Public investment: Better to be lucky than smart?

A story  in USA Today, “Oklahoma City defies recession,” focuses on OKC as the city with the 2nd lowest unemployment rate in the country. In response to questions about OKC’s secret to success, Roy Williams of the OKC Chamber said… Read more [More...]

Surprising causes of rural poverty

Last month Oklahoma Policy Institute was invited by McCurtain Memorial Hospital in Idabel to give a presentation on poverty as part of a monthly lecture series that the hospital has convened to examine pressing social problems facing their area. Our… Read more [More...]

Summer Re-run: Oklahoma is not a poor state – we just continue to play one on TV

Note – Occasionally we plan to re-run blog posts on topical subjects that you may have missed the first time around. Recently, the Annie E. Casey released its annual Kids Count report measuring how states are faring on a range… Read more [More...]

Man, oh, man – The downturn hammers male employment

The Oklahoman recently ran an editorial calling attention to the especially heavy toll that the current recession is having on male workers nationally and here in Oklahoma. A new issue brief from Economic Policy Institute, using data from the Bureau… Read more [More...]

False choices, sensible balances

Matt Miller, writing for the TPM Book Club on a new book by Justin Fox called The Myth of the Rational Market,  provides a thoughtful reformulation of  the “government vs markets” debate: …we’re too often peddled a phony choice between… Read more [More...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]