The amount Americans received and spent on food stamps in 2012, which is more than ever before. Spending on the program is scheduled to be cut later this year, and both versions of the farm bill in Congress cut the program further.
House Democrats' last-ditch effort to extend health insurance to more than 60,000 low-income Mainers failed in the Legislature, when they fell three votes short of overriding Gov. Paul LePage's veto of Medicaid expansion.
The states are appealing directly to workers and businesses in Minnesota, asking them to head for the border. With Minnesota lawmakers recently hiking the cigarette tax, creating a higher top-tier individual income tax and expanding the sales tax to a handful of industries, a fresh round of interstate wooing ensued.
A budget bill awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown's signature would make it optional for local governments to comply with several key provisions of the California Public Records Act.
Neil Bomberg, program director for human development and public safety at the National League of Cities. The youth unemployment rate is still 5 to 6 percentage points above pre-recession levels.
Lacking agreement on a comprehensive plan to reduce a pension debt that's approaching $100 billion, the state's Democratic leaders are opting to line up in punt formation. They expect to approve a conference committee of lawmakers from both parties to spend weeks looking for common ground on the issue.
The value of tax incentives New Jersey has awarded to companies since January 2011, which is more than it awarded between the 15-year period between 1996 and 2011 combined.
Bruce Katz, co-author of "The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros are Fixing our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy," on how the economic structures of metro areas are really different from each other.
