In a February appearance, President Barack Obama called on Congress to extend unemployment insurance through the end of this year.
About 150 Idahoans are exhausting their unemployment insurance benefits each week without finding work, according to the state Department of Labor. In addition, the department this week notified more than 6,000 Idahoans that their unemployment insurance benefits will expire at the end of the year.
Congress has so far chosen not to extend the emergency benefits, but an extension still could happen. “Right now it appears to be off the table, but I believe it will come back on the table,” says Chad Stone, chief economist at the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “It’s been a fight every time it’s had to be renewed.” Continue Reading →
Idaho's Congressional candidates, top left Jimmy Farris, Raul Labrador, Nicole LeFavour, Mike Simpson
A record amount of money is flowing into this year’s election in states across the country. Idaho, it seems, is not one of them.
Idaho doesn’t have a high-stakes gubernatorial race on the ballot, or a critical senate seat up for grabs. But both of Idaho’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are on the ballot.
Wyoming's Jim Bridger Power Plant is a significant source of electricity for Idaho Power.
Idaho utilities and wind developers are squaring off over the wind industry’s future in the state, as StateImpactexplained last month. As part of that reporting, we’ve rolled out stories on Idaho’s electricity supply, including this one on in-state electricity sources.
Hydroelectricity accounts for nearly 80 percent of in-state electricity generation, it shows. While that’s true, it prompted the Idaho Conservation League’s Ben Otto to send the email equivalent of a friendly finger wag. I’d left out part of the story, he said.
Which part? Well, the significant detail that not all of the electricity consumed in Idaho comes from in-state sources. Continue Reading →
Boise State Public Radio reporter Adam Cotterell contributed to this report.
On November 6, voters will decide if Propositions 1, 2 and 3, Idaho’s controversial education laws, stay or go.
In 2011, the Idaho Legislature passed a package of three laws that made sweeping changes to the state’s education system.
The laws were introduced and championed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna and are known as Students Come First, though opponents call them the Luna Laws.
Betty Murphy staffed the Democratic office in downtown Hailey last week.
Helen Stone and Ben Schepps of Hailey watched Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan face off.
Blaine County Democrats register voters and distribute signs and literature from their small office in Hailey.
Suzan Stommel is a co-founder of Blaine County Republican Women.
Vonnie Olsen has called the small Blaine County town of Carey home for nearly 50 years.
There aren’t many places in deep red Idaho where you’re likely to hear the kind of proud introduction Gini Ballou offered up not long after we met.
“I’m Gini Ballou,” she said. “My mother stopped to vote for John F. Kennedy on her way to the hospital to have me. And the greatest gift I ever got for my birthday was the ’08 election, when I was given President Obama on my birthday.”
United Press International reports Idaho is the best place to be a physician.
The annual rankings compiled by Physicians Practice say Idaho is the best place to practice because of it’s “low rate of disciplinary actions against doctors.”
The Physicians Practice’s Best States to Practice ranking found Idaho, Alabama, Texas, Nevada and South Carolina were the top places for doctors to practice by Physicians Practice, which provides physician practice management advice to more than 150,000 physicians and their practice administrators throughout the United States. Continue Reading →
Meridian-based Western States Equipment uses training dollars in part to pay for its own training school.
The state-sponsored program to train workers who are in danger of being laid-off is successful less than half the time. That’s according to a report released by the Idaho Department of Labor, the agency that oversees the workforce development training fund.
The grant program reimburses businesses that apply for help with the cost of training its existing employees or new hires. It’s paid for by a three percent tax on businesses. To qualify, a company must pay at least $12 per hour and include health benefits. A majority of their product or service must be sold out of their region, or be in the health care field.
The department’s report looks at the workforce development training fund from 2000-2009. It finds of the 160 contracts approved over that time period, 40 percent were rated ‘effective’, while 33 percent were ‘ineffective’. Continue Reading →
StateImpactreported in April that funding for the Idaho Community Development Block Grant Program has been cut by a quarter in recent years, leaving the state with about $10 million this year. When the first of four rounds of applications came in early this spring, Idaho communities already had requested nearly $9 million. Continue Reading →
In case you missed something, here’s a look back at the five posts you’ve read, shared, or commented on the most. Check them out, and let us know what you think.
Many states don’t have enough doctors. As we’ve been reporting, Idaho has fewer physicians per capita than every state in the nation except Mississippi.
And the shortage of doctors will likely get worse before it gets better, as physicians from the baby boom generation get ready to retire. At least one-third of all doctors in each of the 50 states are 55 or older. In Idaho, nearly 42 percent of physicians are over the age of 55.
Emilie Ritter Saunders / StateImpact Idaho
Click on the image to enlarge. Data source: American Medical Association's 2012 publication 'Physician Characteristics and Distribution in the U.S.'
University of Washington researcher Susan Skillman says the aging workforce means retirement will soon take its toll. “We have great concern about whether the number of providers we have now can be replaced,” Skillman says, “let alone meet this growing demand” for health care services. Continue Reading →
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