The average annual rate was revised down three-tenths of a percent to 7.1. That’s a significant decline from 2011’s average rate of 8.3 percent.
The revised data show the number of jobless Idahoans dropped below 50,000 last year, a first since 2009. Still, the numbers indicate jobs aren’t being created fast enough.
Idaho Labor Department chief research officer Bob Uhlenkott says the labor force here has been mostly flat over the last year. Continue Reading →
Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter is making another plea with Idaho House members to pass his state-based health insurance exchange bill.
Last week, after nearly six hours of debate, the Idaho Senate passed Otter’s exchange plan 23-12. Now, the House will determine the fate of an Idaho-based, online health insurance marketplace.
The debate is between Republican members of both chambers. Those in favor of a state-based exchange say it gives Idaho more control over a policy they largely dislike. Lawmakers against a state-run exchange say that control is a facade.
Here’s Gov. Otter’s op-ed he released this morning to media: Continue Reading →
A job-seeker browses job listings at an employment office. In Idaho, at least 50,800 people are unemployed.
The state agency that handles unemployment insurance benefits, workforce training and helps jobless Idahoans search for work, anticipates a $3.5 million budget cut beginning at the stroke of midnight.
It’s the sequester, the $85 billion in automatic, across-the-board federal spending cuts that have the potential to affect nearly every aspect of government services. The Idaho Department of Labor is no exception — the agency charged with helping people find employment will now find itself cutting jobs.
Chief deputy director John McAllister has been through these kinds of cuts and swings in funding before. He’s been at the Idaho Department of Labor for 40 years and watched funding fluctuate dramatically in the 1980s, 90s, 2004, and the most recent recession. Continue Reading →
More Idaho workers earned minimum wage in 2012 than in any year since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started keeping track a decade ago.
The Idaho Department of Labor reports 7.7 percent of Idaho hourly workers earned $7.25 an hour or less last year. That’s up from 5 percent in 2011. The new data show Idaho has the largest share of minimum-wage workers in the country.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics estimated that 31,000 of Idaho’s 404,000 hourly workers were paid the minimum wage last year, an increase of 12,000 from 2011, when 5 percent of the state’s hourly workforce made the minimum wage or less. That ranked the state 30th in 2011. Continue Reading →
In his January State of the State address, Gov. Otter said he hopes to find an Idaho-specific alternative to expanding Medicaid eligibility.
Idaho policymakers may claim more leeway to lower Medicaid repayment rates based on a legal brief filed by the Obama administration yesterday. In a move that frustrated health care providers, the administration said states may contain Medicaid costs by reducing reimbursement rates. That’s according to The New York Times.
The Idaho Medical Association’s Susie Pouliot calls Medicaid reimbursement rates “a fine balance,” explaining that some medical practices in the state have already begun to limit the number of Medicaid recipients they treat.
“Especially in a rural state like ours, policymakers need to balance access to care with cost savings at the expense of providers,” Pouliot says. Continue Reading →
New data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey show 28.7 percent of adult Idahoans who receive benefits are also disabled. Nationally, that rate is 30.4 percent.
The survey data includes people who are 18 or older and receiving Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (also called food stamps).
Census data shows there are 214,772 people in Idaho who fall into this category, 61,639 of whom have some type of disability. Continue Reading →
Emmett, Idaho resident Rebecca Smither (left) talks with Dr. Jennifer Petrie (right). Petrie is a graduate of the WWAMI program and now practices in Emmett.
The Legislature’s main budget panel has approved funding for five additional medical school seats in the WWAMI program, according to the Spokesman-Review’sEye on Boise blog.
The WWAMI acronym represents the five western states that send medical school students to the University of Washington on state-sponsored reduced tuition. Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho don’t have their own med schools, and since the 1970s they’ve been in this partnership with the University of Washington.
Idaho’s gross state product grew by less than 1 percent in 2011, according to the Idaho Department of Labor and Bureau of Economic Analysis. Gross state product is the total value of all goods and services produced within a state. At the national level, gross domestic product, is used as an economic indicator to gauge things like recessions, recoveries and depressions.
Bureau of Economic Analysis / U.S. Department of Commerce
Mike Chakarun is tax policy manager for the Idaho State Tax Commission.
A left-leaning tax policy group recently put out a short little report about the state corporate income taxes paid by IDACorp. That’s the holding company of Idaho’s largest electric utility, Idaho Power. The report claims IDACorp paid no state income taxes nationwide from 2007 through 2011. It led StateImpact to a larger question: What information do lawmakers have when they make big tax policy decisions?
After six hours of debate over whether Idaho should build a state-based health insurance exchange, one lawmaker paused for a little levity.
In his lukewarm support for the state-based exchange, Sen. Marv Hagedorn (R-Meridian) said, “I can’t ride this pig if it’s a federal exchange, I can ride it with spurs on if it’s a state exchange.”
StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives. Learn More »
