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Arkansas Ranked 44th in Recent Assets and Opportunities Scorecard

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:24:53 -0600

The Corporation for Enterprise Development released their Assets and Opportunities Scorecard recently, and the news is not great for Arkansas. On balance the state ranks 44 out of 51 (all U.S. states and the District of Columbia), but the report highlights some areas where Arkansas performs at or above the national average. The Scorecard is a comprehensive look at Americans' financial security and their opportunities for the future. The Scorecard evaluates states on 101 outcomes and policy measures in the areas of financial assets and income, businesses and jobs, housing and homeownership, health care and education. For more information on the Scorecard, visit http://scorecard.cfed.org.

Category	Arkansas' Rank	Grade
Financial Assets and Income	40	D
Businesses and Jobs	46	D
Housing and Homeownership	26	C
Health Care	34	C
Education	44	D
OVERALL	44	-

Arkansas received some very low rankings for these individual outcomes:

Average annual pay for workers: (AR) $31,317; (US) $46,751; (Rank) 49.
Low-income parents without health insurance: (AR) 43%; (US) 33.1%; (Rank) 45.
Adults with two-year degrees: (AR) 25.8%; (US) 35.7%; (Rank) 50.
Adults with four-year degrees: (AR) 19.5%; (US) 28.2%; (Rank) 50.

Even with a low overall rank, Arkansas has done well in certain outcomes. Arkansas had its highest rankings for the following measures:

Average amount of credit card debit: (AR) $6,231; (US) $10,852 (Rank) 3.
Homeowners with a housing cost burden (meaning their mortgage is more than 30 percent of their monthly income): (AR) 27.5%; (US) 38%; (Rank) 8.
Renters with a housing cost burden: (AR) 49.7%; (US) 53%; (Rank) 16.
Low-income children without health insurance: (AR) 7.8%; (US) 11.7%; (Rank) 18.
Early childhood education enrollment: (AR) 42.1%; (US) 27.2%; (Rank) 6.

The Scorecard made recommendations for what Arkansas can do to improve.

To address the poverty level in Arkansas, promotion of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit and removing asset tests for public benefits would lift the most Arkansans out of poverty.
Funding the Arkansas Housing Trust Fund or providing first-time homebuyer credits, families in Arkansas would have a better road to developing assets through homeownership.
Arkansas should and can increase the number of adults with both two- and four-year college degrees by promoting incentives for college savings accounts.

The positive news for Arkansas is that efforts are underway to address many of the areas identified by The Scoreboard that we can do to improve. Specifically AACF continues to work on helping low-income Arkansans file for the EITC in our broader effort to lower the poverty level in our state. Please contact us if you want to help work to solve these problems.

For more Arkansas specific information from the CFED Assets and Opportunities Scorecard, visit http://scorecard.assetsandopportunity.org/2012/state/ar.

Get Tickets While They Last!

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:55:01 -0600

We may have mild temperatures right now but February should bring colder weather and thoughts of your favorite soups. Plans are underway for our 2012 Soup Sundays, and both lineups are looking quite appetizing. The Little Rock event will be held at the Embassy Suites on Financial Center Parkway on February 19^th from 4:00pm - 7:00pm. The Northwest Arkansas event will be held at the Northwest Arkansas Convention Center in Springdale on February 26^th from 4:00pm - 7:00pm.

Tickets for both events are now available online or by calling 501-371-9678 for the Little Rock Soup Sunday or 479-927-9800 for the NWA Soup Sunday.

Little Rock tickets are $50 for the VIP Signature Soup Room featuring Chef Peter Brave of Brave New as well as access to the main event. Regular adult tickets are $20 and children's tickets for $5 for ages 5-12. The main event will feature soups, bread and desserts from more than 30 central Arkansas restaurants such as Cotham's in the City, Sushi Café, Chi's Dim Sum and Bistro, Acadia, Dave's Place, and Capitol Bistro. We are excited to welcome the Flying Balloon-O Brothers as our entertainment as well as our silent auction with items such as pottery, a 1 hour landscape consultation with Chris Olsen, a casserole a month from Mary Twedt, jewelry, tickets on Southwest Airlines and more!

Northwest Arkansas tickets are available in advance at $20 for adults and $5 for children ages 5-12. Adult tickets will increase to $25 at the door. In addition to the soups, breads and desserts, entertainment will once again be provided by The McFetridge Jazz Quartet.

A big thank you to Arkansas Children's Hospital who is the presenting sponsor for both events! We look forward to seeing you at Soup Sunday. Don't forget to bring your muffin tins!

More Kids Covered by Health Insurance but Challenges Linger

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:39:58 -0600

AACF releases study showing that more Arkansas kids are being covered by health insurance, yet many challenges remain.

The number of uninsured children dropped in Arkansas even as families continued to feel the effects of the recent recession. Our new report, Crossing the Finish Line: The 2011 State of Children's Health Insurance in Arkansas, provides a detailed look at how the state's uninsured children fared in recent years and what the outlook is for their future. The report shows that the uninsured rate for kids dropped in Arkansas from 9.4 percent to 7.3 percent between 2008 and 2010, but also highlights the need for continued work to cover the 54,000 children who remain uninsured.

Click here to read the full report.

AACF Hires New Communications Director

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:00:46 -0600

Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families (AACF) is excited to announce it has hired a new communications director. He is Gerard Matthews, formerly an associate editor with the Arkansas Times and director of development with Independent Living Services in Conway. Gerard has a Master's Degree in media and public affairs from George Washington University and a Bachelor's degree in political science from UCA.

While at the Arkansas Times, Gerard produced cover stories for the magazine, did weekly news reports, and wrote a column on local media. He was also played a major role in developing content for their blog (including video segments) and using social media to broaden their audience and ability to connect with others. He also represented the Arkansas Times fairly regularly on TV shows such as Arkansas Week.

We believe Gerard will be a huge asset to AACF in the years ahead. He has excellent relationships with the media, especially the State Capitol reporters, and will help us build on our recent efforts to use new social media tools to broaden our audience and get our message out. Perhaps most importantly, Gerard has a strong personal commitment to making a difference in the lives of vulnerable children and families through the nonprofit sector.

Gerard will begin work at AACF on February 13. He succeeds AACF's previous communications director, Tara Manthey, who moved back to her home state of Colorado to take a new job and be closer to her family.

Arkansas Ranks 47th in Child Well-Being Index

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:26:31 -0600

The Foundation for Child Development (FCD) has released a state-by-state Child and Youth Well-Being Index (CWI). While evaluating the different factors that impact child well-being at the state level, FCD found that higher taxes mean more revenue for vital programs in education and health which lead to better outcomes for children. They also found that public investments for children do have a large impact on child well-being and that a child's well-being is strongly related to the state where a child lives.

The CWI is based on seven categories that represent a child's well-being and include: family economic well-being, health, safe/risky behavior, educational attainment, community engagement, social relationships and emotional/spiritual well-being. Overall, Arkansas ranked 47^th, above only Louisiana, Mississippi and New Mexico.

Family Economic Well-Being[i]

Health[ii]

Safe/Risky Behavior[iii]

Educational

Attainment[iv]

Community Engagement[v]

Social Relationships[vi]

Emotional/

Spiritual Well-Being[vii]

Rank

State and local taxes have the strongest correlation with CWI. It was found that states with higher state taxes had children with higher CWI values. This is due to the fact that higher taxes mean higher revenue which in turns leads to more and better programs for children in areas like education and health.

Public investments in children matter. Programs for children receive little federal money, so it makes the dollars invested at the state and local level all the more important. States invest in children through education funding, Medicaid eligibility and TANF benefits.

Arkansas's rankings in the seven domains indicate that we could be doing a lot more for our children and the future of our state. There are many things our state can do to improve the well-being of our children which will also improve the future well-being of Arkansas:

Invest in policies and programs that meet the basic needs of children and allow them to flourish.
Increase investments in education, especially in programs that have quality, early education components that are tied into the K-12 education system.
Make sure that every child has access to healthcare.
Increase the uptake of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and introduce a state EITC.

For more information, visit the Foundation for Child Development at http://fcd-us.org/resources/investing-public-programs-matters-how-state-policies-impact-childrens-lives.

[i] Family economic well-being indicators include families with children in poverty, children without secure parental employment, median income for families with children and children without health insurance coverage.

[ii] Health indicators include infant mortality rate, low birth weight babies, mortality rate, children not in very good or excellent health, children with functional limitations and children and teens that are overweight or obese.

[iii] Safe/Risky behavior indicators include teen birth rate, cigarette use in the past 12 months (ages 12-17), binge drinking among youths (ages 12-17), and illicit drug use other than marijuana (ages 12-17).

[iv] Educational attainment indicators include average reading scores for fourth and eighth graders and average math scores for fourth and eighth graders.

[v] Community engagement indicators include young adults who have not received a high school diploma, teens not in school and not working, percentage of children (ages 3-4) not enrolled in school, young adults who have not received a B.A. degree, and young adults who did not vote in the election.

[vi] Social relationships indicators include children in single parent families and children who have moved within the last year.

[vii] Emotional/spiritual well-being indicators include suicide rate (ages 10-19) and children without weekly religious attendance.

Study on Impact of Family Structure on Economic Mobility Released

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:45:02 -0600

The Economic Mobility Project, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, recently released a report on the impact of a family's structure on a child's absolute and relative economic mobility. Family structure is believed to be an important factor in a child's economic future because this structure typically indicates the amount of human capital investments-the time and money that parents spend on or with their children. The greater the investment, the higher the likelihood the child will succeed in the labor market as an adult.

Absolute mobility is defined as the proportion of children who earn a family income that is higher than that of their parents. Relative mobility is the change of position in the income distribution in relation to their parent's position in the income distribution. A child can be upwardly mobile in absolute terms but not in relative terms.

The overall findings:

Family structure (in this study, family structure means a child whose mother was always married, was divorced or widowed, or was single at the time of the child's birth) does in fact influence future economic mobility.
Divorce has a harmful impact on economic mobility. Children from divorced families have lower relative and absolute mobility.
African American children are less likely to experience upward mobility than white children. The study recognizes that family structure is not the only factor that impacts African American children and their future economic mobility.

While the study offers no clear evidence on why marital status matters or has the impact it has, it speculates that "one might imagine that marital status matters because parents who are married tend to earn higher and total family incomes than single parents (mostly mother-headed) household. Married couples also may provide more supervision as well as more support....On average, a married couple has more money and time to invest in their child, which should...increase the skills of the child that are valued in the labor market...A second reason that family structure may matter is that the disruption of divorce has been found to have detrimental effects on children."

The study goes on to note that with family structure having such an impact on a child's relative and absolute economic mobility, certain policies can be used to improve a future economic mobility. Examples might include increased subsidies to working single parents (such as increased earned income tax credit (EITC) refunds) and removing marriage penalties in the tax system.

To read the full study, visit the Economic Mobility Project's website.

December Revenue Forecast Shows Some Improvement

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:42:47 -0600

The monthly State General Revenue Report for December was released today by the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. The report showed that December's revenue was above last year and the current forecast. (Year-to-date revenue collections were up as well.)

The details:

Net available revenue totaled $418.7 million in December, which is $36.9 million or 9.7 percent above last year. This is also $31.5 million or 8.1 percent above the forecast. This growth was higher than forecasted in all major revenue categories (especially for both individual and corporate income tax collections).

Individual income tax collections in December totaled $206.9 million, representing $19.5 million or 10.4 percent above last year. That's $14.7 million or 7.7 percent above forecast. Corporate income tax collections totaled $66.7 million, an increase of $14.5 million or 27.7 percent above last year. This is also $13.2 million or 24.7 percent above the forecast.

Year-to-date individual income tax collections were $1.24 billion, which is $66.3 million or 5.6 percent above last year and is $41 million or 3.4 percent above forecast. Corporate income tax collections so far this fiscal year totaled $203.9 million, which is an increase of $22.8 million or 12.6 percent above both last year and the forecast.

Medicaid Program Trust Fund collections to this point in fiscal year 2012 totaled $24 million, an increase of 0.3 percent. The Educational Adequacy Trust Fund collections were up this month with $35.7 million, a 3.9 percent increase over last year.

Combined Reporting Gets Interim Study

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:42:54 -0600

Leveling the playing field for small Arkansas businesses was examined this week during a joint meeting of the state Senate and House committees on revenue and taxation. The Arkansas Small Business Tax Fairness Act, sponsored by Rep. Jim Nickels, would close loopholes in the tax code that allow large, multi-state corporations that do business in Arkansas to shift profits from our state to another state to avoid paying income taxes on them. Currently, many large corporations use tax avoidance strategies such as creating subsidiaries in other states where business taxes are much lower or where there are no taxes at all.

Rep. Nickels introduced this bill-also called combined reporting-during the 2011 legislative session, but it did not have enough support to move on to the full House.

AACF supports this proposal. It would be a big step toward ensuring economic security for all Arkansans. Combined reporting would help level the playing field for small businesses that already live up to their responsibilities and pay their taxes. Closing the existing loopholes would treat a parent company and its subsidiaries as one entity for tax purposes and allows the state to tax a share of that combined income. Twenty three states already have combined reporting laws. That includes our neighbor, Texas, as well as Maine, which Ernst and Young declared the most business friendly state in the union based on its tax laws.

States with combined reporting have estimated that it prevents the loss of 10 percent to 25 percent of corporate income tax revenue (in Arkansas this could mean as much as $38 million to $95 million annually in lost tax revenues), with little to no cost in implementation.

Exciting news about ARKids and Medicaid

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:52:12 -0600

Here's a sneak peak at an exciting trend we've just uncovered in recent insurance coverage data. Find out more about this when we release our annual report on child health insurance in early 2012.

In a nutshell: the number of uninsured kids in Arkansas is dropping, even as families continue to feel the effects of the recession.

As lawmakers debate the future of Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), we can't ignore their continued success supporting children's health and parents' pocketbooks when they need it most. The recession has hit Arkansas families hard, pushing the state's child poverty rate over 27 percent. A bright spot for families, however, is the availability of ARKids First. In 2010, just 7.3 percent of Arkansas children under 19 were uninsured, compared to 9.4 percent at the beginning of the recession in 2008. For perspective, nearly a quarter of all our kids were uninsured in the late 1990s, before ARKids First started.

ARKids First, Medicaid and CHIP in Arkansas, have kept children covered even as employers were forced to drop coverage or lay off workers during the recession. Between September 2008 and September 2010, enrollment increased by just under 11 percent, or 40,000 children. The rate of uninsured children eligible for ARKids First (under 200 percent of the federal poverty line, $36,620 for a family of three) decreased over the same period from 12.6 percent to 8.6 percent in 2008.

Thanks to ARKids First, thousands more low-income children got the health coverage they needed during the first two years of the recession.

Announcing our new health policy director

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:31:26 -0600

We are very excited to announce that Anna Strong will be our next health policy director. Many of you already know Anna through her past volunteer and advocacy efforts here at AACF and with many of our partners around the state.

Anna has a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and a Master of Public Service degree from the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. She's also an alumna of Hendrix College. During her studies at both master's programs she wrote the latest edition of "Natural Wonders: The State of Children's Health in Arkansas" in partnership with Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. She also compiled a school-based health advocacy plan for us and helped research and monitor health-related legislation during the 2011 Arkansas General Assembly.

She is currently a senior policy analyst at the UAMS Center for Rural Health, where she is developing a collaboration of rural health stakeholders to improve planning, communication and health outcomes in rural areas.

Anna is active in so many community efforts that I can't even fit them all into this announcement. But a few include serving as member at-large to the Little Rock Commission on Children, Youth, and Families; as action board member at Planned Parenthood of Arkansas Clinic; and as past president of the Committee for the Future at Arkansas Children's Hospital. She lives in Little Rock with her husband, Dr. Aaron Strong.

Again, we're thrilled to have Anna come on board beginning in December and hope that you'll join us in welcoming her back to AACF. At the same time, we're sad to say goodbye to Elisabeth Wright Burak, our health policy director since 2008. She's moving on to the Georgetown Center for Children and Families in Washington, D.C., to work on children and family issues. Arkansas children will benefit for many years to come from her outstanding work here.

Rich Huddleston
Executive Director