Up a Creek: Scorecard shows over a quarter of Oklahomans unprepared to weather financial crisis
In Oklahoma, more than one in four households are “asset poor,” meaning they have little or no financial cushion to rely on if unemployment or another emergency leads to a loss of income, according to a report released today by the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED). Asset poverty is distinct from and broader than income poverty, which measures the amount of money a household receives during the year. According to the U.S. Census, about one in six Oklahomans were income poor in 2010. Andrea Levere, president of CFED, highlights asset poverty as a significant barrier to long-term financial stability:
Growing numbers of Americans have almost no savings or other assets to fall back on if they lose their jobs or face a medical crisis. Without those savings, few will be able to invest in a more economically secure future, including buying a home, saving for their children’s college educations or building a retirement nest egg.
The 2012 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard offers a comprehensive look at Oklahomans’ ability to build wealth, fend off poverty, and create a more prosperous future. The Scorecard compares states along 52 different measures of how residents fare in five issue areas: Financial Assets & Income, Businesses & Jobs, Housing & Homeownership, Health Care and Education. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk is dedicated to this week’s events, publications, and blog posts.
Is it the role of government to put policy in place to impact the overall health of our citizens? As the Oklahoma legislature’s interim study committee prepares its final report on the state’s obligations under the new federal health care law, the co-chairs have posed a series of questions to committee members to elicit thoughts, opinions, and lessons learned. This post responds to a central theme of those questions, a theme we think has implications for the state’s future prosperity well beyond the new health care reform law.
Julie is an Associate Professor and Assistant Director of the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work.
Jeffrey Alderman, M.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine in Tulsa.
Today is the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama signing into law the landmark Affordable Care Act (ACA). Many of the most far-reaching provisions of the health care reform law – including the launch of new health insurance exchanges for individuals and small groups, subsidies for the purchase of individual coverage, expansion of Medicaid eligibility, and the individual coverage requirement- do not take effect until
Another budget year, the same sad story: The combination of tax cuts and the recession results in severe cuts to public services.
It’s been almost a year since President Obama signed major health care reform legislation into law. On the opening day of Oklahoma’s 53rd legislature, Governor Fallin 
