Latinos have now surpassed African Americans as the nation’s largest minority group. Although Latinos have been in the country in significant numbers since the 1848 annexation of Northern Mexico, the Latino population has grown rapidly in recent decades as a result of immigration from Mexico and Central America, constituting 16.3% of the population in 2010.

Non-governmental free food assistance is available to many low-income Americans through food pantries, yet many do not avail themselves of this assistance. As the monetary value of such assistance can be over $2,000 per year, non-use poses a puzzle from an economic standpoint. This study uses original data collected through in-depth interviews with 63 low-income San Franciscans who did not use free food assistance from food pantires. The data paint a nuanced picture of the reasons low-income people do not obtain assistance from local food pantries.

Severe economic downturns, like the Great Depression, are associated with substantial increases in poverty and material hardship. Since the Great Depression, the United States has developed programs and policies, many of which were launched during the New Deal and the War on Poverty-Great Society periods, that aim to protect the poor, the unemployed, children, the disabled, and the elderly against severe deprivation. It is important to examine how these programs performed during the most severe recession the country has experienced since the Great Depression.

Jack Shonkoff describes how poverty really does get under the skin, how it harms the cognitive development of children exposed to it, and what we can do to break this entrenched cycle.

On April 13, 2010, the Center on Children and Families at Brookings and the Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University sponsored an event that focused on the science of early brain development and the role that chronic stress early in life plays in the arrested development of children raised in risky situations. The policy implications of these and similar findings were discussed.