By:
Dave Hamby
June 9, 2025 // Updated: June 9, 2025

New report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation finds Oklahoma remained among the worst states for child well-being, reflecting the failure of state leaders to invest in a better future for our children.
• 2025 KIDS COUNT® Data Book
•…
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What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In…
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Oklahoma’s housing crisis is worsening. During the 2025 legislative session, state lawmakers had multiple opportunities to reduce evictions, update the Landlord-Tenant Act, and increase Oklahoma’s supply of housing stock. They punted on nearly all of them: Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed…
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In government, just like in nature, everything rolls downhill. And when budget cuts start cascading downwards, it’s not the mountaintop that feels the hit – it’s the town in the valley.
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There is a continued need for shared, strategic decisions that will shape the state's current and future policy-making with Tribal nations. For example, the processes, or lack thereof, surrounding Senate Bill 675 shed light on both lessons that should be learned around respecting Tribal sovereignty and engaging in direct Tribal consultation before making decisions that directly affect Tribal Nations.
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During contentious budget negotiations between the House and Senate at the end of the 2024 session, Gov. Kevin Stitt seized the opportunity to make a deal with legislators not to veto the general appropriations bill — if lawmakers agreed to…
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Oklahoma has never been the most welcoming state for immigrants. In recent years, however, heightened racist and nativist sentiment in the U.S. — along with President Trump’s push for mass deportations — has ratcheted up the amount of anti-immigrant efforts…
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What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In…
Read more [More...]

New data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition confirms what Oklahomans already know: our housing crisis is getting worse. Oklahoma needs nearly 85,000 rental homes to meet the needs of extremely low-income renters. More than 7 out of 10…
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It is almost certain those running our state are making a serious mistake with the $340 million tax cut passed by the legislature last week. The best evidence of that is the debate made by the chairman of the Senate…
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