Tag: Oklahoma

Upcoming Event: Financial education conference focuses on diversity in practice

The 2010 Financial Education in Oklahoma conference will focus on the challenges of providing financial education to populations of diverse ethnicity, age and gender at a time of growing financial pressures. The conference, hosted by the Oklahoma City branch of… Read more [More...]

A State Question parable

Say that you’re a lower-income working-class family and the house you’re living in is falling into disrepair. There are cracks in some of the walls, parts of the backyard fence have fallen in, and you know that pretty soon you’re… Read more [More...]

Upside Down: New report shows most asset building spending helping the wealthy

It is widely accepted that ownership of assets – a home, savings accounts, stocks and investments, a business – is a cornerstone of family financial security. Assets provide a cushion against temporary setbacks and allow for an investment in greater… Read more [More...]

This ain't over yet: Outlook and recommondations for navigating the ongoing state fiscal crisis

This week OK Policy distributed a 4-page memo on the state budget to all candidates for state offices, which we have now released to a broader audience. The memo is intended to offer policymakers a clearer understanding of the budget… Read more [More...]

Health Care Reform (5): Shifting more long-term care away from institutions

This is the fifth in an ongoing series of posts examining the new federal health care reform law. Our previous posts have explored the “cliff effect”; the  impact on state budgets; the Temporary High Risk Pool; and tax credits for… Read more [More...]

Has common education been a budget priority?

One of the more contentious skirmishes in the battle over SQ 744 concerns the question of whether, in the absence of a constitutional amendment basing common education funding on a constitutionally-entrenched formula, Oklahoma’s elected officials have neglected K-12 funding. Supporters… Read more [More...]

Child Development Accounts can offer a “financial head start’

Last week, the Census Bureau released new data showing that one in seven Americans, including one out of every five children, are now living in poverty. This week, some one thousand advocates, program directors, community organizers, business owners, policy analysts… Read more [More...]

SQ 744: Whichever ways revenues go, education spending must go up

For anyone who thinks that balancing the state budget in the midst of an economic downturn and declining revenue collections isn’t a tough enough challenge already, just wait to see what happens if Oklahoma voters approve State Question 744. Because… Read more [More...]

Assets can build the bridge from the safety net to self-sufficiency

An front-page USA Today article last week reported that government anti-poverty programs – including Medicaid health insurance coverage, food stamps, unemployment benefits and welfare cash assistance – are now assisting one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.  Anyone… Read more [More...]

These go up to 11: Sorting the State Questions on the November Ballot

Oklahoma voters have the great good fortune this November to decide the fate of no less than 11 proposed constitutional amendments on matters ranging from education funding and health care reform to judicial nominations and (we kid you not) Sharia… Read more [More...]