We spoke with Stephen Berry back in March as he was searching for a job.
A report by the conservative-leaning Idaho Freedom Foundation concludes Idaho teens have fewer job opportunities because the state’s minimum wage has increased by $2.10 since 2007.
“There may well be multiple reasons why unemployment has risen so quickly among teens, but the one that cannot be overlooked is the rapid increase of the minimum wage. Between 2007 and 2009 the federal minimum wage increased from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour. This represented a 41 percent increase during a period that included the beginning of a major economic downturn. It is unsurprising that such a dramatic increase in the baseline cost of labor led to an equally dramatic decline in the demand for it. Recent research and analysis have found that in 2011 over 2,000 additional Idaho teens would have been employed if the minimum wage had not been increased.” – Idaho Freedom Foundation
Click on the image above to see the interactive map.
Republican governors are getting on-board with the online sales tax, according to a Wall Street Journalpiece out today.
In Idaho, a so-called “streamlined sales tax bill” failed last legislative session, and not for the first time. The bill was intended to create a more reliable way of collecting the state’s 6 percent sales tax on online purchases.
The WSJ article points out that online retailers have long had an advantage over their brick-and-mortar counterparts, given customers’ ability to avoid sales taxes by buying online. Continue Reading →
Chelsea Schulz started her college path to become a teacher, now she’s preparing for her job as a mechanic tech with Western States Equipment.
Part of the class works on a project together.
CAT Academy student Bobby Bailey gets instructions from Miller.
CAT Academy student Bobby Bailey works on a class project.
Toby Miller has worked at Western States for 18 years. He was raised on a ranch near Boise.
A group of CAT Academy students work on a welding project.
Eleven students will complete the summer session of Western States’ training program. Thirty one people have completed it in the last year.
Toby Miller and Quintin Edwards watch students wrap up a classroom demo.
Quintin Edwards was laid off from his construction job in 2009. He plans to work in Western States’ shop near Coeur d’Alene
Even with thousands of Idahoans out of work, one Boise-based company can’t find enough employees. Western States Equipment needs mechanic techs, jobs that by definition fall into the middle-skills category.
About half of all Idaho jobs fall into this group: jobs like mechanics, welders, police officers, or air traffic controllers. These are jobs where you need more than a high school diploma, but less than a college degree.
According to the National Skills Coalition, not quite half of Idaho’s workers are trained for these jobs. While many Idaho schools are ramping up efforts to train workers, the pipeline isn’t full yet, so one Idaho business has taken training into its own hands. Continue Reading →
Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter has created two groups to study Idaho’s health care options under the federal Affordable Care Act.
As some Republican governor’s across the U.S. are rejecting key components of President Obama’s health care law, Gov. Otter has said Idaho’s best bet is to carefully examine expanding Medicaid and creating a health insurance exchange.
The governor’s office announced 26 public and private stakeholders to work on the issue. The group tasked with studying a Medicaid expansion will be lead by Idaho Department of Health and Welfare director Dick Armstrong. The second group, which will evaluate a health insurance exchange will be lead by Idaho Department of Insurance director Bill Deal.
Idaho’s fiscal year-end tax revenue report, which came out today, shows collections exceeded forecasts by $35 million or 1.4 percent.
The Division of Financial Management says sales tax and corporate income tax collections were 7.2 percent higher than expected. Miscellaneous receipts exceeded its forecast by 24.2 percent.
The piece of Idaho’s revenue stream that didn’t perform as expected was individual income taxes. Collections were about $13 million under forecast, which DFM says is because of higher-than-anticipated tax returns. Continue Reading →
Speaker of the House Lawerence Denney said this week that he's opposed to implementing "Obamacare" in Idaho.
Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter said this week that he will form working groups to study the two big questions arising from the Supreme Court’s health care ruling. Those are: should Idaho establish a state-run health insurance exchange? And should it adopt the Medicaid expansion provided for under the Affordable Care Act?
One of the main arguments that favors Medicaid expansion is that the state would actually save money by expanding eligibility, given the substantial costs of the state’s Catastrophic Health Care, or CAT, fund. (That fund pays the medical bills of indigent Idahoans, who, as a recent report from the fund puts it, “have fallen through the cracks of the welfare system, or have inadequate insurance to meet the financial responsibilities when their medical costs are of catastrophic proportions.”) Continue Reading →
Business and community leaders posed at this morning's groundbreaking in downtown Boise.
Zions Bank broke ground today on the 18-story building that will take the place of the massive hole in the ground that has long been a feature of downtown Boise.
The corner at 8th and Main has been vacant since the late 1980s, when a fire destroyed the Eastman building. That made the groundbreaking a special kind of celebration for the city leaders, real estate developers and others who turned out. The groundbreaking even included a Native American drummer, brought in to break The Hole’s supposed curse. Continue Reading →
House leader Ken Roberts (R-Donnelly) has been appointed to be the fourth member of the state Tax Commission. The commission oversees state revenue collections and tax laws.
Here’s the press release from the governor’s office:
Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter announced the appointment today of Ken Roberts, Republican Caucus chairman in the Idaho House of Representatives, to the four-member Idaho State Tax Commission. He fills a vacancy left by the February resignation of Bob Geddes, the former president pro tem of the Idaho Senate who stepped down from the Tax Commission to return to work for his previous employer, Monsanto. Continue Reading →
Idaho still clocks in at 16th on the housing data provider’s ranking of states’ foreclosure rates. But RealtyTrac’s numbers show the state’s rate fell by more than 10 percent from April through June, and by more than 50 percent over the last year. By comparison, 20 states saw their foreclosure activity go up between June 2011 and June 2012.
Non-judicial foreclosure states, like Idaho, continued to show improvement relative to those that have a judicial foreclosure process. Lenders in non-judicial foreclosure states do not have to prove in court that a mortgager is in default.
StateImpact Idaho has paid special attention to the Treasure Valley’s housing market turnaround. Stories that include the perspectives of home builders, home buyers, municipal officials, realtors, and more are available here and here.
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