poverty

by Alexander Rojas When I first learned that more than 826 million people around the world live on the equivalent of less than $3.00 a day, I was stunned. Not $3.00 in their local economy, but the purchasing power of about $3.00 here in…

Approximately eight percent of Washtenaw County residents receive SNAP benefits, some 26,000 individuals. In 2023, in Ann Arbor, approximately 19.7 percent of residents (25,610) lived below the poverty line. In Ypsilanti, 25.6 percent of…

by Ken Coleman A two-year project aimed at providing monthly payments to 100 current and future Ann Arbor entrepreneurs with low and very low incomes kicked off this month. Over 1,000 people applied in Oct. 2023. Powered by Poverty…

by Rick Haglund Beginning a column with a cliché is considered a sign of unimaginative writing. But the old tale of the boiled frog almost perfectly describes Michigan’s demographic and economic plight. It’s said that if you drop a…

Note: According to a Feb. 27 article in MLive.com, "Senate Bill 35 introduced in January would delete the asset testing requirement used by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) to determine eligibility for the…

by Dr. Celine-Marie Pascale Michael Chase works two jobs in southeast Ohio: one as a hotel night clerk and one as retail support – sorting through donations, setting new merchandise out, cleaning – at a nonprofit. His schedule is not…

by Susan Demas, Michigan Advance If there’s one enduring myth in America, it’s that there’s nothing we can really do to end poverty. Most policy prescriptions during the last few decades — from setting up Byzantine barriers to…

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…

MR. SNYDER your “reinvention” of Michigan has left too many behind. We did not hear you acknowledge this during your campaign, and would have more confidence had we heard a frank assessment from you of Michigan’s challenges. The research…

LANSING REPUBLICANS DODGED what their leaders believe was a bullet in raising the state’s minimum wage from the current $7.40 to $9.25 by 2018 and indexing it to inflation thereafter. The minimum wage for tipped employees rose from $2.65 to…