We should all be so proud of what the past 40 years of elevating Oregon's "livability" to a divine commandment has gotten us.

Is the Oregon Food Bank LEED certified?

The solution to Oregon's poverty is simple... we need to build more tax abated, i.e, subsidized, condos and more "lifestyle" neighborhoods.

West Coast Mississippi. Backwater city, baby.

Having worked with agencies that determine eligibility for food stamps for over 30 years, I can tell you that this is not all bad. Oregon has very aggressively tried to make getting food stamp help as easy as possible for those who qualify. I think I could safely say that most families receiving food stamps in Oregon have at least one working adult. There's never anything wrong in people having access to food. What is truly unfortunate is that we have one of the highest levels of unemployment in the country.

How many illegals does Mississippi have?

The number of illegals in Mississippi depends on what crops are being picked.

Worse than Michigan? Amazing and sad.

We're #2, and we try harder.

(apologies to Avis)

Please don't forget that tomorrow is the letter carrier's food drive - probably second only to the Blues festival in the intake of food items.

My sister works for the Salem food bank - many of the recipients of food boxes from their network of pantries are working, elderly or disabled.

It is not news that OR vies with MS in the food stamp (SNAP) competition. Neither is it news that the food stamp program (SNAP) has proved profitable to JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and a couple other companies. Consider this widely quoted mainstream piece from two years ago about "offshoring" SNAP administration:

"Americans have never liked the idea of jobs going overseas. But for many, it's more offensive when taxpayer dollars -- including those in the federal stimulus plan -- go to create those jobs. And when those jobs deal with food stamps, unemployment insurance and other public benefits, well forgot irony, to many it's just downright plain insulting."
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=7452561

For JPM's perspective on this, here's a video originally from Bloomberg:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zf8v7RYk6Y
While the importance of SNAP to JPM is asserted, an estimate of how profitable SNAP is to JPM escapes mention. Not so long ago, I noted in this forum that one published estimate of JPM's profit from the program was around $5.4 billion.

But OR's "Oregon Trail" is apparently administered by Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), so that company, not JPM, is reaping profits from the misery of many in this state:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/ebt/ebt_status_report.htm
This is not to suggest that JPM is not realizing big-league profits from OR; the Too Big to Prosecute (TBTP), federally subsidized financial institution did, after all, obtain $307 billion of WaMu's assets, including many branches, from the FDIC's Sheila Bair for the risible, still-unexplained sum of $1.88 billion.

MT, in contrast, has a "[s]tate-owned and operated system developed by Northrop Grumman." Perhaps someone in blogworld knows whether MT's SNAP functions efficiently and effectively without leaking jobs and cash away from the state?

Mr. Grumpy:The solution to Oregon's poverty is simple... we need to build more tax abated, i.e, subsidized, condos and more "lifestyle" neighborhoods.

Mr. Grumpy,
The idea is then to get rid of the "old nice
neighborhoods? That we should all transition into the "tax abated, subsidized"
neighborhoods, or just leave, or be forced to leave by insidious policies?

Well, all you got to do is to get behind District of Columbia statehood to drop from second to third place.

At least our hungry ride in style as they go between the free trade coffee shop and the LEED-certified subsidized rent development.

no-don't go by streetcar- yesterday we ended up not waiting for a Pearl district streetcar as it was blocked by a car that had to be towed....funny thing about rail- it cannot go around road blocks. Walking is faster than the streetcar.

Oregon is far left, and no one knows how to game the system better than Democrat liberals. No surprise here - they have no pride, just take what you can get for free and let someone else pay for it.

Maybe this is like the Portlanders who prefer unimproved roads? We just have more people who like Government Cheese?

A couple other things about food stamps (and unemployment):

"Eligibility for food stamps is based on gross income and follows federal guidelines; lottery winnings are considered liquid assets and don't count as income. As long as Fick's gross income stays below the eligibility requirement for food stamps, he can receive them, even if he has a million dollars in the bank."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_localdtw/20110518/ts_yblog_localdtw/2m-michigan-lottery-winner-defends-use-of-food-stamps

JPM runs MI's unemployment debit card program; ACS runs the state's SNAP at least through the end of this month. From the ABC News link (see above):

"...in Michigan, JP Morgan allows unemployment recipients two free withdrawals from its network of ATMs. For each addition [sic] withdrawal, the bank takes a $1.50 fee. If somebody loses their card, the first replacement is free. The second costs $7.50.

The banks also get a fee for each case they handle.

Take Indiana. JP Morgan gets 62 to 64 cents for each food stamp case handled monthly there. With 296,245 cases right now, that means the state is paying JP Morgan $183,672 a month on top of any other fees it collects."