Tag Archives: poverty

Politico reports: The Agriculture Department has axed two programs that gave schools and food banks money to buy food from local farms and ranchers, halting more than $1 billion in federal spending. Roughly $660 million that schools and child care facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms through the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program in …

ProPublica reports: As Donald Trump’s nominee to run the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Scott Turner may soon oversee the nation’s efforts to build affordable apartments, protect poor tenants and aid the homeless. As a lawmaker in the Texas House of Representatives, Turner voted against those very initiatives. Turner supported a bill ensuring landlords could refuse apartments to …

The Florida Phoenix reports: DeSantis administration officials haven’t said whether the state will again reject a federal program that gives low-income families money for groceries during the summer. More than 2 million kids in the state could again miss out on the SUN Bucks program, or summer EBT, if the Florida Department of Children and Families doesn’t tell the federal …

The Orlando Sentinel reports: State officials said they passed up millions of dollars in new federal food assistance money because they have more than enough programs to feed Florida’s hungry children this summer. But advocates for the hungry say the numbers tell a different story. “The perception put forward by the state is that there is no need for other …

Miami’s NPR affiliate reports: Florida has opted out of a federal program that nonprofits say could decrease food insecurity for low-income families during the summer, when children no longer have easy access to school meals. State officials decided not to participate in SUN Bucks, which would have given qualifying families $120 per child for grocery expenses. It was one of …

The Washington Post reports: Moving beyond efforts to block expansion of health care for the poor and disabled, Republican governors in 15 states are now rejecting a new, federally funded summer program to give food assistance to hungry children. The program is expected to serve 21 million youngsters starting around June, providing $2.5 billion in relief across the country. The …

The Orlando Sentinel reports: Time is running out for Florida to opt into a new federal program that would provide $248 million to help feed 2 million children next summer who might otherwise go hungry. But it isn’t likely to happen as the state agency best equipped to run the program said it wouldn’t be pursuing the funding for it. …

InForum reports: Ten days after narrowly defeating a bill to provide free school lunches to low-income K-12 students, the North Dakota Senate approved legislation to increase the amount of money lawmakers and other state employees receive in meal reimbursements. A leading Republican senator says employee meal compensation rates and free school lunch programs aren’t related issues, but top Democrats see …

Bismarck’s NBC affiliate reports: Nearly everyone agrees: no child should go hungry. But who’s responsible for feeding them when they’re at school? That’s the question lawmakers are trying to answer this week. The state has a budget of about $18.5 billion. How much of that will go toward school lunches for poor families? It looks like the answer to that …

Florida Politics reports: Florida Democrats are piling on Gov. Ron DeSantis with demands he reverse his “appalling” decision not to reenlist the state in a pandemic-era program to bring federal food aid to 2.1 million children from low-income homes. Through his inaction, they said, DeSantis is blocking Florida’s neediest families from getting about $820 million in child food aid, which …

Media Matters has the transcript: LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): What if we just cut off the unemployment? Hunger is a pretty powerful thing. I don’t mean physical hunger, because people who truly are in need need help, but people who can work but refuse to work. JON TAFFER: I have friends in the military who trains military dogs Laura, and they …

The New York Times reports: The Senate took a major step early on Wednesday toward enacting a sweeping expansion of the nation’s social safety net, approving a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint along party lines that would allow Democrats to fund climate change, health care and education measures while increasing taxes on wealthy people and corporations. After an unusual bipartisan approval …

The Washington Post reports: A federal judge on Sunday formally struck down a Trump administration attempt to end food stamp benefits for nearly 700,000 unemployed people, blocking as “arbitrary and capricious” the first of three such planned measures to restrict the federal food safety net. In a scathing 67-page opinion, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell of D.C. condemned …

Politico reports: The Agriculture Department last week began mandating that millions of boxes of surplus food for needy families include a letter from President Donald Trump claiming credit for the program. The USDA’s $4 billion Farmers to Families Food Box Program has distributed more than 100 million boxes to those in need since May, with the aim of redirecting meat, …

Politico reports: A coalition that includes attorneys general in 14 states, the District of Columbia and New York City are suing the Agriculture Department over a plan to impose stricter work requirements on millions of food stamp recipients. The lawsuit, filed Thursday by mostly Democratic-led states, argues that USDA unlawfully limited states’ discretion to exempt certain adults from work requirements …

The Los Angeles Times reports: The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a major case on homelessness, letting stand a ruling that protects homeless people’s right to sleep on the sidewalk or in public parks if no other shelter is available. The justices without comment or a dissent said that they would not hear the case from Boise, Idaho, which …

The Associated Press reports: Michael Bloomberg took his Democratic presidential campaign to California on Wednesday, pledging to launch a “war on poverty” at an event in a city once known as the nation’s foreclosure capital. “As president, my job will be to move all Americans ahead, and that includes committing our country to new and innovative ways to combat poverty. …

Bloomberg News reports: The Trump administration will announce a plan Wednesday to end food stamps benefits for about 750,000 Americans, issuing a new regulation that makes it harder for states to gain waivers from a requirement that beneficiaries work or participate in a vocational training program, according to people familiar with the matter. Conservatives have long sought cuts in the …

The Daily Dot reports: Milo Yiannopoulos appears to have sold his website dangerous.com amid reported financial troubles for the far-right provocateur. A grammatically incorrect message on the site Sunday states that “Dangerous.com has been sold and is no longer associated with it’s previous owner.” The former Breitbart writer does not appear to have publicly commented on the alleged sale thus …

CBS News reports: The partial government shutdown glided into its third week Saturday with no end in sight. If the government is not reopened before February, millions of Americans who receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — the nation’s food stamp program — could have their assistance disrupted. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP at …