From Sacramento to Fontana, new anti-poverty tax credit has paid out, By Jim Miller, July 28, 2016, Sacramento Bee: “California’s new earned-income tax credit had put about $189 million in the pockets of the working poor as of earlier this month, well below the $380 million in claims the Brown administration and lawmakers had expected. Proponents, though, consider the program’s first year a success, and new data from the Franchise Tax Board show that taxpayers from around the state have claimed the credit…”
Month: July 2016
Minimum Wage Increase – Seattle, WA
Why raising the minimum wage in Seattle did little to help workers, according to a new study, By Max Ehrenfreund, July 29, 2016, Washington Post: “Things seem to be going pretty well since Seattle bumped the hourly minimum wage for large businesses up to $11 last year, from the statewide minimum of $9.47 an hour. Low-wage workers are getting more time on the job and making more money. Fewer businesses are closing, and more new ones are opening. The technology and construction sectors are booming. Even the weather cooperated for a change. The spring was unusually dry in Seattle, which was good for the city’s fishing fleet. Yet the actual benefits to workers might have been minimal, according to a group of economists whom the city commissioned to study the minimum wage and who presented their initial findings last week…”
Medicaid Expansion – Kentucky
Feds, advocates question Bevin health changes, By Deborah Yetter, July 26, 2016, Louisville Courier-Journal: “A coalition of health advocacy groups has blasted Gov. Matt Bevin’s plan to restructure the state Medicaid plan ‘as a giant step backward for Kentucky.’ ‘This plan threatens to undermine the health and economic gains we have made in the past two years,’ said the written comments filed last week by Kentucky Voices for Health, a coalition of about 200 groups and individuals. By Aug. 1, officials with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services plan to submit to federal officials Bevin’s proposal to scale back the Medicaid expansion that added 440,000 low-income Kentuckians to the government health plan for the poor…”