Kurt Hochenauer, whose OkieFunk: Notes from the Outback blog provides consistently sharp and perceptive commentary on Oklahoma political issues, recently had a nice piece in the Oklahoma Gazette putting the recent rise in poverty in the state in its historical perspective. He notes:

But what’s probably needed more than anything else is for more Oklahomans to realize how poverty is deeply rooted in the state’s history and remains the foundation for so many of the state’s social problems.

Hochenauer cites Robert Lee Maril’s 2000 book Waltzing with the Ghost of Tom Joad, which provided a vivid ethnographic study of  how poverty plays out in the lives of eight Oklahoma families.

If you missed Doc Hoc’s commentary, it’s well worth a read.

An interesting new report from our friends at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looks at whether families with income below the federal poverty level (FPL) in each state are subject to state income taxes. It finds that for Oklahoma, the threshold at which a two-parent family with two children owes state income tax made it above the federal poverty line for the first time in 2008. The income tax threshold for a two-parent family of four was $23,500 in 2008, which is 107 percent of the FPL of $22,017. The report shows that back in 2000, the state’s income tax threshold for a family of four was several thousand dollars below the poverty line. Read the rest of this entry »

From time to time, we will use the OK Policy blog to post submissions we receive from Oklahomans who have interesting perspectives on important policy issues for the state. This submission is from Karin Brandenburg, an Oklahoman who works in the homeland security field and counts seven Oklahoma military families in her family lineage, and Wanda deBruler, an Oklahoman who monitors legislation that affects policy on families. The opinions stated below are not necessarily the opinions of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from a variety of different points of view.

A bill that could have a huge impact on 400,000 military families in Oklahoma fell short of passage during the last legislative session but is still under consideration. Anyone concerned with the welfare of Oklahoma families should be paying this issue close attention. 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 »

Note – Occasionally we plan to re-run blog posts on topical subjects that you may have missed the first time around. Recently, the Annie E. Casey released its annual Kids Count report measuring how states are faring on a range of indicators of child well-being . As the Tulsa World reported, Oklahoma’s overall ranking dropped to 44th  and we fared worse on 6 of 9 indicators than we did in 2000.  In this June blog post, we examined the disparity between our state’s growing wealth and persistently poor performance on measures of personal and social well-being.

Back in March, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released 2008 data on state personal income, which is the most widely used measure of a state’s relative prosperity. We took note of it at the time in our April Numbers You Need bulletin, focusing on Oklahoma’s rank as the state with the fourth strongest rate of growth in  personal income (5.4 percent) for the year.

Perhaps the bigger story, which hasn’t received much attention,  is that the state’s strong economic growth over the course of this decade has propelled Oklahoma from near the bottom to the middle rungs of states in per capita personal income. As recently as 2000, Oklahoma ranked 42nd in state per capita personal income at $23,582. Between 2000 and 2008, Oklahoma’s per capita personal income jumped 51.2 percent, fourth among the states behind only Wyoming, Louisiana,  and North Dakota (all, not coincidentally, states that have shared in the boom in mineral prices of recent years). As of 2008, Oklahoma ranks 28th with per capita personal income of $36,899, which is less than $3,000 below the national average of  $39,751. Oklahoma ranks above every southern state except Florida and Texas, and has surged past not only declining Rust Belt states like Ohio (32nd), Michigan (34th)and Indiana (39th), but also such seemingly dynamic southern and western states as Oregon (31st), North Carolina (36th), Georgia (40th) and Arizona (42nd). Read the rest of this entry »

Have you visited TED.com? TED gathers smart people for topical conferences and then offers us the speeches in video form, organized both by topic and by user classification–persuasive, beautiful, funny, etc. You’ll find people you’ve heard of, like Al Gore and Bono, and many more you may want to hear from.

We’ve found a couple short speeches that describe some different and successful approaches to reducing poverty. First, Jacqueline Novogratz, who operates a market-oriented non-profit, provides an entertaining overview of micro-credit and other mechanisms allowing poor African women to improve their lives and those of their families. Novogratz argues persuasively that alleviating poverty requires creative approaches and providing individuals with the tools and the opportunities to help themselves.

Closer to home, Majora Carter, the president of Sustainable South Bronx in New York, makes a persuasive connection between environmental policy and fighting poverty. She describes her transition from believing that beautification programs in the ghetto were “a little bit naive” to a conviction that urban design and renewal still must be part of a comprehensive attack on poverty.

OK Policy is dedicated to expanding opportunity and alleviating poverty in Oklahoma. We advocate government policies that help people in need not just through cash and other assistance, but through opening up opportunities that have been closed off to our lower-income neighbors. TED offers some great ideas on this and a host of other important issues.

Back in March, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released 2008 data on state personal income, which is the most widely used measure of a state’s relative prosperity. We took note of it at the time in our April Numbers You Need bulletin, focusing on Oklahoma’s rank as the state with the fourth strongest rate of growth in  personal income 5.4 percent for the year.

Perhaps the bigger story, which hasn’t received much attention,  is that the state’s strong economic growth over the course of this decade has propelled Oklahoma from near the bottom to the middle rungs of states in per capita personal income. As recently as 2000, Oklahoma ranked 42nd in state per capita personal income at $23,582. Between 2000 and 2008, Oklahoma’s per capita personal income jumped 51.2 percent, fourth among the states behind only Wyoming, Louisiana,  and North Dakota (all, not coincidentally, states that have shared in the boom in mineral prices of recent years). As of 2008, Oklahoma ranks 28th with per capita personal income of $36,899, which is less than $3,000 below the national average of  $39,751. Oklahoma ranks above every southern state except Florida and Texas, and has surged past not only declining Rust Belt states like Ohio (32nd), Michigan (34th)and Indiana (39th), but also such seemingly dynamic southern and western states as Oregon (31st), North Carolina (36th), Georgia (40th) and Arizona (42nd).

Read the rest of this entry »