OKPOLICY.ORG
What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk is dedicated to this week’s events, publications, and blog posts.
This week at OK Policy, we posted the second blog in a three-part series on “Oklahoma’s Unemployment Gap,” examining the persistence of racial disparities in unemployment. Oklahoma’s Unemployment Gap (Part Two): Why the labor market isn’t colorblind, explores the causes for the state’s black-white unemployment gap and suggests reasons for its persistence. We alerted you to an upcoming event next week – UCO will host a lecture by Andrew Ross Sorkin on August 31st, New York Times journalist and author of the book, “Too Big To Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System – and Themselves.”
Also this week, we hosted a guest post by KIDS COUNT research director Erin Lamey on strategies to improve workforce development by investing in early childhood. You can watch a half-hour broadcast of OETA’s Oklahoma Forum on our blog, featuring Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett and Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett discussing the successes and challenges facing their cities.
In the Know, Policy Notes
- Stateline explains five ways that K-12 and college students will feel budget cuts this year.
- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that since welfare reform fifteen years ago, the program’s role in supporting low-income families has declined dramatically.
- Jared Bernstein explains why shifting more costs to seniors is not the same as saving on health care spending.
- Miller-McCune examines the potential of mandatory teacher collaboration to improve school results.
- The Small Business Majority released a new guide for the 4 million small businesses that became eligible in 2010 for a tax credit to offset employer health plan costs.
- 17 percent – Increase in foreclosure filings in Oklahoma between the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2011.
- 11,200 – Number of manufacturing jobs added to the Oklahoma economy between June 2010 and 2011, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total non-farm jobs added (28,300).
- 34th – Oklahoma’s rank nationally on students’ average ACT composite score, 2011
- 3,592 – Adults receiving a TANF cash assistance payment in Oklahoma, June 2011
- $1.500 Billion – Amount spent on programs for children aged 0 to 5 years in Oklahoma, FY 2010
