The Wall Street Journal reports that new data (.pdf) from the Department of Agriculture shows that in the U.S. “some 70 percent of households that relied on food stamps last year had no earned income”:

While the recession technically ended in 2009, a sluggish economic recovery left millions out of work or underemployed and leaning on the government for assistance last year.

The Agriculture Department’s annual snapshot on the characteristics of food stamp households, released Friday, shows that seven in 10 households receiving food stamps had no earned income last year, though many got other forms of government benefits.

Nearly 21% of households on food stamps also received Supplemental Security Income, assistance for the aged and blind. Some 21.4% received Social Security benefits. Just 8% of households also received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the cash welfare program.

But some 20% of households had no cash income of any kind last year, up from 15% in 2007, the year the recession began, and up from 7% in 1990.

That’s partly because most household heads who were receiving food stamps were also out of work. Just 21.8% of them had jobs in 2010, while 19.8% were jobless and looking for work.

According to an interactive map on the Journal’s website, Florida had among the highest percentage of people on food stamps without an earned income. The states with a higher percentage included Kentucky, Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Massachusetts reported the highest percentage: 80 percent.

The Journal also reported that “food stamps may be emerging as a lifeline for families after their unemployment insurance expired [and] just 6.7% of households who received food stamps were getting jobless benefits.” It as also reported that “nearly half of all food-stamp recipients, 47%, were children under the age of 18. Another 8% of recipients were age 60 or older.”

Poverty and unemployment has been a persistent problem in Florida. The last Florida jobs report shows that unemployment remained unchanged from one month to the next. In August, Florida also had the second highest number of mass layoffs in the nation. Many of Florida’s largest cities are struggling to rebound from the recession.

Gov. Rick Scott maintains the state is on the “right path.”

Five bills — passed in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah — were omnibus laws inspired by Arizona’s 2010 immigration law. These laws share common qualities like a requirement that law enforcement check the legal status of people detained for traffic violations, as well as mandatory implementation by employers of the E-Verify system, which aims to verify worker identification. In addition to the states with Arizona-style omnibus laws, five other states passed bills requiring E-Verify.

Not all bills were enforcement-only measures, however. In addition to its Arizona-style legislation, Utah enacted legislation which would create a temporary guestworker program allowing undocumented immigrants to legally work in the state, a policy innovation which GOP state lawmakers disagree on and which the federal government has said it finds objectionable.

Two states, Connecticut and Maryland, passed bills allowing undocumented immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition. A total of twelve states have passed similar legislation in the past decade.

The number of state-level immigration bills introduced yearly has risen since 2005, and the range of issues covered by the bills has also expanded. The year 2007 holds the record for most immigration-related bills introduced in a single year. If past trends continue, 2011 looks to break that record.

Despite the increasing interest from state legislatures in immigration issues, undocumented immigration to the United States has substantially decreased in the past two years. Experts credit the stagnated U.S. labor market, improved economic conditions in Mexico (and other developing countries) and more effective border security for the decline in undocumented immigration.

But a new report released Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute suggests that these measures will likely increase how much taxpayers spend on unintended pregnancies, which are largely experienced by the uninsured and thus funded on the taxpayer’s dime.

Guttmacher, a social-science research organization widely cited by stakeholders on both sides of the abortion debate, has highlighted studies showing that unintended pregnancies –- the cause of most abortions in this country -– cost American taxpayers roughly $11.1 billion each year.

According to data revealed in these studies, two-thirds of births, or 1 million, each year are publicly funded either through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Two studies –- on the public costs of births resulting from unintended pregnancies (PDF) and on unintended pregnancy and taxpayer spending (PDF) –- relied on different methodological approaches but ultimately arrived at similar figures and the same conclusion: that “huge” public savings could be seen from reducing unintended pregnancy in this country.

The public-costs study (PDF), authored by the Guttmacher’s Adam Sonfield and colleagues, used state-level data from 2006 (largely culled from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Pregnancy Assessment Monitoring System and other state surveys), to find that 64 percent of births resulting from unintended pregnancies were funded by Medicaid, compared with 48 percent of all births and 35 percent of births resulting from intended pregnancies.

Additional findings:

• Rates of unintended pregnancy are “far higher” among low-income women (those with an income at 100–199 percent of the federal poverty level) and those living in poverty.
• About 44 percent of women aged 15 to 44 who have had an unintended pregnancy have had two or more unintended pregnancies.
• About 36 percent of women who have had an unintended pregnancy and given birth have had two or more such births.

“In the absence of the services provided at publicly funded family planning centers, the costs of unintended pregnancy would be 60% higher than they are today,” Sonfield writes in an accompanying statement.

The taxpayer study (PDF), authored by the Brookings Institution’s Emily Monea and Adam Thomas, involved counting 2001 national estimates of publicly-funded births, abortions, miscarriages and infant medical care and then multiplying those figures by the average cost per outcome. The analysts came up with a range between $9.6 billion and $12.6 billion per year in taxpayer money covering unintended pregnancies, with an average of $11.3 billion. They estimated public savings that would occur if these unintended pregnancies were prevented would be between $4.7 billion and $6.2 billion.

Guttmacher notes that both estimates are limited to public insurance costs for pregnancy and first-year infant care and are thus considered to be conservative estimates, as they do not account for additional public and private costs associated with unintended pregnancies. The researchers note, for instance, that women who get pregnant unintentionally tend to have lower levels of labor-force participation, and their children are more likely than others to live in poverty, claim public assistance and engage in delinquent and criminal behavior later in life.

“Even taking our results at face value,” the Brookings Institute analysts write, “one can conclude that the prevention of unintended pregnancy would produce substantial public savings. For example, our mean estimate of annual savings ($5.6 billion) is more than three-quarters the level of federal funding for either the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children ($7.25 billion) or the Head Start and Early Head Start programs ($7.23 billion).”

A third study (PDF) with an accompanying map, reports first-ever state estimates of unintended pregnancy, as well as a benchmark for evaluating how state policies impact pregnancy rates. It found that unintended pregnancy rates were highest in Mississippi and generally in the South and Southwest.

Texas was the first state to institute a DREAM Act in 2001, and other states have formally or informally used the term to refer to similar bills ever since. The federal DREAM Act, which would have offered a path to permanent resident status for undocumented immigrants who graduate from college, failed in the U.S. Senate in December.

The vote approving the bill in both the Maryland House and Senate came in the last hours of the state’s regular legislative session. The vote is galvanizing news for immigration reform advocates, who have in recent months condemned attempts like several in Texas seeking to repeal DREAM Act legislation. The three Texas bills that would undo in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants have been languishing in committee since their introduction.

The Maryland bill (PDF) is actually a bit stricter than other DREAM Acts around the country. In addition to requiring students without legal immigration status to complete high school and register for the Selective Service (if male), the bill requires that undocumented students attend two years of community college before being eligible for in-state rates at four-year institutions. Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) has promised to sign the bill and is expected to do so soon.

Meanwhile, on the schedule for today in the Connecticut House of Representatives is the state’s own version of the DREAM Act. The less pithily titled “Act Concerning Access to Postsecondary Education” not only codifies the notion that anyone living in the state should be considered an in-state student for higher education purposes, it also specifically addresses applying for legal status. From the bill:

A person, other than a nonimmigrant alien as described in 8 USC 1101(a)(15), shall be entitled to classification as an in-state student for tuition purposes, (A) if such person (i) resides in this state, (ii) attended any educational institution in this state and completed at least four years of high school level education in this state, (iii) graduated from a high school in this state, or the equivalent thereof, and (iv) is registered as an entering student, or is enrolled at a public institution of higher education in this state, and (B) if such person is without legal immigration status, such person files an affidavit with such institution of higher education stating that he or she has filed an application to legalize his or her immigration status, or will file such an application as soon as he or she is eligible to do so.

So under the bill, undocumented students in Connecticut would qualify for in-state tuition as long as they’ve finished high school and plan one day to obtain legal immigration status. While the bill has received some opposition from Republican legislators in public hearings, it is expected to pass in the Democrat-controlled House and Senate, who passed a similar bill in 2007, only to see it vetoed by then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a Republican. The current governor, Democrat Dan Malloy, has pledged to sign any DREAM Act-like legislation that crosses his desk.

A New York version of the DREAM Act has also been introduced in recent weeks by State Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem). It has been in the Senate Finance Committee since its introduction.

A spokesperson for Lamar Advertising (the company that owns the billboard) said the company decided to remove the billboard because of “concerns for public safety,” according to CNN.

The spokesperson told CNN that the company did not object to the content of the billboard — featuring a picture of a young African American girl and the message “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” Rather, the spokesperson said patrons were harassing wait staff at a restaurant in the building to which the billboard was attached, and a protest had been scheduled for today.

A Life Always spokesperson told CNN that more billboards will appear “across the country” in the next couple of months.

In December, Follett told the Texas Independent that he hoped to help groups establish crisis pregnancy resource centers in major urban areas such as Chicago and Washington, D.C. He also said he planned on expanding Heroic to places such as Houston, Connecticut and the Los Angeles area.

The Wall Street Journal reported the advertisement cost $20,000 and was expected to be up for a month, and that Life Always now does not expect to be charged.

Read the Texas Independent for previous reporting on the Follett family’s frozen food fortune and large-scale philanthropy, plus Heroic’s campaigns in Florida and Texas.

Read the Florida Independent for previous reporting on a prominent Florida Republican who said he “does not condone” Follett’s comparison of African American abortions to “genocide,” plus Mike Huckabee’s continuing support of Heroic Media despite criticism from a Democratic Florida congresswoman.

Plaintiffs’ as-applied challenge rests on the prohibition of wearing Tea Party paraphernalia and the “Please I.D. Me” buttons at or about the polling place. Plaintiffs argue that the prohibition is not viewpoint neutral because their organizations are being singled out by state authorities. Such a finding would require evidence that they are being targeted in ways that others are not. The record is, however, devoid of such evidence beyond mere speculation on this point. Moreover, prohibiting the buttons and apparel is reasonably related to the state’s legitimate interests. The record suggests that the buttons are designed to affect the actual voting process at the polls by intimating that voters are required to show identification before voting.

This intimation could confuse voters and election officials and cause voters to refrain from voting because of increased delays or the misapprehension that identification is required. The buttons are also associated with a political movement to require voters to produce identification. The Tea Party apparel communicates support for the Tea Party movement which is associated with certain candidates and political views. As such, prohibiting the buttons and apparel is reasonably related to the legitimate state interest of “maintain[ing] peace, order, and decorum” at the polls. Plaintiffs have therefore failed to show that prohibiting the display of the buttons or apparel is likely to be found a First Amendment violation.

Unlike the WWE gear, which was ruled in Connecticut to be OK for the polls, the courts in Minnesota determined that the Tea Party name is associated with certain candidate and political views. The “Please I.D. Me” button, on the other hand, is confusing and could suppress turnout by implying that identification is required to vote in the state. Voter I.D. laws are required in a handful of states, Minnesota not among them. They’ve become something of a cause célèbre among conservative groups who fret about widespread voter fraud, while most voting rights advocates argue they deter tons more legitimate voters than illegitimate ones from voting.

In Chicago and Philadelphia, Obama’s trips were intended to boost turnout in the Democratic-leaning cities to tip the scales for Senate candidates Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) and Alexi Giannoulias (D). While Obama’s approval rating has stubbornly remained below fifty percent in both states, he enjoyed a warm welcome in the cities, especially his hometown:

He traded high-dollar fund-raisers for free rallies; in his hometown of Chicago on Saturday night, 35,000 turned out to see him in an outdoor park. He doffed his tie and shouted himself hoarse, tweaking his standard stump speech — the one with the laugh lines about Republicans “drinking a Slurpee” and driving the economy “into a ditch” — into a more affirmative, upbeat vision of why voters should elect Democrats, and not just reject Republicans. He suffered hecklers. He persevered. [...]

Harking back to his own election, he conceded that times have changed.

“Some of the excitement of Inauguration Day — you know, Beyoncé was singing and Bono was up there and everybody was feeling good — I know that good feeling starts slipping away,” he said Saturday night in Chicago. The crowd interrupted him, shouting, “Nooooo!”

In ads, he is going after McMahon’s record as an executive, focusing on her cutting workers and avoiding corporate taxes.

McMahon’s campaign has run numerous ads playing up how she headed a job-creating company, described as a producer of a “soap opera.” Here’s one:

I can’t find any detailed employment information on the WWE, but its stock shows it has not been a great long-term investment. It is currently trading at 2001 levels.

Campaign aide Shawn McCoy announced the news on Twitter tonight, less than 24 hours before the Blumenthal and Linda McMahon are set to square off in a high stakes debate in Hartford.

McCoy declined to release any details, saying only that the video is from a different venue — not the Norwalk event that it uncovered last spring, the one where Blumenthal stated he served in Vietnam, even though he didn’t.

As the Connecticut race has narrowed to a razor-thin margin, it’s gotten increasingly ugly. The McMahon campaign bragged openly when it first planted the “Blumenthal is lying about his Vietnam service” meme with The New York Times, potentially undermining the effect of the story. Since then, Democrats have struck back at McMahon, zeroing in on her time as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment and highlighting media reports that five former WWE wrestlers have died premature deaths since she declared her candidacy. Whether the candidates raise the issues in Hartford tonight will be an indication of the kind of campaign they plan to run down the home stretch.

No doubt the timing of the extravaganza will have conspiracy theorists chatting in the week before the election. The match starts at 6:45 p.m., an hour and 15 minutes before polls close. It’s being held in a Democratic bastion where African American turnout — or lack thereof — could make a difference not only in the Senate race but in the 4th District House race between Rep. Jim Himes and GOP challenger Dan Debicella. Will advertising for the event help or hurt McMahon — a positive or negative reminder of her time as WWE’s CEO? Could traffic around the 10,000-seat Arena at Harbor Yard impede voting?