The Weekly Wonk: October 19, 2012

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, Oklahoma Policy Institute released our annual guide to state-level poverty statistics, a concise two-page fact sheet highlighting poverty in Oklahoma by age, sex, race, education, work status and family status.  The OK Policy Blog found common education’s slice of the appropriations’ pie is shrinking. 

David Blatt’s Journal Record column discussed the state questions on the ballot in November.  Our analysis of SQ 766 was covered in the Pryor Daily Times.  We launched our new website this week!  We appreciate your patience with dead pages and links while we work out any remaining kinks.  

Click here for OK Policy’s 2012 State Questions page.

Policy Notes

• An interactive chart from the Economic Policy Institute parses nearly 40 years of dismal growth in real wages for American workers.
• Oklahoma was one of five states recognized by the Urban Institute for innovative initiatives to improve the quality and efficiency of Medicaid.
• The Pew Charitable Trusts reports on banking practices that put consumers at risk and expose them to high and unexpected fees for little benefit.
• The Director of the Brennan Center for Justice discusses how using incarceration as a one-size-fits-all solution is damaging our economy and society.
• Wonkbook shows who wins under Mitt Romney’s proposed tax plan, in one chart.

Numbers of the Day

• 65.9 percent – Percentage year-to-date increase in residential building permitting in Oklahoma, compared with 2011
• 21 – Number of counties where at least 1 in 5 residents age 25 and older does not have a high school diploma, 2010
• 271 – Number of immigrant refugees who settled in Oklahoma in 2011, one half of one percent of all the immigrant refugees granted resettlement in the U.S. last year
• 122% – Percentage increase in the average time served in prison for a drug crime in Oklahoma between 1990 and 2009
• 102,659 – Number of children in gifted and talented education programs in Oklahoma’s public schools, 15.4 percent of students in 2012