Recent Articles

Lifting the wage floor

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...]

Health care reform: Expanding Medicaid for lowest-income adults

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...]

July Numbers Bulletin shows what a rough year it's been

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...]

Fewer Exceptions – Tobacco tax revenues rise while sales fall

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...]

Revenue figures: A tale of two half-years

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...]

Media coverage of the welfare caseload puzzle

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...]

Mixed news on the unemployment front

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...]

The Reverse Dust Bowl: Population growth in the Sooner State

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...]

More stories from the recession

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...]

Starving the Beast: Government in lean times

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...]