Find
Improve Aid to the Poor
We'll be writing up something soon. Be sure to check out Dispatches on this issue as well as other resources in the sidebar. You can also use the issue menu to the right to navigate to related issues.
Resource Organizations
From the Dispatch
-
Assuring Accountability and Equity in Recovery Spending
Jun 01, 2009
In this Dispatch, we emphasize that any stimulus spending has to be tied to increased accountability and transparency in spending decisions, especially by government contractors who often operate like a shadow government with little oversight. One key reality is that those most in need often don't receive help from government spending without transparency and accountability measures built into the rules. While the recent federal recovery plan made real strides in expanding such accountability, additional measures are still needed if the recovery plan is going to deliver real equity in our economic recovery. -
Building a Better Measure of Poverty Rates
Jul 17, 2008
States don't really know how many of their residents are poor. The current federal poverty measure uses a forty-year old, widely criticized methodology. It neither accounts for many of the resources poor families receive from the government, such as Food Stamps and the EITC, nor does it, conversely, factor in many additional expenses the poor face that are not accounted for in the federal measure, such as transportation costs, child care and local costs of living.
-
Welfare "Reform": Ten Years Later
Sep 18, 2006
It's now ten years since the 1996 welfare law promised to end "welfare as we know it." That goal may have been accomplished, but the results have been decidedly mixed, both for poor families and for state lawmakers coping with changing federal mandates.