Today's news, Saturday, October 19th, had some interesting and polar opposite stories. This happens all the time, the haves and the have-nots, the relatively free society model versus those who live under unbearable circumstances, the smart and the dumb, the greedy and the wanting and needy. The list is endless.
You know just when you think that all of the hard work that people do in their communities and elevate to the attention of our leaders and despite all the rhetoric and promises that turn out to be empty politicking, it is impossible to avoid realizing that it might not ever be possible to make a difference or trust anyone else to do so. That is just the remnants of all of my despair and disbelief and hopelessness from that other life.
I know this. I also know that the only way to pull myself out of this and to break the spiraling I used to do is to think, talk, write, be and do positive stuff. So, when I read about what must be a truly self-absorbed person thinks, how he is obsessed with the expensive trends he sets in motion, right after reading two perspectives on current policies for those in need, it helped me to make a couple of decisions. I will write about them in the other blog.
For now I am going to share those two stories about poverty. I will provide links, but sometimes, sometimes often, articles are moved or deleted and the links fail, so I checked both of these sites for copyright policies that prohibit regular copying and did not find any. If I missed them, someone will let me know.
CNBC - U.S. News
As holidays near, food stamp recipients face cut
Published: Saturday, 19 Oct 2013 | 9:00 AM ET
By: Allison Linn | CNBC Senior Business and Economics Reporter
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101118630?__source=yahoo|finance|headline|headline|story&par=yahoo&doc=101118630|As%20holidays%20near,%20food%20st
Millions of food stamp recipients can expect to see their benefits reduced beginning in November—and that could end up being just the beginning of deeper cuts to the food stamp program.
The modern-day food stamp plan, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is scheduled to scale back benefits for all recipients next month because a recession-era boost in benefits is expiring.
The cut comes as lawmakers also are considering billions of dollars of cuts to the overall SNAP program, which has grown substantially in recent years amid the weak economy and high unemployment.
The program is now serving more than 23 million households, or nearly 48 million people, according to the most recent government data through June. The average monthly benefit is about $275 per household, according to the USDA.
The exact reduction that families will see beginning Nov. 1 depends on the recipients' situation, but a family of four with no changes in circumstance will receive $36 less per month, according to the USDA.
Stacy Dean, vice president for food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said her analysis found that the change will mean that the average benefit will go from about $1.50 per person, per meal each month to about $1.40 per person, per meal.
"For those of us who spend $1.70 a day on a latte this doesn't seem like a big change, but it does kind of really highlight the millions of families living on an extremely modest food budget," she said.
Others are less worried about the immediate cuts. Parke Wilde, associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts University, said that in real dollars, the cuts brings the program's aid levels back in line with where they were in the mid-2000s, before benefits were boosted as part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.
"That's neither great nor terrible," Wilde said.
He said the bigger issue is the debate in Congress over whether, and how much, the SNAP program could be cut in years to come. The House of Representatives passed a bill in mid-September that would eliminate about $39 billion form the SNAP budget over 10 years, while the Senate has approved a bill that makes much smaller cuts to the program.
The final decision could result in some recipients getting dropped from the program completely at a time when many are still recovering from the effects of the deep recession, he said.
"We have a very spare cash-based safety net and we rely a lot on food stamps to give people the resources they need to avoid hunger," Wilde said.
The SNAP program has become a last resort for people like Angela Phillips, 44, who never thought that she would be in a position where she would have to accept food stamps.
Phillips, who is divorced with three kids, worked for years as a paralegal and executive assistant, at one point making about $45,000 a year. Then the economy turned, and she suffered a string of job losses along with some health issues related to a shoulder injury from her time serving in the Army years ago.
Phillips, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., said she juggled things as best she could for a long time, eating little while her kids were with their dad so she could feed them well when they were staying with her. Still, she said she struggled to explain why she couldn't always give them pricier, healthy foods like fresh fruit.
She ended up applying for SNAP benefits in July of 2012, while working part time.
"It was a huge benefit for me to be able to know that I could feed my family," she said.
Phillips is currently working as a temporary administrative assistant for a national lab, but the employment is erratic and she says she makes about $17,000 a year. She's also a full-time student.
She recently had a long period of steady employment and was able to go off food stamps, but that temporary position ended Friday and she doesn't know when she'll get another stable position. That means she'll be applying for food stamps again on Monday.
Phillips said she collected about $600 a month previously, and she doesn't yet know what her benefit will be this time, with the new reductions.
"I could make it work for a bit smaller benefit," she said. "If it was a lot different, then I would have a difficult time."
State agencies that administer the food stamp benefit say they are trying to get the word out about the benefit reduction.
Alexis Lambert, communications director for the Florida Department of Children and Families, said they have hung flyers, added a notice to the website and put an announcement on their call center hold message.
In Kansas, Theresa Freed, director of communications for the state's Department for Children and Families, said the state agency has provided recipients with an estimate of what kind of reduction they will see. It also is notifying community partners that they could see an increase in demand for their services.
Some food banks also are preparing for the change. Eric Cooper, chief executive of the San Antonio Food Bank in Texas, said he estimates that a typical SNAP benefit is enough for a family to buy food for two and a half to three weeks. With the reduction, he expects SNAP benefits to typically last for two to two and a half weeks.
"It's going to place a lot more demand on us for kind of 'food for today' type strategies," he said. "Our emergency food and the need for more assistance is going to be greater."
—By CNBC's Allison Linn
Yahoo News
Imagine - no extreme poverty. It's possible by 2030, says report.
Eric Pfeiffer, Published Saturday, October 19th
http://news.yahoo.com/new-report-says-extreme-poverty-could-be-eliminated-by-2030-023809373.html
Two recent reports say that extreme poverty could be effectively eliminated by 2030 (AP)
More than a billion people around the world still exist in extreme poverty, which is defined by living on less than $1.25 a day. The good news is that number dropped by half from 1990 through 2010. And a new report says eliminating extreme poverty altogether is “within reach” by 2030.
The report was produced by the Brookings Institution, which says that a combination of increased shared consumption and improving global distribution of resources have dramatically reduced the poverty rate over the past 23 years but that “both factors are needed simultaneously,” to bring the total percentage of those living below the $1.25 rate to 3 percent or less.
The report gained prominence on Friday when Bill Gates tweeted about it in a message to his 13 million plus followers:
“Over the past twenty years global poverty reduction was made possible by a consistently large mass of people lining up behind the poverty line each year, and sufficient consumption growth to carry many of these individuals across the threshold,” the report explains.
According to the report, there are more people living around the $1.25 mark “than at any other consumption level in the world.” Amongst the world’s billion people living in extreme poverty, a report released this month by the World Bank Group says that 400 million of them are children .
However, the World Bank Group report also had good news that aligns with the findings of Brookings, stating that 750 million less people live in extreme poverty today compared to 1981.
“We need to act urgently, and with a sharpened focus, to implement effective policies in places where poverty remains entrenched, particularly rural areas,” Jaime Saavedra, the World Bank Acting Vice President of Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, said in a statement. The Governors of the World Bank Group have also endorsed the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030.
Perhaps not surprisingly, China and India have been at the forefront of extreme poverty reduction over the past two decades. The Brookings report says that China has now reduced the number of its citizens living in extreme poverty into the single digits and that going forward “the baton has been passed to India.”
From there, Brookings says sub-Saharan African faces the largest extreme poverty gap.
So, what stands in the way of fully eliminating this most extreme form of poverty?
Brookings says there are two major factors as they look ahead to 2030. First, that as countries like China make progress on poverty, they will become satisfied with the progress already made and will lack incentives to complete the job. And secondly, that in the most greatly affected regions of the world, populations of extreme poverty will begin to condense, making it all the more challenging to see economic improvements.
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