United States

The 25-cent raise: What life is like after a minimum wage increase

by Chico Harlan Washington Post February 17, 2015

PINE BLUFF, Ark. — One Friday last month, Shanna Tippen left the house where she sometimes gets by with candles and flashlights, got into her beat-up 2003 Chrysler Sebring, and drove to work to pick up her first new-and-improved paycheck. The paycheck was stamped at the top with her employer's nam...

A ‘megadrought’ will grip U.S. in the coming decades, NASA researchers say

by Darryl Fears Washington Post February 12, 2015

The long and severe drought in the U.S. Southwest pales in comparison with what’s coming: a “megadrought” that will grip that region and the central Plains later this century and probably stay there for decades, a new study says....

Neeraj Jagga bought this apartment in a 4,000-unit complex near New Delhi but said construction had barely progressed in three years. The developer, Kabul Chawla, has been the subject of numerous consumer complaints. Photo: Graham Crouch/ New York Times

Amid complaints in India, a real estate deal in Manhattan

by Stephanie Stall and Louise Story New York Times February 9, 2015

Last Sept. 28, a group of retired military officers demonstrated at Jantar Mantar, a historic site in New Delhi. “Though we are old veterans, we still have the strength to challenge your atrocity,” read the placard of one protester, who was leaning on a cane....

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) costs declining, expected to fall much further. trend reflects recent benefit reduction and lower cas...

by Dottie Rosenbaum and Brynne Keith-Jennings Center on Budget and Policy Priorities February 9, 2015

SNAP spending, which rose substantially as a share of the economy (gross domestic product or GDP) in the wake of the Great Recession, fell for the second consecutive year in 2015,[1] following the pattern that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and other experts expect. ...

Walmart raising wages to at least $9

by Hiroko Tabuchi New York Times February 9, 2015

Walmart, the largest private employer in the country, said on Thursday that it would increase wages for a half-million employees, a move that comes amid persistent scrutiny of its labor practices and high employee turnover....

This is a May 28, 1963, file photograph of a sit-in demonstration at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson, Miss., where whites poured sugar, ketchup and mustard over heads of the demonstrators. Seated at the counter, from left, are John Salter, Joan Trumpauer and Anne Moody. Moody, whose memoir “Coming of Age in Mississippi” gave a wrenching account of growing up poor in the segregated South and facing violence as a civil rights activist, died Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015, at her home in the small town Gloster, Mississippi. She was 74. (Jackson Daily News, Fred Blackwell, File/Associated Press)

Anne Moody, Mississippi civil rights activist, dies at 74

by Associated Press Washington Post February 7, 2015

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New report urges Western governments to reconsider reliance on biofuels

by ustin Gillis New York Times January 28, 2015

Western governments have made a wrong turn in energy policy by supporting the large-scale conversion of plants into fuel and should reconsider that strategy, according to a new report from a prominent environmental think tank....

Middle class shrinks further as more fall out instead of climbing up

by Dionnne Searcey and Robert Gebeloff New York Times January 25, 2015

The middle class that President Obama identified in his State of the Union speech last week as the foundation of the American economy has been shrinking for almost half a century....

Lamar Smith, a case worker with the city-contracted nonprofit Community of Hope, does a walk-through in mid-December with Timika Holiday, 29, a formerly homeless mother of two, at her home in the District. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Washington Post

Prevent homelessness? Break the cycle of poverty? It’s not just his dream but his job.

by Robert Samuels Washington Post January 17, 2015

Sometimes, he just hopes they’ll open the door. But the prospect seemed unlikely on this cloudy morning as Lamar Smith, 36, approached the brick walk-up. The lights were off, the blinds closed; no sign of anyone in this Southeast Washington home....

Grapes of wrath: California farmworkers fight to unionize

by David Bacon Al Jazeera America January 16, 2015

FRESNO, Calif. — When Jose Dolores began picking grapes at Gerawan Farming in California’s San Joaquin Valley in 1990, the company was paying a little over the state minimum wage of $4.25 an hour. “We just weren’t making enough, and everything cost a lot. That’s why people wanted the union...

  • World Hunger Education
    Service
    P.O. Box 29015
    Washington, D.C. 20017
  • For the past 50 years, since its founding in 1976, the mission of World Hunger Education Service is to undertake programs, including Hunger Notes, that
    • Educate the general public and target groups about the extent and causes of hunger and malnutrition in the United States and the world
    • Advance comprehension which integrates ethical, religious, social, economic, political, and scientific perspectives on the world food problem
    • Facilitate communication and networking among those who are working for solutions
    • Promote individual and collective commitments to sustainable hunger solutions.