Food Bank recipients get less
For first time ever, demand forces agency to give a family 1 box monthly instead of 2
By Andrea Kelly
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 01.01.2009The recent rising demand for food boxes has forced the Tucson Community Food Bank to reduce the amount of food it can give each family monthly — the first time this has happened in the organization's history.
For the past several years, the Food Bank has provided families in need with two food boxes each month, and from now on it will reduce that to one per month, said Jack Parris, spokesman for the Tucson Community Food Bank.
The State government is also hurting:
Ariz. tax collections far below projections
Chances of improvement in near term called bleak
By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
Tucson, Arizona Published: 01.01.2009
New figures Wednesday from the Joint Legislative Budget Committee put November sales tax revenues at about $317.5 million. That's almost $49 million less than the same month a year earlier — and more than $67 million below what lawmakers forecast when they put together the $9.9 billion state budget.
Income tax collections, a reflection of the money withheld from workers' paychecks, also are off by close to $35 million from November 2007, and more than $50 million below estimates. And the chances of that picture improving in the near term also are bleak.
Arizona shed more than 83,000 jobs between November 2007 and November of this year, putting the state jobless rate at 6.3 percent. Researchers at the state Department of Commerce are predicting the unemployment rate will definitely top 7 percent and might even hit 8 percent before the state economy turns around.
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