A lack of paid family leave programs in Arkansas leaves many families, particularly low-income families, in poor physical and financial health. Achieving statewide paid family leave is a great change, but a significant one. A few baby steps toward that ultimate goal could...
Paid leave allows employees to take time off to care for a new baby or a relative with a serious illness, without losing all of their income. Paid leave helps families stay financially and physically healthy. From an economic standpoint,...
The modest $35.9 million surplus forecast for the state’s 2016 budget is an ominous sign for the governor’s highway plan (which will require at least $192 million a year in surplus to fill its funding goals in 2017 and...
Arkansas legislators have an opportunity to improve the lives and health of working families by adopting our own state-level Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). At tax time, the EITC gives a boost to working families with low-wage jobs who...
Open enrollment for the Health Insurance Marketplace ends on January 31. The end of open enrollment provides an opportunity for lawmakers and health stakeholders to celebrate the success Arkansas has had in covering the uninsured, but it also provides...
In light of the attention paid to the achievement gap between white students and students of color during the recent legislative hearing on adequacy (the descriptor for the hearings that determine our state’s education funding priorities), I thought it...
There’s a real need for new highway funding, but without some form of fuel tax increase, millions of new dollars for Arkansas’s roads and bridges means someone is going to be left holding the bag. The governor wants to...
Statement from Rich Huddleston, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families: The governor’s plan to fund highways took a smaller than expected bite out of general revenue, but will ultimately hurt programs that are already facing major...
The uninsured rate for Hispanic children in Arkansas (11 percent) is more than double the rate of uninsurance for all children in the state (4.8 percent). A report released by the Georgetown Center for Children and Families and the...
The grades are in for the Education Week Quality Counts ratings. They gave Arkansas’s education system a C-, ranking our state 41st in the nation. We want to explain what that means. Every year, Education Week reviews the components...
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