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The Weekly Wonk is a summary of Oklahoma Policy Institute’s events, publications, blog posts, and coverage. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know.
On the OK Policy blog, we discussed why charity isn’t an adequate replacement for the social safety net. Adam R. Banner of the Oklahoma Legal Group argued in a guest post that Governor Fallin’s audit of the Department of Corrections isn’t enough to fix the state’s correctional system’s woes. We’ve written about Oklahoma’s badly-needed criminal justice reforms before. In our “Neglected Oklahoma” series, an anonymous Oklahoma mother describes struggling to feed her family on food stamps, or SNAP benefits. We wrote last week about the populations SNAP cuts will most impact, discussed the vital role of SNAP and similar programs in the state in the face of new poverty data, and argued that food security shouldn’t be a budget battle. The Oklahoma Women’s Coalition is hosting a forum on female incarceration on Wednesday in Oklahoma City. OK Policy is hiring to fill two positions.
Policy Director David Blatt points out that Oklahoma has made tremendous strides in insuring children in the last few years. Blatt was also quoted in an LA Times article on Oklahoma’s resistance to the Affordable Care Act. OK Policy analyst Kate Richey was quoted in an article about an FDIC crackdown on discriminatory lending practices at Peoples Bank Tulsa. She’s written about unfair lending before. OK Policy’s analysis of new data from the Census Bureau was cited in a KGOU report about poverty and the safety net in Oklahoma. KGOU recently broadcast a session on poverty and the safety net from our Summer Policy Institute featuring Kris Steele, Eileen Bradshaw, Felicia Collins Correia and James Struby, and moderated by Linda Edmondson.
- 9th – Oklahoma’s rank nationally for wheat exports in 2011, more than $418M worth of wheat each year
- 17.2% – The percentage of Oklahomans who are uninsured, compared to 15.4 percent nationally in 2012
- 32,000 – The number of children in Oklahoma living in households that have experienced foreclosure or are seriously delinquent on their mortgages, 4 percent of the state’s kids
- 41,000 – The number of children with immigrant parents in Oklahoma who are U.S. citizens, 2010-2011
Policy Notes
- On the new YouTube channel Health Triage, Dr. Aaron Carroll explains what you need to know as the Affordable Care Act provisions coming into effect soon.
- The Washington Post explains what government facilities and services are available during a government shutdown.
- In their column, Wonkblog details the most painful effects of the shutdown.
- A primary care provider from Tulsa makes nine predictions about the effects of the Affordable Care Act in Oklahoma.
