Promise of the American Dream is Broken

(Source: CNN)

The U.S. Department of Labor recently announced that the unemployment rate fell to 8.2%. That should have been a signal that jobs are coming back and that the economy is about to rebound. But, as many economists say, the numbers fell primarily because unemployed Americans have become so discouraged with trying to find a job that they’ve simply quit looking.

Poverty Simulation at Collin College Teaches Students to be Advocates

(Source: Star Local News)

At first glance it does not seem like an exercise called a poverty simulation would accomplish much.

At the beginning of the evening many participants treated their roles like a funny way to spend the evening.

By the end of the evening attitudes about poverty had changed.

“I learned how chaotic the life experience can be and how difficult it is to meet the need and not anything above the need,” Beth Christopher said.

NHL Pioneer Inspires Newest Generation of Players in the Northland

(Source: Duluth News Tribune)

Had Willie O’Ree not experienced the ugliness of racism and segregation of the 1950s Deep South, he might not have broken the National Hockey League’s color barrier.

O’Ree told attendees at the third annual Pucks Against Poverty luncheon Friday at the Clyde Iron Works event center that a baseball tryout for the Milwaukee Braves in Georgia helped steer him toward hockey and eventually the distinction of being the “Jackie Robinson of the NHL.”

Tavis Smiley, Cornel West Bring Poverty-Awareness Tour to Seattle

(Source: The Seattle Times)

Martin Luther King Jr. was leading his “Poor People’s Campaign” when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968.

King’s campaign, and its call for economic fairness, was what brought him to the city to march with striking public-works employees.

Iranians Surround Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Car in Poverty Protest

(Source: The Telegraph)

The remarkable show of civil disobedience occurred during what was intended as a routine tour last week of the southern city Bandar Abbas.

As the president waves to crowds, standing in the car’s sunroof, an elderly man is shown holding on to the front hand side of the car shouting “I’m hungry, I’m hungry”.

Panicked bodyguards eventually manage to usher him away but as their backs are turned a young veiled woman leaps onto the bonnet and then sits on the car’s roof, gesticulating as she makes her point to Mr Ahmadinejad.

Disability Rights Protesters Bring Trafalgar Square Traffic to a Standstill

(Source: The Guardian)

Disability activists blocked one of central London’s busiest road junctions on Wednesday with a line of wheelchair users chaining themselves together in the latest in a series of direct action protests against welfare cuts.

The protesters used metal chains and security locks to block two junctions around Trafalgar Square bringing traffic to a standstill for more than two hours.

The demonstration was organised by Disabled People Against the Cuts (Dpac) which has taken the lead in several direct action anti-cuts protests over the past two months.

“We are fed up with being vilified as scroungers by successive governments,” said Dpac co-founder Debbie Jolly, from Leicester. “We are sick of hearing about disabled people who have died from neglect and lack of services or who have committed suicide because services and benefits were withdrawn from them. We want to make sure politicians know we will not accept these attacks on our lives any longer.”

New York’s Poverty Rate Rises, Study Finds

(Source:  New York Times)

The number of New Yorkers classified as poor in 2010 increased by nearly 100,000 from the year before, raising the poverty rate by 1.3 percentage points to 21 percent — the highest level and the largest year-to-year increase since the city adopted a more detailed definition of poverty in 2005.

The recession and the sluggish recovery have taken a particularly harsh toll on children, with more than one in four under 18 living in poverty, according to an analysis by the city’s Center for Economic Opportunity that will be released on Tuesday.

Families with children were also vulnerable. They had a poverty rate of 23 percent, and a significant number of households were struggling to remain above the poverty line. Even families with two full-time earners were more likely to be considered poor in 2010; their ranks swelled by 1.3 percentage points to 5 percent compared with 2009.

UGA Study: Increasing Minimum Wage Doesn’t Alleviate Poverty

(Source:  Online Athens)

Raising the minimum won’t raise people out of poverty, according to a new study by a University of Georgia professor.

Since half of working-age poor people don’t work and most low-wage workers aren’t part of poor families, a higher minimum wage won’t do much to help improve the 15 percent poverty rate in the U.S., acccording to Robert Nielsen, an assistant professor of houseing and consumer economics.

“By and large, evidence says that minimum wage increases don’t go to the people they are intended to help and that there are other policy tools that are more effective at helping the working poor,” Nielsen said in a news release.

Freed Palestinian Activist Ready to Repeat Hunger Strike

(Source:  Gulf News)

Palestinian Khader Adnan, a senior member of the Islamic Jihad, is greeted by Palestinians after his release from an Israeli prison, in the West Bank village of Arrabe near Jenin on Wednesday.

Ramallah Khader Adnan who fasted 66 days in protest against Israel’s administrative detention orders said Wednesday that he would go on an open-ended hunger strike in case the Israelis detain him again.

Food Stamp Rolls to Grow Through 2014, CBO Says

(Source: The Wall Street Journal)

The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. It  said the number of people receiving the benefits, commonly known as food stamps, would continue growing until 2014.

Spending for the program, not including administrative costs, rose to $72 billion in 2011, up from $30 billion four years earlier. The CBO projected that one in seven U.S. residents received food stamps last year.

In a report, the CBO said roughly two-thirds of jump in spending was tied to an increase in the number of people participating in the program, which provides access to food for the poor, elderly, and disabled. It said another 20% “of the growth in spending can be attributed to temporarily higher benefit amounts enacted in the” 2009 stimulus law.

CBO said the number of people receiving benefits is expected to fall after 2014 because the economy will be improving.

“Nevertheless, the number of people receiving SNAP benefits will remain high by historical standards,” the agency said.

It estimated that 34 million people, or 1 in 10 U.S. residents, would receive SNAP benefits in 2022 “and SNAP expenditures, at about $73 billion, will be among the highest of all non-health-related federal support programs for low-income households.”

(Source: The Wall Street Journal)