Obama: I'll get immigration reform done next year
From CBS News

President Obama says he is "confident" that, if reelected, he will oversee passage of immigration reform next year, in part because Republicans will have an interest in reaching out to a growing Latino voting bloc they have "alienated" in recent years.  Mr. Obama made the comment in an off-the-record phone conversation with the publisher and editor of the Des Moines Register days ahead of that newspaper's scheduled announcement of an endorsement in the presidential race. After the Register's editor publicly argued that the 30-minute conversation should be available to all voters, the Obama campaign released the transcript.   "The second thing I'm confident we'll get done next year is immigration reform," Mr. Obama told the newspaper. "And since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt. Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community. And this is a relatively new phenomenon. George Bush and Karl Rove were smart enough to understand the changing nature of America. And so I am fairly confident that they're going to have a deep interest in getting that done. And I want to get it done because it's the right thing to do and I've cared about this ever since I ran back in 2008."

 
 

Martin Feldstein, Top Reagan Adviser: Elderly Facing Poverty Crisis
From The Huffington Post

Martin Feldstein, a former top economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan, said too many elderly Americans are trapped in poverty. "I think it’s really shocking that we spend about $500 billion a year on Social Security, and yet we have many, many old people in poverty," said Feldstein, a Harvard economist, at The Economist's Buttonwood Gathering on Wednesday. "Something's wrong with that system." Feldstein said that the Social Security system especially fails women who aren't in the workforce. He said that young and middle-aged women who lose husbands to death or divorce and don't have enough work experience get left out in the cold. "If they don’t have an income history of their own, the Social Security system fails them," he said.

 

America's near poor: 30 million and struggling
From CNN Money

They aren't in poverty, but they are just a step away from falling into its clutches. More than 30 million Americans are living just above the poverty line. These near poor, often defined as having incomes of up to 1.5 times the poverty threshold, were supporting a family of four on no more than $34,500 last year. They are more likely to be white than those in poverty, according to a CNNMoney analysis of Census Bureau data. They are more likely to be elderly. They are more than three times as likely to work full-time, year-round. And they are more likely not to receive help from the government.