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A home health care worker in Durham, N.C.; a McDonald’s cashier in Chicago; a bank teller in New York; an adjunct professor in Mayfield, Ill. They are all evidence of an improving economy, because they are working and not among the steadily declining ranks of the unemployed. Yet these same people also are on public assistance — relying on food stamps, Medicaid or other stretches of the safety net to help cover basic expenses when their paychecks come up short. (Cohen, 4/12)

Wallenbrock is among millions of working Americans whose low wages are supplemented by government support. Families in which at least one member is working now make up the vast majority of those enrolled in major public assistance programs like Medicaid and food stamps, according to a new study. It’s a “hidden cost” of low-wage work, researchers say, and it costs taxpayers about $153 billion a year. According to researchers, this is the first time anyone has calculated how much is spent providing assistance to workers whose wages don’t cover their families’ expenses. The study, from the University of California Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education, found that most spending on public assistance goes not to the unemployed, but to members of working families. (Kaplan, 4/13)

No matter how much you earn, people who earn more than you are likelier to be healthier and live longer. That's the takeaway from a new report by researchers at the Urban Institute and Virginia Commonwealth University examining the complex links between health, wealth, and income. (Tozzi, 4/13)