BLOG POSTS ABOUT
Blog
South Carolina Appleseed is alarmed with the proposed radical decrease (approx. 40%) in the VOCA (Violence Against Crimes Act) cap proposed in the Senate’s FY21 spending bill and coinciding lack of an urgently-needed VOCA legislative fix. The proposed cuts would be devastating for agencies that serve the needs for communities of color, immigrant communities, and communities living…
Read More
Last Monday, a police officer in Minneapolis senselessly killed George Floyd by kneeling on his throat for nine minutes. Since then, countless people have peacefully protested this injustice across dozens of states and the consequences have been heartbreaking. In many places, law enforcement has responded with excessive force, needlessly escalated tension, and used careless, brutal…
Read More
There is an interesting trend in South Carolina schools. During the months of July, August, and September, juvenile referrals to the Department of Juvenile Justice are typically at their lowest. However, once students get settled in school, the number of referrals spike. Here are two charts illustrating this troubling trend for the last two full…
Read More
It’s not often that we see a news story that brings together two separate worlds in South Carolina: college sports and collateral consequences. But thanks to a faulty road-side drug test, bird poop, and a division one football quarterback, these two worlds came clashing together late last month. One July night in Saluda County Late…
Read More
In December, the Administration proposed a rule change designed to undermine Congress and decrease states’ ability to feed their hungriest residents. The proposed rule was announced on the same day as the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill and effectively would add strict time limits to SNAP benefits despite Congress having rejected these harsh terms…
Read More
Eliminating Protections Will Keep People Ensnared in Payday Debt Trap Columbia, SC — Yesterday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) moved to gut the agency’s own consumer protections against predatory lenders, leaving South Carolina families exposed to the harms of payday and car-title lending. South Carolina Appleseed strongly opposes this action and urges that the CFPB’s 2017 rule…
Read More
Last week, we blogged about how many people support work requirements and other measures to reduce Medicaid coverage because they believed lies about Medicaid and the people on it. Contrary to what many people think, most people on Medicaid are either unable to work (children, the elderly and people with disabilities) or need the coverage…
Read More
(Español abajo) February SNAP benefits will be received early—on January 17th—because of the federal government shutdown. Yesterday afternoon the SC Department of Social Services released important information related to SNAP benefits (formerly food stamps) for February that will affect about 231,000 households in our state. This information is urgent for SNAP beneficiaries in our state.…
Read More
In December, while most of us were preparing for holidays and the New Year, South Carolina’s Medicaid agency proposed new work-related reporting rules. These new rules would apply only to parents and caretaker relatives with incomes below 67 percent of the poverty line who are insured through Medicaid. To remain on Medicaid, these parents and…
Read More
Yesterday afternoon, President Trump held a press conference to announce a major shift in US asylum policy. In practice the shift would all but ban asylum and seems to be willfully ignorant of US and international law. Additionally, he announced that the administration intends to begin holding all immigrants—including asylum-seekers and vulnerable families—indefinitely in “tent cities”…
Read More