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We hatched some great work at StateImpact this week. Take a look at the top five.
Here’s a look at this week’s top posts, picked by you. They’re the stories getting the most clicks, comments and shares. Check them out and let us know what you think.
Pew Center on the States
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Idahoans have a greater chance of sliding down the economic ladder than the average American. That’s one piece of information gleaned from the Pew Center on the States’ recent report on economic mobility, out this week.
Idaho is grouped with Montana, Alaska and Wyoming for the purpose of the report, given the states’ small populations. The study is based on 30 years of earnings data, and focuses on Americans in their “prime working years,” meaning their mid-30s through 40s.
According to the report, 40 percent of top earners living in Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Wyoming saw their rank in the national earnings distribution fall by ten or more points over a decade. That is, they found themselves doing less well relative to earners across the nation. Continue Reading
Source: Idaho Office for Refugees
This week, StateImpact Idaho has been reporting on a little-known program called the International Organization for Migration U.S. Refugee Travel Loan Program. It’s a federally-funded program that provides loans to refugees, allowing them travel to the United States.
Yesterday’s story described the bind some refugees and refugee families find themselves in when they arrive in the U.S. owing thousands of dollars that are supposed to be repaid within four years.
Stepping back from that particular aspect of refugees’ integration, today we’re looking at the composition of Idaho’s refugee population. Continue Reading
The Idaho Department of Labor’s latest monthly newsletter describes how the state’s proportion of minimum wage jobs has shifted over the course of the recession. A greater share of Idaho’s workforce is earning minimum wage now than in 2007, the height of the economic boom.
Nearly 19,000 Idaho workers earned minimum wage last year, that’s down from 30,000 in 2010.
Idaho Department of Labor
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Molly Messick / StateImpact Idaho
Qusay Alani with Dhiaa and Ahmad, two of his three sons.
The weak economy has exposed shortcomings in a little-known program of the U.S. State Department. Each year, tens of thousands of refugees arrive in the U.S. Most take out federally-funded loans to cover the cost of travel. But in this economy that has left so many without work, refugee advocates and refugees themselves say the travel loan program puts vulnerable people in an impossible bind. Some of those refugees are here, in Idaho.
Travel Loans Jeopardize Success For Idaho Refugees
It’s a sunny, spring afternoon, but the light is dim inside Qusay Alani’s east Boise apartment. He settles into an armchair to tell the story of his family’s long journey from Iraq to the U.S. A neighbor, also Iraqi, translates. “I left Iraq in 1997,” he says. “I went to Jordan.” Continue Reading
TransUnion
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The national mortgage delinquency rate went down in the first quarter of this year. It’s an indication of economic improvement, and Idaho beat the national average.
The mortgage delinquency rate is a measure of how many borrowers are more than two months past due on their home loan payments. According to credit bureau TransUnion, the national rate fell to 5.78 percent in the first three months of this year. It’s the lowest delinquency rate the country has seen since 2009. Continue Reading
Molly Messick / StateImpact Idaho
Larry Jones is the Boise Field Office Director for World Relief, one of three agencies that do refugee resettlement in the Boise area.
Tomorrow, we’ll air a broadcast story on a program you’ve probably never heard of. It’s called the International Organization for Migration U.S. Refugee Travel Loan Program.
What is it? In short, it covers the cost of transportation for nearly all refugees resettled in the United States. (For this year, that could be as many as 76,000 people.)
Basically, it’s a revolving loan fund. The loans are interest-free, and the money comes from the U.S. Department of State. In FY2011, the State Department contributed $78.35 million for the transportation of refugees. That money went to the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental group headquartered in Geneva. Continue Reading
Emilie Ritter Saunders / StateImpact
Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter has declared this week Public Employee Recognition Week. He’s designated today as State Employee Recognition Day.
The official proclamation says:
WHEREAS, public employees at the federal, state, county and city levels dedicate their careers to public service by contributing to professional industries such as health care, education, public safety, conservation, and national defense; and Continue Reading
Courtesy Allen Brown
Allen Brown is a single father with three teenage daughters. He lost his mill job in October, 2011.
Idaho’s economy is moving in a positive direction, but it still hasn’t made up for the jobs lost during the Great Recession. Allen Brown got his layoff notice in the fall of 2011. Now, at 44-years-old, he’s waiting to start a new career. We check in with Brown for our continuing series Jobless In Idaho.
By the middle of February, Lewiston, Idaho resident Allen Brown had set his sights on work in the oilfields and was making plans to head to Wyoming for new job training.
Brown was laid off from the Clearwater Paper sawmill late last year. After several weeks of job searching in Lewiston, Brown met with a recruiter for oil services giant Schlumberger. He was promised a job as an electronic tech, commuting out of state, after his February interview. Continue Reading
Thumbtack.com
Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma and Utah are among the friendliest states for small businesses.
A new survey out today from Thumbtack.com, an online job service, and the Kauffman Foundation finds Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma and Utah are the friendliest states for small businesses.
The survey asked more than 6,000 small business owners to rank states based on ease of starting a new businesses, cost of hiring, regulatory friendliness, tax code friendliness, and publicity of training programs. Most of the business owners surveyed — 90 percent — had fewer than five employees.
Thirty-seven small business owners in Idaho responded to the survey. Continue Reading
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