More than 50 million Americans couldn't afford to buy food at some point in 2011, according to federal data. Children in some 3.9 million households suffered from food insecurity last year, with their families unable to provide them with adequate, nutritious food at times.
Nearly 17 million Americans suffered from "very low food security," meaning they had to reduce the amount they ate, saying the food they bought did not last and they didn't have the funds to buy more.
They typically found themselves in this situation a few days a month for seven months of the year. The number of people in this category shot up by more than 800,000 from 2010, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released Wednesday. Women living alone, black households and the poor and near-poor were affected the most. Read more >>
Showing posts with label Republican Party (United States). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republican Party (United States). Show all posts
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Disability Benefit Program Is Going Broke
For a country still gasping to recover from the Great Recession, disability payments from Social Security have evolved into a lifeline and an economic trap for millions of unemployed Americans threatening the program with insolvency in just four short years.
Created decades ago to help those unable to work because of severe health problems, the $128 billion program stops many from sliding into total poverty and inflicting further damage on the economy. More Americans qualified for disability than found jobs over the past three months, and since 2000, the number of beneficiaries rose by 73 percent, even though the workforce rose by less than 10 percent. But of the 8.7 million beneficiaries, federal officials claim the vast majority – with some estimates as high as 99 percent – will never rejoin the workforce and remain dependent on the federal government.
Both the Obama administration and congressional Republicans say that they are weighing reforms to salvage the finances of the disability system before the politics of the issue harden along partisan lines. "It requires you to think very hard about the social contract for this program," said Janice Eberly, the assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy. "Working is preferred to any programmatic alternatives, both from the individual's view and the taxpayers' view." Read more >>
Created decades ago to help those unable to work because of severe health problems, the $128 billion program stops many from sliding into total poverty and inflicting further damage on the economy. More Americans qualified for disability than found jobs over the past three months, and since 2000, the number of beneficiaries rose by 73 percent, even though the workforce rose by less than 10 percent. But of the 8.7 million beneficiaries, federal officials claim the vast majority – with some estimates as high as 99 percent – will never rejoin the workforce and remain dependent on the federal government.
Both the Obama administration and congressional Republicans say that they are weighing reforms to salvage the finances of the disability system before the politics of the issue harden along partisan lines. "It requires you to think very hard about the social contract for this program," said Janice Eberly, the assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy. "Working is preferred to any programmatic alternatives, both from the individual's view and the taxpayers' view." Read more >>
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