A who’s who of welfare reform heavyweights met at NYU this morning to debate whether the 1996 law is working, 15 years on. Predictably, they couldn’t even agree on what “working” meant: Wednesday’s panel on the 15th anniversary of welfare … Continue reading
I’m on FAIR’s radio show Counterspin this week, discussing the media frenzy around last week’s release of census data showing poverty is dramatically on the rise in the U.S. But what did the news stories leave out? Listen to Janine … Continue reading
With unemployment still through the roof, are job training programs just preparing people for jobs that don’t exist? As the economy threatens to sink into a double-dip recession, pressure is growing for federal, state, and local governments to do something … Continue reading
If you didn’t get enough on how tough it can be to apply for public benefits in New York City in my recent City Limits magazine story, here’s a new article on a report saying it’s doubly tough if you’re … Continue reading
And one more from the City Limits extravaganza (which is now optimized for you to read through start to finish online, beginning here). This is a companion piece that didn’t make the print magazine for space reasons, profiling a Hunter … Continue reading
I’m happy to report that contrary to what I said yesterday, my entire article profiling low-income New Yorkers and how they make ends meet is now available online via the City Limits website. You can find links to all six … Continue reading
And now it can be revealed: One of the big projects taking up much of my time this spring was a special issue of City Limits magazine on low-income New Yorkers, how they make ends meet, and how government policy … Continue reading
The Bloomberg Administration prides itself on basing its policies on hard data. But in the case of welfare policy, an analysis of new city documents (and conversations with city staffers) shows that it’s been picking and choosing which data to … Continue reading
You may have noticed the recent spate of articles on the Census Bureau’s decision to replace the old “poverty line” with a spate of different alternative measures of poverty, in hopes of eventually settling on one that makes sense. I’ve … Continue reading
More light, and murk, shed on the legality of Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed food-stamp soda ban: In this corner: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to grant New York City a two-year waiver to ban the … Continue reading