Articles and analysis on today's issues

Federal cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could cause some DC-area families to lose an average of $187 in monthly benefits.
The big drawback of federal proposals to make pre-k and college free Political opposition from states can often mean that state-federal partnerships still fail to reach a large share of intended beneficiaries.The real disaster(s) in Flint’s water crisis The request for a federal disaster declaration flies in the face of federal emergency aid. Disaster declarations are not meant to fix bad local and state decisions.How a little line in the tax code could matter to your community’s health Schedule H of the Form 990 is a potentially powerful link between our nation’s health care system and the array of services that shape our well-being.Why we created an open-source Social Security data tool What's the difference between public data and open data? To be "open," data need to be easily accessible to as wide an audience as possible.Five important facts about homeless youth Many cities this month will conduct an annual count of sheltered and unsheltered homeless youth on a single night. What do we know about these youth?