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Officials with the Dallas Morning News Charities' twenty-two poverty relief agencies recently reported that over eighty-nine percent of individuals who seek assistance are currently working, and that the majority of the remaining applicants are between jobs. Among the leading factors which force tens of thousands of Dallas-area workers to rely on charity to make ends meet every year, charity workers cited low wages and the lack of affordable transportation and childcare. Public charity officials place much of the blame for the continuing extreme poverty of many working families on the failure of the Dallas City Council to pass a proposal early last year that would have increased financial benefits for companies that offer their workers a living wage.