Feeding the children

There is no doubt about our commitment–as a nation and a state–to improving educational opportunities and outcomes. Sometimes we forget about the key role nutrition plays in helping kids get to school and be ready to learn. For many Oklahoma… Read more [More...]

A new approach to college affordability

Last week I was in Washington, D.C. attending a meeting of the SEED state policy partners. This is an initiative led by CFED, a national non-profit organization that is a pioneer in the field of asset development, that brings together… Read more [More...]

How long will it last and how bad will it get?

Last week, my colleagues and I were treated to a superb overview on the U.S. and Oklahoma economic outlook by Chad Wilkerson, an economist who heads up the Oklahoma City Branch Office of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City,… Read more [More...]

An Oklahoma Standard

It seems that with each passing day we hear news reports of companies cutting jobs, closing branches or plants, or slashing wages of the workers in order to prevent having to lay anyone off. Maybe that is why the recent… Read more [More...]

Perspectives on economic security

Last week, the Oklahoma Asset Building Coalition(OkABC) convened a gathering of some 75 individuals from the non-profit sector and from state, local, and tribal government agencies for a day-long meeting on “Economic Security for Oklahomans: Asset Building Approaches for Assisting… Read more [More...]

Shelter from the storm

A recent piece in the Tulsa World by staff writer Michael Overall presented a moving look at the efforts of Tulsa’s two domestic violence shelters, Day Spring and Domestic Violence Intervention Services (DVIS), to cope with rising demands for services.… Read more [More...]

Get fit for work…and play (a JYM membership can help)

Over the course of the last several years, employers have begun to take a more active interest in their employees’ physical fitness. You hear more and more about companies, such as Chesapeake, that will even go as far as giving… Read more [More...]

The Super Bowl of Fear…Every Day

Over the last few decades, an increasing number of average Americans have become investors in the stock market. This has been viewed as a positive thing, sometimes too much so. There have even been seriously proposed concepts that would have… Read more [More...]

What if we threw a recession and no one showed up at the welfare office?

As the economic downturn hits the Sooner State, we are seeing a steadily increasing number of hard-pressed families turning to the Food Stamp Program (now renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) for help in making ends meet. Food stamp participation… Read more [More...]

Immigrants in an economic downturn

The New York Times has been running a series of front-page Sunday articles examining the impact that the great wave of recent immigration – both legal and illegal – is having on various sectors and institutions. This week’s piece explored… Read more [More...]