Traditionally, academics and policymakers have determined whether an individual or family can afford to live somewhere by simply dividing their housing costs by their income. If at least 30 percent of a person’s or family’s income goes to housing and related expenses like utilities, then their household is said to be “cost burdened.” The ratio […]

View Full Article - Why Housing Affordability Needs To Be Reevaluated

On Equal Pay Day, the Rutgers Center for Women and Work highlights the growing number of home health aides in New Jersey and the economic challenges they face New Jersey’s home health aides are caring for seniors and people with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, while earning an average salary of just $25,000 per year, […]

View Full Article - Report: Home Health Aides Scraping By on Low Wages During Pandemic

People who suffered a financial, housing-related, or job-related hardship as a result of the Great Recession were more likely to show increases in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and problematic drug use, research shows. The research findings, published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal declines in mental health that were still evident […]

View Full Article - Hardship During the Great Recession Linked with Lasting Mental Health Declines

Homelessness is a pressing problem in many U.S. cities. In response, many local governments have enacted controversial measures such as restrictions on public health services or prohibitions on eating, sleeping, sitting or storing property in public spaces. Sometimes called “nuisance” or “quality of life” measures, such steps seem designed to reduce the visibility of unsheltered […]

View Full Article - Why There Are Better Alternatives Than Punitive Policies Targeting Homeless People

The history of homelessness in Australia stems back to our nation’s colonization by our British counterparts which moved Indigenous Australians out of their physical living structures. As Australia became more industrialized nearing the 1970’s, the contrast between homelessness and the rest of society become starker as the mainstream society had higher living expectations and standards […]

View Full Article - The History of Stereotyping Homelessness in Australia

By: Susan Meyers Chandler and Laurie Arial Tochiki Annually, about 435,000 children across the United States are taken away from their custodial parents following a confirmed incident of abuse or neglect. In 2015, approximately two million cases of abuse and neglect were accepted for investigation by child protection services agencies in the fifty U.S. states. Although […]

View Full Article - Why Involving Entire Families in Child Protection Cases Can Improve the Lives of Endangered Children

The 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty attracted little attention in 2015, and the 20th anniversary of welfare reform was barely noticed the following year. Although poverty tends to be overlooked by elected officials, policy experts, and the media, it remains a large and chronic social problem. According to the U.S, Census Bureau, 43 […]

View Full Article - What Americans Think about Poverty and How to Reduce It

Using an innovative technique to measure poverty, a Georgia Institute of Technology economics professor has found that more older Americans live in deprivation than official statistics suggest. Shatakshee Dhongde, associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, found that 12.27 percent of senior citizens were deprived in two or more crucial areas, including multiple disabilities, low […]

View Full Article - Changing the Lens on Poverty Research

The child welfare system coupled with the juvenile and criminal justice systems have ultimately created and perpetuated the systemic constraints and social underpinnings that keep Black families court involved and monitored. Data reveals that pluralism across systems yields, “much earlier contact with child protection, committing the first offense at least two years earlier than the […]

View Full Article - Critical Analysis of the System Changes Needed in the Child Welfare System

Since you began working for the man (your company), you’ve forked over a portion of every paycheck to the man (the government) in the form of Social Security Taxes. You haven’t had a choice in this matter. Yes, a few semi-crackpots have told you that you can not pay these taxes if you disavow your […]

View Full Article - 9 Answers To Burning Questions About Social Security

Millions of low- and moderate-income Americans who claim certain tax credits will have to wait weeks longer than usual this year for their federal income tax refunds because of a new law aimed at reducing fraud. The delay could prove costly for countless families “in relatively vulnerable financial circumstances,” finds a new study from the […]

View Full Article - Study Shows Tax Return Delay Could Hurt Low-Income Families

Living in poverty is more than not having enough money to meet an arbitrary threshold. For many, a life in poverty is one of perpetual disappointment, missed opportunities, self-loathing and blame. Recognizing these feelings in others, and the impact they have on us professionally, is an important step in creating change. A simple transaction at […]

View Full Article - Windows into a Life in Poverty and Lessons for Social Workers

America’s recent legacy of trickle down economics has many implications, namely a wide division between the haves and the have-nots. When we talk about this phenomenon, we tend to discuss the reality as if it were merely the economy, but what leads to such an uneven playing field. As education adapts to the modern world, […]

View Full Article - Talent Is Equally Distributed, But Opportunity Is Not

Despite positive trends showing that homelessness has steadily decreased since 2007, nearly 600,000 people were homeless in the US at the beginning of 2014. In fact, two cities in the US rank in the top worldwide for cities with extremely high homeless populations. This is relatively high considering the US is the “richest nation” with […]

View Full Article - End Homelessness Through Eviction Prevention

Subprime loans, adjustable rate mortgages, unregulated equity lines of credit, mentally ill, physically and verbally abused, veterans, runaway children, drug addicts, and prostitutes are all part of the collectively vulnerable voices journeying through the grief of homelessness. Homelessness is not prejudiced it crosses socio-economic, religious, educational, mental capacity, gender, veteran status, sexual preference and racial […]

View Full Article - Journey through the Grief of Homelessness

In February 2011, thousands of concerned citizens protested with Wisconsin public employees against Governor Scott Walker and the Republican-led legislature moving to limit public employee rights to collective bargaining. These protests merged into the Occupy Madison (OM) movement, which like many other cities in America was in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Due […]

View Full Article - Protest Movement Turned Into A Commitment to the City’s Homeless

By Gabe Duverge The poverty rate in the United States is 14.8 percent, based on the latest data from the Census Bureau. Almost 47 million Americans have an annual household income that falls below the poverty line, which is about $24,000 for a family of four. The statistics are even higher in Kentucky. At 18.8 […]

View Full Article - Answering the Call: 5 Social Initiatives Helping to Fight Poverty in Kentucky

Patches are used to keep something that is worn out still working. For example, you can take a piece of material and sew it on your jeans to cover a hole, extending their life. This patch often adds color and revitalizes the old fabric, albeit without continuity. There comes a point when a patch is […]

View Full Article - Is the Criminal Justice System A Crime In Itself

As with other groups, there is a stereotype of food stamp, or SNAP benefit, recipients. Many people believe that most food stamp recipients resemble President Ronald Reagan’s infamous “welfare queen”; women of color who would rather collect money from the government than go to work, poor families who have more kids than they can afford, or […]

View Full Article - Who Really Receives Food Stamps?

Within the next year, between 500,000 and 1 million childless adults without disabilities will be dropped from their SNAP, or food stamp, benefits. A three-month time limit exists on benefits for this population, which has been in place since the welfare reform legislation in 1996. Currently, childless adults aged 18-49 without disabilities are the only […]

View Full Article - More Than 500,000 Childless Adults to Lose SNAP Benefits This Year