Policy update—The President has released what is called the “skinny budget” for FY 2018. As the President said in his first State of the Union Address, he is proposing a significant increase to the defense budget, which he intends to “offset “with cuts to domestic discretionary spending.

In this issue: Policy update: income banding—another perspective; A Photographic Chronicle of America’s Working Poor; Dear Sher addresses some of the recent changes to Handbook 3550-1; and RCAC is hiring a Rural Development Specialist in housing.

As we have reported, Rural Development (RD) has announced a pilot to use the “banded” method to determine low- and very low income status in 23 states and territories across the country. Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington are the six western states where this pilot will be tested for the next two years.