Supporters of income tax cuts have been touting a recent poll that purports to show strong support for tax cuts in Oklahoma.  A telephone survey of 500 registered voters were asked four questions about tax cuts, tax credits, and the size of government.  The discerning consumer of public opinion research should be skeptical about this poll’s conclusions for two reasons.  First, the survey is delicately phrased to elicit attitudes about tax cuts ‘in a vacuum’ and leaves too many influential factors out of the questions entirely.  Second, the pollster’s report relies heavily on results within sub-samples (e.g. party, income) – with margins of error that reach double-digits for some groups.

The Sooner Survey poll, conducted by Republican lobbyist and consultant Pat McFerron, asks voters if they favor ‘eliminating some tax credits‘ to reduce the top tax rate, but it doesn’t tell them which tax credits.  It’s likely that when asked directly about popular credits slated for elimination – including the child tax credit, child care tax credit and sales tax relief credit – many respondents would answer this same question very differently.  The same applies when the poll asks respondents to agree or disagree with the statement: ‘I would favor cutting government programs and services so the savings can be passed along to taxpayers in the form of a tax cut.’  The key to an accurate answer is to present an accurate choice.  How would the answers change if the poll had posed instead, ‘I would favor larger class sizes so the savings can be passed along to taxpayers in the form of a tax cut, ‘ or ‘I would favor fewer police officers..,’ etc? Read the rest of this entry »

Source: The Working Poor Families Project

Earlier this fall, the Census Bureau released its annual report on poverty in the United States. In 2010, 15.1 percent of Americans, or 46.2 million persons, lived below the poverty level, which was $22,050 for a family of four. Among children the poverty rate was 22.0 percent, while for seniors, it was 9.0 percent. In Oklahoma, the poverty rate overall was 16.9 percent, with just under one in four children living in poverty (see our Oklahoma Poverty Profile fact sheet and this blog post).

As a measure of a household’s financial situation, the official poverty measure is deeply flawed. As we noted a year ago:

 Census Bureau numbers [are]  based on a measure that looks strictly at a household’s cash income and that is pegged to the cost of a 1950′s basic food diet, adjusted for inflation.  The measure has long been criticized as inadequate: among other limitations, it fails to reflect the real costs families face in meeting basic needs; it fails to adjust for regional differences in the cost of living; and it excludes non-cash income and benefits received by low-income families.

This year, the Census Bureau took a major step toward addressing some of the flaws with the official poverty measure by releasing the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). Unlike the traditional poverty measure, the SPM determines poverty status by comparing a more expansive definition of family’s income with a more meaningful threshold designed to reflect the cost of meeting basic needs, like food, clothing, and shelter. The SPM counts tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and Making Work Pay credit, and non-cash benefits, such as food assistance and housing vouchers, as income that help families afford basic needs. It also acknowledges the burden of work expenses, like child care, and out-of-pocket health expenses for many Americans. The Poverty and Policy blog provides a clear summary of the new measure’s assumptions and methodology. Read the rest of this entry »

Next week, the U.S. Census Bureau will release its annual report on poverty in the United States. The report will tell us how many Americans had income in 2009 below the federal poverty level, which is $18,310 for a family of three. It is widely expected that the 2009 numbers, reflecting the worst of the Great Recession, will show historic increases in the number of  Americans falling below the poverty line.

As it has since the 1960′s, the 2010 Census Bureau numbers will be based on a measure that looks strictly at a household’s cash income and that is pegged to the cost of a 1950s basic food diet, adjusted for inflation.  The measure has long been criticized as inadequate: among other limitations, it fails to reflect the real costs families face in meeting basic needs; it fails to adjust for regional differences in the cost of living; and it excludes non-cash income and benefits received by low-income families. Over the years, a number of researchers and policy groups have developed alternate measures of poverty and economic security, including the Self-Sufficiency Standards that were developed for Oklahoma and other states.  Back in 1995, the National Academy of Science issued a report called Measuring Poverty that provided recommendations for modernizing the poverty measure. The NAS recommendations were adopted by Mayor Bloomberg in New York, among others, as a basis for formulating anti-poverty policies. but were ignored, for various reasons, by the Clinton and Bush administrations. Read the rest of this entry »

As we noted right after the numbers were  released, last week’s Census Bureau report on health insurance coverage provided some unexpectedly good news for Oklahoma. While the nation as a whole saw an increase in the number of uninsured, which has now reached 46.3 million, Oklahoma saw a substantial drop in both its number and rate of uninsured. Using the 2-year averages recommended by the Bureau when reporting state-level data, Oklahoma’s  uninsured rate for  persons of all ages fell from 18.3 percent in 2006-07 to 15.9 percent in 2007-08. The reported number of uninsured Oklahomans declined from 646,000 in 2006-07 to 565,000 in 2007-08. Oklahoma’s  2-year average uninsured rate now exceeds the national average by less than one percentage point (15.3 percent national to 15.9 percent Oklahoma). Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage for 2008  from its Current Population Survey. You can or click here for fact sheets and links to all the data or click here to read the 72-page PDF report. Read the rest of this entry »

We recently reported on how Oklahoma’s robust economic growth prior to the recent downturn vaulted the state from the poorest fifth of states early this decade, as measured by per capita personal income,  to the 28th spot in 2008. Further confirmation of the state’s good fortunes is provided by the annual population estimates produced by the U.S. Census Bureau and aggregated into user-friendly spreadsheets by the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. As can be seen from the table below, Oklahoma’s population growth trailed the national average for the first part of this decade, but then caught up and passed the national average in the three years of 2006-08. In 2008, the state’s population grew by an estimated 34,238 people, or 0.95 percent, slightly outpacing the 0.92 percent population growth of the nation as a whole. The state’s estimated population on July 1, 2008 was 3,642,361, making it the 28th most populous state for the eighth straight year.

Since 2000, Oklahoma’s population has grown at an average annual rate of 0.67 percent, 27th fastest among the states but somewhat below the national average of 0.94 percent. During this period, Nevada has experienced the greatest population growth at an average annual rate of 3.24 percent. Louisiana is the only state to have lost population since 2000, due to Hurricane Katerina and its aftermath, while Rhode Island, North Dakota, West Virginia and Michigan have all grown less than 0.1 percent per year.

New data released last week showed population changes at the city level. Fairmont in Garfield County (+7.0 percent) and Collinsville in Tulsa County (+6.9 percent) were the state’s fastest growing cities in 2008. Oklahoma City’s population increased 1.2 percent in 2008 to 551,789 residents, while Tulsa grew 0.5 percent to 385,635.

At the state level, Oklahoma’s population growth this decade has been primarily due to growth in the state’s Hispanic population.  Hispanics account for a full 52 percent of the state’s total population growth between 2000 and 2008. The Hispanic population grew by 55.4 percent in this period, while the number of non-Hispanics increased by just 2.8 percent. The growing Hispanic population reflects a combination of migration and a young population of child-bearing age.

Read the rest of this entry »