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When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, one of the most immediate consequences was also one of the most severe: a spike in hunger. Those who lost jobs had less money to buy food. Supply chain disruptions led to empty store shelves. With fewer transportation options, even simple things like traveling back and forth to the grocery store became a lot harder. Suddenly, millions of additional families were having a much more difficult time putting food on the table.

American families changed suddenly and dramatically in the 1960s. Marriage rates fell while divorces and nonmarital births increased (Lundberg and Pollak 2007). The share of mothers who were not married quadrupled between 1960 and 2010 (Figure 1). At the same time, married women’s employment and unmarried women’s welfare participation skyrocketed (Moffitt 1987, Goldin 2006). By 1980, mothers brought in one-third of family income, double their share in 1960. In 1991, Gary Becker reflected that “the family in the Western world has been radically altered— some claim almost destroyed—by the events of the last three decades” (Becker 1991, p. 1) Understanding...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is providing $125 million for electrical parts and other supplies to help repair crews in Ukraine keep up with Russian strikes pounding the country’s electrical system, the U.S. international development aid chief said Wednesday.The U.S. Agency for International Development plans to use the money to procure backup power for Kyiv’s water and district-heating systems. The funding also will help replenish supplies of gas turbines, transformers and other vital power equipment.

The famed Louisiana Cajun Navy is “standing down” in Houston after looters tried to steal their boats and fired gunshots at them. The Cajun Navy made the announcement in a Facebook post Monday afternoon. “Looters decided to pose as people needing rescue and they attempted to overtake the boats and there were shots fired at the boats,” the post said. “I repeat they are all safe. Looters must have not wanted our boats in the water for rescues.” The Facebook post has since been removed... “They’re making it difficult for us to rescue them,” he said. “You have people rushing...

Rep. Barbara Lee is firing back at Bill O’Reilly, saying the Fox News host’s comments about race were “disgusting.” “Unfortunately we’ve come to expect language like ‘welfare queens,’ ‘food stamp president,’ and now ‘race hustlers’ from the right wing and Mr. O’Reilly,” the California Democrat said in a statement Wednesday. “It is disgusting and divisive and should never be accepted in our national discourse.” O’Reilly had Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on his program Tuesday night to discuss controversy over some comments Ryan had made about poverty and inner city culture that he later called “inarticulate.” Ryan’s remarks were seized...

“We know the statistics,” said President Barack Obama, “that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves.” The Journal of Research on Adolescence found that even after controlling for varying levels of household income, kids in father-absent homes are more likely to end up in jail. And kids that never had a...

From revealingpolitics.com comes these outrageous responses from Obama supporters outside the joint President Obama-Sandra Fluke campaign event in Denver on Wednesday. The interviewees were all dead-set on the government not having any place in the bedroom. But following that up with why then should the government pay for the contraception used in the bedroom, they seemed to falter. “The government has no place in our bedroom?” interviewer Caleb Bonham asked one woman. “No,” she asserted. “So you’re in support of contraception, government-funded contraception — why do you believe the government should pay for what goes on inside your bedroom?” The...

Their dreams of the Iron Bowl turned into a reality behind iron bars. What were supposed to be coveted tickets to the 2011 Alabama-Auburn football matchup turned out to be a trip to jail for at least a dozen deadbeat parents arrested Friday by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office as part of operation Iron Snare. One by one, suspects who were wanted by authorities for a total of more than $270,000 worth of unpaid child support were arrested after arriving at a festive, football-themed location on Second Avenue in Opelika, complete with balloons, streamers and highlights of the 2010 Iron...

The problem with government as it has out-grown its intended and justified limits is not that it’s become too Democrat or too Republican. The problem with it is exemplified in California’s redevelopment laws. They are welfare for corporations, for business interests picked to win by politicians, for tax burdens to be shouldered by you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer...

I'm sure you all remember being back in elementary school when the only thing cooler than Tamagotchis and POGs was trying to outdo your buddy's moose ears and KISS tongue every time the substitute teacher turns around to write something on the board. Whenever the talking heads of the Left turn Sauron's eye on the Tea Party Movement, they purport to have a similar impression. Sure, when video cameras and news reporters are around, the Tea Baggers are murmuring some nonsense about being over taxed and wanting "freedom" – whatever that means… but as soon as the cameras are switched...

A dollar a day keeps the babies away. That's the incentive behind College Bound Sisters, a program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro that aims to keep 12- to 18-year-old girls in school and baby-free. Girls in the program attend 90-minute meetings every week at which they receive lessons in abstinence and the use of contraceptives — and they receive $7 every week they do not get pregnant. The money is deposited into a fund that's collectible when they enroll in college. But not everyone thinks paying kids to stay childless is the right way to lower the...

Nadya Suleman will probably sign a deal very soon to feature her and her 14 children in a reality TV show, sources tell PEOPLE exclusively. Czech says Suleman doesn't have health insurance and that all medical costs associated with delivering the octuplets on Jan. 26 were funded by taxpayers through state Medi-Cal.

They have a combined weight of 83 stone (1162 lbs)and claim £22,000 in taxpayer-funded benefits on the basis they are ‘too fat to work’. Yet, incredibly, X Factor flop Emma Chawner's family from Blackburn are demanding more money - because they still can’t afford their calorie-laden lifestyle. Asked why they don’t simply go on a diet, the jobless Chawner family who are so obese their neighbours call them ‘the telly tubbies’ insist: ‘We don’t have the time.’ Emma, 19, famously appeared on the TV talent show in 2007 wearing a wedding-style dress made by her dad. She was kicked off...

We all know them. People that abuse the system. People that work a few months of the year, just long enough to qualify for unemployment, and then jump on the unemployment bandwagon. Those that get food stamps to support their families despite being able bodied, often educated and capable of work. And, of course, the people that work “under the table” while receiving government aid intended for the truly needy. One such image sticks in our minds from a visit last year to a local softball game. Across the street was a truck distributing food for the needy. A brand...

Gainesville, Florida's first community hospital has been struggling since it was acquired by the Shands Healthcare system in northern Florida twelve years ago. But now the plug is being pulled from the 80-year-old, money-losing Shands AGH because of the recession. Its eight-hospital not-for-profit parent company will close the 220-bed hospital next fall. Patients and staff will be moved to a nearby newer, larger teaching hospital as part of an effort to conserve $65 million over three years throughout the healthcare system. Like many U.S. hospitals, Shands is being hit by higher borrowing costs, tight credit, investment losses and a spike...

Toorpakai Saindi, who has seven children, has been granted an estimated £400 a week in child and local tax benefits, while her landlord receives £12,458 a month because there is no other suitable property available. The Saindis were placed three months ago at their current £1.2m house which they are entitled to have by law given the size of their family Mrs Saindi, who has four sons and three daughters aged eight to 22, approached Ealing Council in west London in July after being made homeless. The authority has a legal obligation to find her a seven-bedroom home. The mother,...

The rate is four times that of higher-income women, a new survey reports. WASHINGTON - Overall, the rate of unintended pregnancy - 49 percent of all pregnancies - has remained stable in the United States, according to newly released government data. But when broken down by income, disparities emerge: In 2001, US women living below the federal poverty line were four times as likely to have an unplanned pregnancy, five times as likely to have an unplanned birth, and more than three times as likely to have an abortion as women with income at least double the poverty line ($9,800)....

The Senate is slated to write an immigration bill next month, so we polled North Texas House members to see whether they could live with some likely Senate proposals. We were particularly curious about whether they could embrace a guest worker program to curb illegal immigration. The Senate is considering legalizing more workers through three-year visas.-snip-There's also the coming onslaught of 78 million retiring baby boomers. Without more workers to support retirement programs like Social Security, boomers must live with fewer benefits or younger workers must pay higher payroll taxes to support programs for boomers. Neither choice is good.-snip-

MOBILE, Ala. -- When Hurricane Katrina knocked out power to Lakeshia Watson's public housing apartment, she opened a window. An air conditioner fell out, and water damaged a mattress and clothing, said the 23-year-old tenant of Roger Williams Homes. "It wasn't bad," she said. "It just was rain coming in." Watson called the Federal Emergency Management Agency and got $2,000 in emergency aid. A bathroom ceiling partially collapsed in the modest house Thelma Robinson rents. A sofa in front of a fireplace got wet, as did other living room furniture, from the family opening the door to watch the hurricane....

Like thousands of other single women living in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Brigette, 24, collects Medicaid and food stamps. Unlike most of her neighbors, she's white and a college graduate—the kind of welfare recipient rarely considered in debates over public assistance. Brigette, whose parents and two sisters run a restaurant in rural Vermont, got her B.A. in film from Bard College, a top-tier liberal arts school in upstate New York. She moved to New York City about two years ago to pursue experimental filmmaking. As young self-styled bohemians have always done, she found a neighborhood with cheap rent and cobbled together a...