Weekly Wonk Sunday July 14, 2013

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.

The Muskogee Phoenix reported on an OK Policy factsheet showing that accepting federal funds for health would be good for Oklahoma business and workers. OK Policy analyst Gene Perry was featured in an OETA report discussing the controversy over the growth of private prisons in Oklahoma. NewsOK reported on a Twitter debate between Perry, OCPA’s Jonathan Small, and others over Oklahoma’s health care policy. 

OK Policy analyst Tiece Dempsey was quoted in Urban Tulsa Weekly’s examination of the Leavitt Report’s findings that Oklahoma should accept federal Medicaid expansion funds through Insure Oklahoma. OK Policy Director David Blatt’s Journal Record column looked at how the Leavitt Report creates a path forward for an Oklahoma Plan to meet the needs of the uninsured.

OK Policy was mentioned in an Oklahoman editorial discussing the need for Oklahoma policymakers to discuss the merits of drilling tax credits and Blatt was quoted in a Tulsa World article addressing the drilling tax breaks.

The OK Policy Blog showed why “How Money Walks,” a book being used to push income tax cuts in Oklahoma and other states, is misleading propaganda and shared the fourth post in our series on Oklahoma’s Opportunity Gap, which discusses why you need money to make money. We also posted policy analyst Kate Richey’s response to an Oklahoman editorial that claimed Oklahoma’s racial wealth gap is due to bad personal choices by Oklahomans of color.

Numbers of the Day

• 4,756 – Number of mortgage modifications underway in Oklahoma through the Making Homes Affordable, or ‘HAMP’ program, as of May 2012
• 7.2 percent – Percentage of Oklahoma workers earning at or below the minimum wage, up from just 3.8 percent a decade ago
• $20.2 Million – Amount in premiums paid by Oklahoma small businesses in 2011 that went to their medical care, rather than insurer overhead and profits, because of a new rule in the Affordable Care Act
• 8^th – Oklahoma’s rank nationally for households 50 years or older that own their homes free and clear; 45 percent of such households in the state are without a mortgage
• 6.3 percent – Percentage increase in retail sales in Oklahoma for the 1st quarter 2013, compared to 2012

Policy Notes

• ProPublica examined how the Environmental Protection Agency appears to be systematically disengaging from any research on the safety of fracking or oil drilling.
• The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities corrected the latest misinformation being reported about the Affordable Care Act.
• A new report by the Chicago Federal Reserve found that increasing the minimum wage would boost the economy.
• Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt showed how opponents of the Affordable Care Act are deliberately confusing the public about how the law will affect Americans.
• The Institution on Taxation and Economic Policy found that undocumented immigrants paid $70.7 million in state and local taxes in Oklahoma in 2010, and if immigration reform allows them to work legally, they would contribute $84.5 million.