The Ann Arbor Independent Editorial Team The Michigan League for Public Policy reports that child poverty in the state has gone up since 2008. In Washtenaw County, 13.4 percent of the county's children ages 0-17 live in poverty, that's…

by Lindsay Vanhulle | Crain's 40% of households still unable to afford basic living necessities To make ends meet as a four-person family in Michigan, with a child in preschool and a baby at home, it's practically mandatory that both…

IN THE T.V.  advertisement released by the Snyder campaign last week, Gov. Snyder assures voters that Michigan is on the “road to recovery.” Those who have not felt the recovery will feel it soon, he says. The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s…

by Richard Eskow “OVERCOMING POVERTY is not a task of charity,” said Nelson Mandela, “it is an act of justice.” When the War on Poverty began a half-century ago, it was widely seen as the moral obligation of a wealthy nation.…

by Rob Smith It's been a tough couple of weeks for Governor Rick Snyder in the Michigan courts. First a Wayne County judge declared closed-door meetings of the finance team which had been evaluating whether Detroit should be forced to…

by F. Zakaria Remember Mitt Romney's infamous "poor" comment? If not, here it is again: "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich; they're…

by J.D. Berman Now that we're officially in the 2012 election cycle, candidates for office may want to take note of a new poll on voter attitudes toward poverty and opportunity. According to a survey commissioned by Spotlight on Poverty,…

Analogy Alert: President Obama is buying books (and playing golf) on Martha's Vinyard. In Sunday's New York Times, Maureen Dowd took the President to task as only she can. Dowd writes: "Is Obama so isolated he can’t see that Americans are…