With New York City and Arizona now the only places in the country that require finger images from food stamp applicants, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio once again called for an end to this practice. In Washington, Congress is deadlocked in debate over provisions of President Obama’s Jobs Act. Meanwhile, a raft of new statistics paints a grim picture for those struggling to make ends meet: incomes are unlikely to rise back to the levels of a decade ago until 2021; the job market continue to be weak; and food prices across the globe are likely to remain high.

Fingerprinting Those Seeking Food Stamps Is Denounced, New York Times, 10/11
Taking aim at a practice she called unnecessary, costly and punitive, the speaker of the City Council, Christine C. Quinn, is asking the Bloomberg administration to justify requiring applicants for food stamps to be electronically fingerprinted. New York City, where 1.8 million people receive food stamps, is one of only two jurisdictions in the country that require applicants to be fingerprinted.

Obama Moving Forward With Pieces of Jobs Act, Associated Press, 10/12
A day after Senate Republicans killed his $447 billion jobs bill, President Barack Obama said he isn't taking no for an answer. In his first, combative appearance since a united Senate GOP caucus filibustered the jobs plan to death, Obama promised to keep the pressure on Congress for his job initiatives. Obama and his Democratic allies promise to force additional votes on separate pieces of the measure, like infrastructure spending, jobless assistance and tax cuts for individuals and businesses.

Bleak News for Americans' Income, Wall Street Journal, 10/14
Americans' incomes have dropped since 2000 and they aren't expected to make up the lost ground before 2021, according to economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey. From 2000 to 2010, median income in the U.S. declined 7% after adjusting for inflation, according to Census data. That marks the worst 10-year performance in records going back to 1967.

Number of people seeking unemployment benefits barely changed, reflecting weak job market, Associated Press, 10/13
The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell slightly last week, a sign the job market isn’t getting much better. Applications ticked down by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 404,000, the Labor Department said Thursday.

World Food Prices Likely To Remain Volatile And High, Says UN, Associated Press, 10/10
Prices for rice, wheat and other key foods are expected to remain volatile and possibly increase. In an annual report on the state of food insecurity around the world, the U.N.'s three food agencies urged governments to make good on pledges to share information about farm forecasts and food stock levels to avoid the price swings that resulted in food riots in 2006-2008.