Former Executive Director David Blatt joined OK Policy in 2008 and served as its Executive Director from 2010 to 2019. He previously served as Director of Public Policy for Community Action Project of Tulsa County and as a budget analyst for the Oklahoma State Senate. He has a Ph.D. in political science from Cornell University and a B.A. from the University of Alberta. David has been selected as Political Scientist of the Year by the Oklahoma Political Science Association, Local Social Justice Champion by the Dan Allen Center for Social Justice, and Public Citizen of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers.
By: David Blatt
July 24, 2009 // Updated: May 2, 2019
As of today, the federal minimum wage increases to $7.25 per hour, the final step in a three-step increase approved by Congress in 2007, after a decade when the minimum wage remained frozen at $5.15. Thirty-one states, including Oklahoma, will… Read more [More...]
By: David Blatt
July 22, 2009 // Updated: May 2, 2019
As the national health care reform debate continues to heat up, most of the controversy has centered on such hot-button issues as the public option, individual and employer mandates, and paying for expanded coverage. One issue that is of considerable… Read more [More...]
By: David Blatt
July 17, 2009 // Updated: May 2, 2019
This week we released the July edition of Numbers You Need, our monthly bulletin of key economic and budget trends. The monthly report contained some glimmers of good news, as the state’s unemployment rate rose by a relatively modest 0.1… Read more [More...]
By: David Blatt
July 15, 2009 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Five years after voters approved a State Question increasing the tax on tobacco, there is good news to report: over the course of the recently completed fiscal year (FY ’09), tobacco sales in Oklahoma declined by 7.2 percent over the… Read more [More...]
By: David Blatt
July 14, 2009 // Updated: May 1, 2019
Treasurer Scott Meacham today released revenue collections for the final month of the just-completed fiscal year, FY ’09. As was widely expected, the numbers were dismal: June General Revenue (GR) collections came in 30.1 percent below last year and 26.2… Read more [More...]
Ron Jenkins of the Associated Press wrote an article that ran this weekend picking up on OK Policy’s recent blog post examining the puzzle of why TANF cash assistance caseloads have been so slow to rise since the onset of… Read more [More...]
By: David Blatt
July 13, 2009 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Across the nation, the deep, prolonged economic recession is putting great strains on state Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs. Oklahoma is hardly immune from these challenges, but our problems are less severe than elsewhere. The combination of having entered the recession… Read more [More...]
By: David Blatt
July 7, 2009 // Updated: May 2, 2019
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… Read more [More...]
By: David Blatt
July 2, 2009 // Updated: May 2, 2019
As the worst recession in a quarter-century continues to unfold, insightful and moving stories of its impact on individuals, families, communities, and organizations are appearing regularly in the media. Periodically, we are using this space to call attention to notable… Read more [More...]
By: David Blatt
July 1, 2009 // Updated: May 1, 2019
As we’ve discussed in various blog posts and issue briefs, most state agencies received basically flat funding or were dealt budget cuts of 5 to 7 percent for the new fiscal year beginning July 1st, even as inflation leads to… Read more [More...]