For years, small business ownership has served as a “gateway” to the middle class, particularly for residents in Gateway Cities like Holyoke where economic mobility is otherwise limited and educational attainment is low. But since the pandemic, experts and advocates have warned that Massachusetts’s small businesses are struggling to survive.
poverty
Posted inHousing
Worcester’s ‘A Better Life’ housing program helps break generational poverty by promoting self-sufficiency
Last month, Trump administration officials announced a long-awaited proposed rule that encourages, but does not require, all public housing authorities and private property owners who rent to people using a Section 8 housing voucher to implement a work requirement and time limits for non-disabled, non-elderly adults in federally-funded housing.
Posted inState Government
‘It just requires people to be destitute’: Healey draws criticism over push to tighten eligibility for safety-net program
Five years after lawmakers scrapped the asset limit attached to the Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled, and Children program, Gov. Maura Healey wants to bring it back at a higher threshold — a move that advocates say will impose unnecessary burdens on at-risk recipients.
Posted inHousing
Holyoke’s unsheltered homeless count hits new record as threats to federal aid loom
The state and federal funding landscape continues to shift while homelessness in Western Massachusetts has reached unprecedented levels in the aftermath of the pandemic. Holyoke had the highest unsheltered count in all of Hampden County this year, according to preliminary numbers.
Posted inOpinion
Instead of a war on poverty, we wage war on the poor
EVERY SAFETY NET in this country has been stitched with holes just wide enough for many of us to slip through. We’ve recently had a front row seat to this […]
Posted inEconomy
Is Chelsea Eats nearing an end, or a beginning?
CHELSEA CITY MANAGER Tom Ambrosino started handing out cash to residents last year as a way to address hunger in his community, but now he thinks the program’s initial success […]
Posted inOpinion
Mass. should build on fed antipoverty programs
MASSACHUSETTS IS ONE of the richest states in the country, yet has a poverty rate higher than 24 other states, according to data released from the US Census Bureau. Over […]
Posted inOpinion
Minimum guaranteed income = solution to poverty
IN THE WEEKS leading up to his assassination in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. launched a new chapter of his work, referred to as the “Poor People’s Campaign.” This […]
Posted inThe Download
Poverty politics
For those who drive into downtown Boston for the workday – which is a commuting challenge even under normal conditions – the ride home Monday evening made most of them late […]
Posted inEconomy
Income up, poverty and inequality down
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE WITH THE STATE moving toward major decisions over wages, income taxation and health care spending, new data published by the US Census Bureau Thursday shows Massachusetts […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, Opinion
Helping low-income families out of poverty
BUILDING A PATHWAY that leads out of poverty and into economic self-sufficiency requires hard work, resilience and persistence. However, low-income families will do all it takes to reach economic independence […]