULAR classes at the Greater Brunswick Charter School in New Brunswick, N.J., ended June 25, but many students and their families will continue to stop by each week this summer to collect two bags of free groceries — pasta, rice, tomato sauce, canned tuna, fruit and vegetables — from the newly opened food pantry in a school storage area.

In New Haven, 100 teenagers are being invited to Summer Suppers four days a week at the Elks Lodge through a new Connecticut Food Bank program financed with $27,500 in federal grants and donations. Local chefs will prepare the meals, and community leaders plan to dine alongside the students.

And on Long Island, Bay Shore High School last week restored a free summer breakfast and lunch program that it discontinued more than six years ago as the community prospered, while Island Harvest, a local food bank, is starting a new program on Monday that is expected to serve 500 free lunches a day to children in Glen Cove, Manhasset, Port Washington, Bay Shore, West Babylon, Medford and Port Jefferson Station.

“People are struggling to make ends meet, and having access to good, nutritious meals is really key for any child to develop good learning and social habits,” said Randi Shubin Dresner, president and chief executive of Island Harvest.

Despite budget cuts, many schools and community groups are expanding their efforts to feed children from poor and struggling families this summer as the lingering recession deepens longstanding concerns that those who qualify for free meals go hungry once classes end.

The number of students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunches was up about 5 percent nationwide this spring, to nearly 19.4 million from 18.4 million the previous year, according to federal officials. These new programs extend beyond school hours to feed children on weekends and in the summer, and they have spread from impoverished urban areas to suburban communities once believed to be insulated from financial ups and downs.

In Bay Shore, for example, 42 percent of the district’s 5,800 students were eligible for free and reduced-price meals this year, up from 33 percent in 2008. Similarly, the school district in Bloomfield, Conn., started serving free summer breakfasts and lunches on June 22 after 46 percent of its 2,160 students qualified for the subsidized meals, up from 42 percent in 2007.

Even urban districts with long-established summer lunch programs are expanding to more neighborhoods this year as the free and reduced-price lunch rolls have swelled. In Syracuse, a record 80 percent of the district’s 21,000 students qualified this year, up from 78 percent in 2008, district officials said.

The federally subsidized school lunch program was signed into law in 1946 by President Harry S. Truman; this school year, a family of four earning up to $27,560 qualified for free meals, while students in families earning up to $39,220 paid no more than 40 cents for lunch.

Unlike the school-year program, schools do not charge for meals in the summer, and in many cases they serve anyone under 19 regardless of family income. The federal government reimburses schools — up to $1.8150 for each breakfast and $3.1825 for each lunch or dinner. A few states, including New York, provide additional money.

Even so, federal and state officials said that summertime free-meal programs have historically reached only a fraction of poor students because of a shortage of sponsors and a lack of transportation and public awareness.

New York State has used $576,575 in federal funds to promote New York City’s summer meals program at more than 1,000 sites this year, including $90,000 for posters at subway stations at 125th Street in Harlem and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

At the same time, the United States Department of Agriculture, which runs the school lunch program, has spent $16,000 on 15-second public service announcements broadcast since March on the JumboTron in Times Square.

To bring more students into the summer program, New York City is offering grab-and-go breakfasts of apple juice, muffins, bagels and cereal — in addition to hot food — in cafeterias at about 300 schools holding summer classes. Since 2007, the portable breakfasts have been available during the school year on a growing number of menus.

The Yonkers school district, in Westchester County, is serving all its free meals in air-conditioned buildings as an added incentive.

In Connecticut, a community group in Thompson is hosting theme lunches, like Christmas in July and Caribbean days, and the Town of Stonington is holding drawings for gift certificates for students who come for the meals. Dawn Crayco, a child-nutrition advocate with End Hunger Connecticut!, said that the group has awarded a total of $6,750 in grants for such promotional activities to nine schools, agencies and community groups.

But even as some schools and groups have responded to what they see as a greater need for food programs, others have been forced to cut back. For instance, a summer meals program in Nassau County lost some of its largest sites this spring after community groups canceled their day camps and enrichment programs. But churches and synagogues have stepped in to fill the gap.

“If you can’t keep your lights on, you can’t serve lunch,” said Carl DeHaney, who oversees the Nassau County program. “The economy is affecting everybody, even those who are trying to help.”

Similarly, a “KidzPack” program that provides weekend meals and snacks to 750 children in Camden, N.J., and surrounding towns may be halted for the summer if its sponsor, Food Bank of South Jersey, fails to raise $10,000. “Many of these children are going home to empty refrigerators,” said Valerie Traore, the food bank’s chief executive officer.

Still, the Syracuse City School District has expanded its summer meals program to 49 sites this year, from 40 in 2008, and it plans to serve 1,000 more breakfasts (a 50 percent increase) and 600 more lunches (an 18 percent increase) per day. “Everybody has felt the crunch in this economy, and we can help with that a little bit,” said Ken Warner, the district’s assistant director of food and nutritional services.

In Connecticut, the Hartford schools have agreed to provide meals to 350 children from nearby day camps who will come to school cafeterias for lunch — at no cost to the campers or the community groups that run the camps.

Lonnie Burt, the school district’s food services director, said she welcomed the additional mouths to feed, and predicted a 15 percent increase from the 3,230 lunches served daily last summer; the program is operating an additional eight days this year.

“We’re serving all summer along,” Ms. Burt said. “My staff will be tired, but happy to help people stretch their household budgets.”

July 6
Millions face climate-related hunger in East Africa

Millions of people in East Africa face climate-related hunger as seasons shift and change, a new report published by aid agency Oxfam International said on Monday.

by Daniel Ooko

NAIROBI, July 6 (Xinhua) — The report said shifting seasons are destroying harvests and causing widespread hunger — but this is just one of the multiple climate change impacts taking their toll on the world’s poorest people, warning that multiple climate impacts could reverse 50 years of work to end poverty.

The report, Suffering the Science — Climate Change, People and Poverty, was published ahead of the G8 Summit in Italy, where climate change and food security are high on the agenda.

It combines the latest scientific observations on climate change, and evidence from the communities Oxfam works with in almost 100 countries around the world, to reveal how the burden of climate change is already hitting poor people hard.

“Climate change is the central poverty issue of our times. Climate change is happening today and the world’s poorest people, who already face a daily struggle to survive, are being hit hardest,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs.

“The evidence is right in front of our eyes. The human cost of climate change is as real as any redundancy or repossession notice.”

The report warns that without immediate action, 50 years of development gains in poor countries will be permanently lost. It says that climate-related hunger could be the defining human tragedy of this century.

Suffering the Science outlines evidence of how climate change is affecting every issue linked to poverty and development today.

According to Oxfam, new research based on interviews with farmers in 15 countries across the world reveals how once distinct seasons are shifting and rains are disappearing.

“Farmers from Bangladesh to Uganda and Nicaragua, no longer able to rely on generations of farming experience, are facing failed harvest after failed harvest,” it says.

The report says rice and maize, two of the world’s most important crops on which hundreds of millions depend, particularly in Asia, the Americas and Africa, face significant drops in yield seven under mild climate change scenarios.

The report forecasts maize yields to drop by 15 percent or more by 2020 in much of sub-Saharan Africa and in most of India. One estimate puts the loss to Africa at 2 billion U.S. dollars a year.

Oxfam’s report says that it is a bitter irony that in temperate zones the impacts of climate change will be milder — at least initially. However in the tropics, where the bulk of humanity lives, many of them in poverty, climate change is beginning to play out more erratically and harmfully.

Oxfam is calling on G8 leaders to take personal responsibility for delivering a fair and adequate global deal to tackle climate change as only political commitment at the highest level can prevent a human catastrophe.

Rich industrialized countries, which created the climate crisis and have the resources to tackle it, must cut their emissions by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and mobilize 150 billion dollars per year to fund emissions reduction and adaptation in the developing world.

“It is scandalous that our leaders continue to resist doing what’s needed, and within their power, to tackle the climate crisis,” Hobbs said.

“G8 leaders, who represent the world’s richest polluting countries, must take personal responsibility for delivering a global climate deal which has the needs of the world’s poorest people at the heart.”

A survey of top climate scientists, also published by Oxfam on Monday, said poor people living in low-lying coastal areas, island atolls and mega deltas and farmers are most at risk from climate change because of flooding and prolonged drought.

The scientists, all contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , named South Asia and Africa as climate change hotspots.

Many scientists are now skeptical that the world can limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius because they do not believe that politicians are willing to agree to the necessary cuts in carbon emissions, the report says.

The 2 degrees Celsius is considered to be “economically acceptable” to rich countries, but it would still mean a devastating future for 660 million people.

The report says diseases such as malaria and dengue fever that were once geographically bound are creeping to new areas where populations lack immunity or the knowledge and healthcare infrastructure to cope with them.

It is estimated that climate change has contributed to an average of 150,000 more deaths from disease per year since the 1970s, with over half of those happening in Asia.

July 2
June jobless rate seen rising to 9.6 percent

Out-of-work with no place to land, the legions of America’s unemployed are growing. The Labor Department is scheduled to release a report Thursday expected to show the nation’s unemployment rate edging closer to double digits. Wall Street economists predict the jobless rate will rise to 9.6 percent in June from 9.4 percent in May. That would mark a 26-year high.

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa, Ap Economics Writer

The rising rate comes as recession-weary companies continue to cut workers. Economists expect a loss of 363,000 jobs in June, up from 345,000 job cuts in May. Economists believe a chunk of those cuts will be tied to shutdowns at General Motors Corp. and fallout from the troubled auto industry.

Still, if economists’ forecasts are correct, it would be consistent with the belief that the worst of employers’ payrolls cuts have occurred. Companies are expected to keep shedding jobs through the rest of this year, but economists hope the pace will continue to taper off.

“Employers were very quick to pull the trigger on job cuts last year, and most of the biggest cuts are behind us. But companies are going to be very cautious about hiring,” said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.

The deepest job cuts of the recession came in January, when 741,000 jobs vanished, the most in any month since 1949.

Another report from the department due Thursday is expected to show the number of newly laid-off people filing applications for unemployment benefits dropped last week to 615,000, from 627,000 in the previous week. The number of people continuing to draw benefits is expected to nudge up to 6.740 million from 6.738 million.

Even if companies slow the pace of layoffs, they will be reluctant to hire until they feel certain the economy is back on its feet. That’s why economists are forecasting a continued rise in the unemployment rate over the next year. It’s expected to hit 10 percent this year.

Many think it could rise as high as 10.7 percent by the second quarter of next year before it starts to make a slow descent. Some think the rate will top out at 11 percent. Others think the peak will lower — around 10.5 percent — by the spring of 2010.

The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982, when the country had suffered through a severe recession.

The worst crises in the housing, credit and financial markets since the 1930s plunged the country into the current recession, which started in December 2007 and is the longest since World War II.

As the downturn bites into sales and profits, companies have turned to layoffs and other cost-cutting measures to survive. Those include holding down workers’ hours and freezing or cutting pay. In May, the average work week fell to 33.1 hours, the lowest on record dating to 1964.

Newspaper publisher Gannett Co. on Wednesday said it plans to cut 1,400 jobs in the next few weeks, about 3 percent of the work force, as it faces a prolonged slump in advertising revenue. Farm machinery company Deere & Co. earlier this week said 800 salaried employees, or 3 percent of its salaried work force, took a voluntary buyout offer. Cessna Aircraft Co., which makes corporate jets, has said it would cut 1,300 jobs by this summer on top of 6,900 earlier layoffs.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke predicts the recession will end this year, with many economists forecasting that the economy will start to grow again as soon as the current July-September quarter.

And fresh signs of improvement for the economy have emerged. Manufacturing activity declined less than expected in June, and an index of pending home sales edged up May for the fourth straight month, reports out Wednesday showed.

But recoveries after financial crises tend to be slow, which is why economists predict it will take years for the job market to return to normal. Some predict the nation’s unemployment rate won’t drop to 5 percent until 2013.

An elevated unemployment rate could become a political liability for President Barack Obama when congressional elections are held next year. The last time the unemployment rate topped 10 percent, the party of the president — then Ronald Reagan’s GOP — lost 26 House seats in midterm elections in 1982.

So far, many people are saving — rather than spending — the extra money in their paychecks from Obama’s tax cut, blunting its help in bracing the economy. Much of the economic benefit of Obama’s increased government spending on big public works projects won’t kick in until 2010, analysts say.

The White House last week said federal money is being shoveled out of Washington quickly, but states aren’t steering the cash to counties that need jobs the most.

July 1
Summer School Cuts Threaten Children With Hunger

State Fiscal Crisis Brings Harsh Health and Nutrition Impact. California is leaving millions of federal dollars unspent by not providing these meals to needy children and teens.

Contact: Matt Sharp, California Food Policy Advocates, 213.482.8200

Los Angeles, CA — According to a new report released today, reductions in summer school - up to 70% in many school districts - due to the state budget crisis mean that 300,000 children who ate lunch at school last July will have severely reduced access to free, nourishing lunches this summer.

While the summer lunch program operates at community sites as well as at schools, over 80 percent of the meals are served in conjunction with summer school. Studies have pinpointed the positive affect these summer meals have on academic achievement as well as children’s nutrition and health. The summer lunch program is particularly critical for the state’s 2 million children who rely on free breakfasts and lunches at school during the regular school year. Child hunger is highest during the summer months when low-income children are unable to rely upon the free school meals they receive during the academic year.

The new data released today in School’s Out…Who Ate? 2009 is from an annual report published by California Food Policy Advocates, a statewide nutrition policy organization. The report includes county specific statistics based on CFPA’s analysis of data provided by the California Department of Education.

According to the report, 541,248 low-income youth in California participated in the USDA-subsidized meal programs on any given day in July 2008. Although the entire state saw an overall decline in participation from 2007 to 2008, individual county performance varied. CFPA’s press page has links to a table comparing individual county performance data.

At a time when low-income Californians face high unemployment rates, proposed reductions in numerous public programs and financial instability, summer nutrition programs must be strengthened to ensure that low-income youth get proper nourishment at summer school, summer enrichment programs, or community sites. “California is leaving millions of federal dollars unspent by not providing these meals to needy children and teens,” says Matthew Sharp of California Food Policy Advocates (CFPA) and co-author of the School’s Out…Who Ate? 2009.

“California communities can and should do better at ensuring that low-income children get the healthy meals they need during the summer,” said Kenneth Hecht, Executive Director of CFPA. “Policymakers must take steps to provide low-income children with nourishing meals during summer months, beginning with preserving summer school and ensuring meals are served to children from throughout the neighborhood.” Other recommendations for federal, state, and local policymakers are contained in the report.

More information on summer lunch programs: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/summer/ & http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sf/