Alabama’s broken tax system usually starves our state of money to fund education, public health and other basic responsibilities adequately. But 2022 may be different. Record tax revenues and a surge of federal recovery dollars could allow lawmakers to address longstanding state needs and inequities – if they have the political courage:
Tax revenues for our schools and universities went up more than 16% in 2021.
Tax revenues for services not related to education grew more than 11% in 2021.
Alabama still has more than $1.6 billion in federal recovery funds that must be budgeted in 2022 and 2023, with more on the way.
Arise’s proposed uses for federal recovery dollars can be found at al-arise.local/rescueplan. Here are a few of our recommendations for budgeting state revenue increases:
Untax groceries. Alabamians with low and moderate incomes already pay a disproportionate share of their income in state taxes. Ending or rebating the state grocery tax while protecting education funding would help them make ends meet.
Raise the income tax threshold. Alabama should help people with low incomes by creating or increasing individual and child deductions or credits.
Expand Medicaid. Federal recovery dollars can’t be spent directly on expansion, but they can be spent on other needs. This will free up state money to expand Medicaid.
Make the criminal justice system more just. Lawmakers should increase funding for reentry services and for alternatives to incarceration like specialized courts and community correction programs.
Bottom line
This year’s budget landscape offers an opportunity to make Alabama better for generations to come. Thoughtful, transformative funding choices can bring that vision to life.
Alabama’s broken tax system usually starves our state of money to fund basic responsibilities adequately. But 2022 may be different. Record tax revenues and a surge of federal recovery dollars could allow lawmakers to address longstanding state needs and inequities – if they have the political courage.
State revenues that pay for our schools, including income taxes earmarked for teacher salaries, went up 16% in 2021, according to the Legislative Services Agency. Internet sales taxes and other revenues for non-education programs grew more than 11% in 2021. Alabama also has received federal funds under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to aid recovery from the COVID-19 recession. Alabama has $580 million remaining in 2021 ARPA funds, plus another $1.06 billion coming in 2022.
Coming fast behind ARPA are federal infrastructure dollars for roads, bridges and public transportation. And if the U.S. Senate passes it, the Build Back Better Act will include new funds for child care, health care and senior services.
Transformative changes for a better Alabama
Legislators already have begun talking about how to spend this money. Alabama Arise believes wise use of these funds can make Alabama a better place for generations to come. Many of our recommendations are in our statement of principles for spending recovery dollars. A few key Arise recommendations include:
Untax groceries. Tax cuts should help struggling Alabamians who already pay a disproportionate share of state taxes. Ending the state grocery tax is a good place to start.
Expand Medicaid. Federal recovery dollars can help free up state money for Medicaid expansion. This would save hundreds of lives and ensure affordable health coverage for more than 340,000 Alabamians every year.
Make the criminal justice system more just. Legislators just made a misguided decision to spend $400 million of ARPA money on new prison construction. They now should invest in meaningful policy changes like sentencing reform and other alternatives to incarceration.
Alabama lawmakers have a chance to make far-reaching and lasting changes in 2022. Arise and our members will work hard to ensure they seize this opportunity.
We can’t even begin to summarize all the momentous federal policy advances realized in 2021 in one newsletter. This year brought passage of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the infrastructure package. It brought expansion of the Child Tax Credit. And we hope it will bring the forthcoming passage of the Build Back Better (BBB) Act. That means 2022 will be a year of working diligently to advocate for fair, equitable implementation of these new investments in Alabama.
ARPA provided millions of new dollars in incentive funding to support Medicaid expansion. It also provided $2.1 billion for state COVID-19 relief and $1.9 billion for local governments. Check out our ARPA toolkit at al-arise.local for resources to ensure ARPA funding goes to the priorities we all share to strengthen our communities.
If the Senate passes BBB this month, we anticipate more than 220,000 Alabamians gaining immediate access to no-cost health insurance via healthcare.gov for the next three years. Then the work of enrollment will begin! It’s not a permanent solution to our state’s health care coverage gap, but it would be a major step forward for Alabamians with low incomes. Stay tuned for alerts and ways you can support – and celebrate! – when the time comes.
Arise policy analyst Dev Wakeley looks back at the Alabama Legislature’s second special session, which ended last week. Dev discusses lawmakers’ actions related to redistricting and COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as federal relief funding for hospitals and nursing homes.
When the Alabama Legislature gathered for a special session in September, it made a shortsighted and costly mistake. Lawmakers chose to allocate $400 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money ‒ about 20% of Alabama’s federal COVID-19 relief funds ‒ to help finance a $1.3 billion prison construction plan.
Alabama prisons are decrepit, dangerous and massively overcrowded. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has sued the state over the unconstitutional conditions in the institutions. Moreso, raiding funds designed to help people and communities recover from pandemic-related economic distress will do nothing to make Alabama more humane and inclusive. That is particularly true when Black Alabamians are three times more likely to be incarcerated than white Alabamians due to discriminatory practices in policing and incarceration.
The state has a better path to build a more sensible criminal justice system and avert a looming federal takeover. New buildings to house the same old problems won’t get us there. Real change will require meaningful changes to sentencing and reentry policies.
Sentencing reform is vital to build a more humane criminal justice system in Alabama
Alabama’s sentencing scheme still relies on outdated ideas about punishment and limits availability of services shown to improve reentry. One example is the state’s Habitual Felony Offender Act (HFOA), which increases sentences for even minor offenses. Like other mandatory minimum laws, it is a relic of earlier racially motivated “tough on crime” practices and leads to higher rates of incarceration throughout the South.
The Legislature made minor improvements to the HFOA in 2015 but refused to make them retroactive. That failure has left hundreds of Alabamians still serving sentences for convictions that today would result in less time under current presumptive sentencing guidelines.
Alabama Arise supports full repeal of the broken HFOA. Until then, the state at minimum should ensure people aren’t serving wildly different sentences for the same conviction.
Those efforts have been an uphill battle for reform advocates. During September’s special session, lawmakers failed to pass a bill to allow some people to petition for resentencing under current standards. Legislators also have failed in recent years to expand medical release and releases for older people who have aged out of reasonable likelihood of recidivism. Efforts to expand and improve diversion programs have stalled as well.
All of these policies would save Alabama money in the long run. They also would demonstrate respect for the humanity of incarcerated people. But legislators have chosen not to act.
This persistent refusal to engage in meaningful reform may cost Alabama dearly. Failure to take even small steps to reduce overcrowding and improve atrocious conditions may spur the DOJ to conduct a wholesale takeover of the state’s prison system. If that happens, the Legislature will have only its own inaction to blame.
How federal aid should help Alabamians
The consequences of prioritizing bad spending go beyond federal intervention in the broken prison system. ARPA relief funds represent an opportunity to move Alabama forward in many areas that would increase opportunity and stability for people across the state.
Provide health care to hundreds of thousands of uninsured Alabamians
More than 220,000 Alabamians live in a Medicaid coverage gap. They make too much to qualify for Medicaid under the state’s bare-bones eligibility limits but too little to qualify for subsidized coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Another 120,000 Alabamians have stretched their finances seriously to pay for coverage they can’t truly afford.
Federal ARPA funds would allow Alabama to expand Medicaid. Alabama could use these dollars to meet other critical spending priorities. This would free up state funds to pay for the startup of an expanded Medicaid program to cover adults left out of coverage.
Update infrastructure and invest in equity
Alabama should use ARPA funds to update and expand infrastructure and support services. Economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has placed a disproportionately heavy burden on women, Black Alabamians and communities with few resources upon which to fall back. Investments in child care, expanded early childhood education and long-term postpartum health coverage would deliver major improvements in quality of life for people hit hardest during the pandemic.
Federal relief should be used both to lessen the pandemic’s immediate harm and to break the pattern of long-term, intentional disinvestment in the Black Belt and other areas. Community-based organizations offer valuable connections and expertise to guide investment to where it is needed. The state should ensure these groups have the capacity and pathways to provide input on best uses for relief money.
Finish implementing solutions on housing and public transportation
ARPA funds also represent an opportunity to take steps forward where lack of political will has hindered full implementation of state solutions. Within the past decade, the Legislature created both the Public Transportation Trust Fund and the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF). It also has failed to provide a single dollar for either.
Transportation investment would improve quality of life for everyone. Robust public transit creates long-term, high-wage jobs and enables people to get to work reliably and inexpensively. It is a vital public good that helps older people and people with disabilities fully participate in public life.
Housing investment would help alleviate the state’s severe affordable housing shortage. State AHTF funding would increase community resilience by allowing struggling families to spend less of their incomes to keep a roof over their heads. It also could help speed up rental assistance and prevent evictions during future recessions.
Increase transparency and modernize technology
Alabama’s technological infrastructure has lagged behind contemporary standards. Early in the pandemic, this resulted in major delays of unemployment insurance payments. The patchwork of IT systems at all levels of state government has contributed to public confusion and delays. Technology investments would reduce duplication of effort and increase public access to the public’s information.
A new path forward
ARPA provides a generational opportunity to begin remedying policy shortcomings that have held back progress, perpetuated inequality and furthered Alabama’s history of racist policy choices. This chance is too valuable to waste by doubling down on past failures like foolish and overly punitive criminal justice policy.
The Legislature’s recent misuse of $400 million is inexcusable, but this bad decision has not blocked the path forward. The remaining ARPA funds are a chance to invest in adequate resources and transparent, responsive government. Our state must seize this opportunity to improve life significantly for every Alabamian.
Our borders have become irregular as COVID-19 closes in on almost every part of our lives. The pandemic has made all of us realize how the shapes of our families are becoming irreparably different.
This summer, the shape of my own life changed.
Cathy Parker was one of my mom’s lifelong best friends. They grew up together near the border of Blount, Jefferson and Walker counties, in a small community appropriately called Corner.
Cathy Parker (right) and her husband, Chuck. (Photo courtesy of Chuck Parker)
Cathy was small in stature but had a raspy, larger-than-life voice. She also had a kind, wide-open laugh that made you feel special and heard. She was a rescuer: of plants, animals and even children.
After retirement, my parents began to spend more time with Cathy and her husband, Chuck. Early in the pandemic, they were part of a tiny pod of people with whom my parents visited. My younger sister has special needs, and my mother has asthma, so they kept their circle tight to reduce exposure.
When vaccines started to open the world earlier this year, my daughter began to spend more time with my parents again. That meant more time with Cathy, too.
Cathy was like an aunt to me. My daughter called her “Mamaw.” She loved spending weekends at Cathy’s house in Hayden.
The phone call
One morning as spring turned into summer, my mother called me. She was crying. She said in a small, scared voice that Cathy was sick. Cathy had a tumor in her lungs, and it had spread to her brain.
I couldn’t process the news for days. To be honest, I still haven’t.
I didn’t know how I was going to tell my daughter. I didn’t know how I could help my mother.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to think about any of that. Cathy Parker died in late July after a painfully short battle with Stage 4 cancer.
With her gone, everything feels smaller. I can’t imagine how that feels for my parents, after knowing her for almost a lifetime. The shape of the world changed.
The coverage gap
If you ask my mother what the biggest change has been since, she’ll tell you it’s the anger. Cathy’s death reminds us every day that in Alabama, those who need help the most are often the last to get it.
Cathy did not qualify for Medicaid under the state’s stringent income limits. And her husband, Chuck, said her income was too low to qualify for a subsidized plan under the Affordable Care Act. She was three years shy of Medicare eligibility.
Chuck is a former Marine and Vietnam veteran. He receives benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs for himself. But Chuck said he was turned away whenever he asked about extending them to his wife. The premium for the cheapest marketplace plan available to Cathy was more than $800 a month, Chuck said. That was more than they could afford.
They paid out of pocket to doctors who helped Cathy as much as they could. Even so, the question haunts us: Was Cathy’s time cut short because she was uninsured?
I believe so. Things easily could have been different.
A bad situation gets worse
Lack of coverage meant lack of access to lots of specialists. And it meant traveling more than an hour to find doctors who would take a patient paying out of pocket. Cathy and Chuck’s pockets often came up empty as the medical bills increased.
Compounding the tragedy, COVID-19 made access to life-saving care increasingly difficult. Several times, Cathy and Chuck drove to the hospital in the middle of the night. They waited hours in the emergency department, hoping for a bed that never materialized.
Chuck recalls that one night shortly before she died, Cathy had a seizure as the tumor grew larger in her brain. He immediately called 911.
They rode in an ambulance for more than an hour, only to be turned away by two hospitals diverting all incoming patients. They were overwhelmed by the overload of COVID-19 cases. Cathy eventually found a bed at a third Birmingham hospital. She passed soon afterward.
COVID-19’s burden on Alabama’s health care system has been enormous. In early September, near the delta variant’s peak, anywhere from 10 to 80 people a day in Alabama were waiting for an ICU bed “that is not there,” Dr. David Kimberlin of UAB told NPR. (Those numbers have improved since, with the Alabama Hospital Association reporting 167 ICU beds available statewide in early October.)
Adding to the challenges of pandemic response, our state has lost eight rural hospitals in the last decade. We surely could have used those resources during the pandemic. And we still might have them if Alabama had expanded Medicaid.
The what-ifs that haunt us
My family is one of thousands haunted by what-ifs resulting from Alabama’s failure to expand Medicaid.
What if Medicaid coverage had been available to Cathy?
Chuck and Cathy considered moving to Illinois so she could get insurance through Medicaid expansion. But her illness progressed so quickly that moving was not an option. If Cathy had returned to Illinois before she started feeling sick, she might have qualified for expanded Medicaid. Doctors might have found her cancer more quickly. And that early detection might have saved her life.
But that’s not what happened. Instead, Chuck still opens the mailbox wondering what bill will arrive today. The last one he received was for $22,000, detailing charges for his wife’s end-of-life care.
Cathy did ultimately make it back to Illinois. Her friends and family honored her request to scatter her ashes there after she passed.
Expand Medicaid to prevent suffering
Cancer patients living in states that failed to expand Medicaid are more likely to die than those in states that have expanded, new research shows. In Medicaid expansion states, patients are more likely to get earlier-stage diagnoses and receive earlier interventions.
Medicaid expansion lowers mortality rates. It saves lives.
Alabama’s leaders have the resources and tools to expand Medicaid. But they keep passing the buck, blaming it on money or politics. Each day, struggling Alabamians are the victims.
Gov. Kay Ivey can begin the process of expanding Medicaid today. It would prevent death for so many people living in the coverage gap. And it’s the single most important public health intervention available to uplift Alabama’s hospitals, doctors and patients after the pandemic.
For now, we’re left with the irregular borders closing in on us. Our families are growing smaller, and especially after the year we’ve had, it’d be easy to feel like there’s nothing we can do. But that’s just not true. We can expand Medicaid. And we must.
It’s too late for Cathy. But it’s not too late for the governor to protect other Alabama families from enduring the pain we’ve experienced. All it takes is the stroke of a pen.
About Alabama Arise and Cover Alabama
Whit Sides is the story collection coordinator for Alabama Arise, a statewide, member-led organization advancing public policies to improve the lives of Alabamians who are marginalized by poverty. Arise’s membership includes faith-based, community, nonprofit and civic groups, grassroots leaders and individuals from across Alabama. Email: whit@alarise.org.
Arise is a founding member of the Cover Alabama Coalition. Cover Alabama is a nonpartisan alliance of more than 110 advocacy groups, businesses, community organizations, consumer groups, health care providers and religious congregations advocating for Alabama to provide quality, affordable health coverage to its residents and implement a sustainable health care system.
Sentencing reform and voting rights expansion are two key goals on Alabama Arise’s 2022 legislative agenda. Members voted for Arise’s issue priorities this week after nearly 300 people attended the organization’s online annual meeting Saturday. The seven issues chosen were:
Tax reform, including untaxing groceries and ending the state’s upside-down deduction for federal income taxes, which overwhelmingly benefits rich households.
Adequate budgets for human services like education, health care and child care, including Medicaid expansion to make health coverage affordable for all Alabamians.
Voting rights, including automatic universal voter registration and removal of barriers to voting rights restoration for disenfranchised Alabamians.
Criminal justice reform, including retroactive application of state sentencing guidelines and repeal of the Habitual Felony Offender Act.
Death penalty reform, including a law to require juries to be unanimous in any decision to impose a death sentence.
Public transportation to help Alabamians with low incomes stay connected to work, school, health care and their communities.
“Arise believes in dignity, equity and justice for all Alabamians,” Alabama Arise executive director Robyn Hyden said. “Our 2022 issue priorities would break down many of the policy barriers that keep people in poverty. We must build a more inclusive future for our state. And together, we will.”
The urgent need for criminal justice reform
Alabama’s criminal justice system is broken, and its prisons are violent and dangerously overcrowded. Exorbitant court fines and fees impose heavy burdens on thousands of families every year, taking a disproportionate toll on communities of color and families who already struggle to make ends meet. And Alabama needs investments in mental health care, substance use disorder treatment, community corrections and diversion programs to help stem the tide of mass incarceration.
Lawmakers’ plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new prisons is not an adequate solution to these problems. Alabama must enact meaningful sentencing and reentry reforms to make its corrections system more humane and effective. Legislators took a good first step during this week’s special session by passing a bill by Rep. Jim Hill, R-Moody, to provide supervised release for everyone leaving prison in Alabama.
Many other needed changes still remain on the Legislature’s plate, however. One important priority is Hill’s proposal to allow judges to apply Alabama’s new sentencing guidelines retroactively. The House declined to vote on that bill this week, but Hill has promised to file it again in 2022. Hundreds of people would be eligible to apply for a reduced sentence if the measure passes.
Arise also will continue to work toward repeal of the Habitual Felony Offender Act (HFOA), the state’s “three-strikes” law. The HFOA is a driver of sentencing disparities and prison overcrowding in Alabama. The law lengthens sentences for a felony conviction after a prior felony conviction, even when the prior offense was nonviolent. Hundreds of people in Alabama are serving life sentences for non-homicide crimes because of the HFOA. Thousands more have had their sentences increased as a result. Repealing the law would reduce prison overcrowding and end some of Alabama’s most abusive sentencing practices.
Protect and expand voting rights so every voice is heard
Arise members provided a resounding endorsement of efforts to protect and expand voting rights in Alabama. This includes support of federal legislation to prevent voter suppression and strengthen the Voting Rights Act. And it includes calls for numerous state-level improvements to promote greater civic engagement and increase access to voting.
One such improvement would be automatic voter registration (AVR) across Alabama. AVR would use information the state already has to register or update registrations electronically for hundreds of thousands of Alabamians. Another important step would be to ensure people who struggle to make ends meet are not denied the right to vote simply because they cannot afford court fines and fees.
“Our ability to progress as a state will be limited as long as any person or group is unable to exercise their constitutional right to vote,” Hyden said. “We urge Alabama lawmakers to protect and expand voting rights by instituting automatic voter registration and lifting barriers to voting rights restoration.”
Listening is a core value of Alabama Arise. We deeply value the input we get from our members, our allies and most importantly, those directly affected by the work we do together. We depend on what we hear to help guide our issue work and our strategies.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continued to challenge us to be creative in finding ways to listen. We did another series of three statewide online Town Hall Tuesdays. This year, we also held 12 individual group listening sessions for a total of 15 listening sessions in all.
What we heard this summer
The town halls happened every two weeks, starting June 15 and ending July 13. The individual meetings took place throughout the summer. Here is some of what we heard in those town halls and in the individual group sessions:
Health care, voting, criminal justice
In addition to strong support for Medicaid expansion, we heard several people express the need to address hospital costs, the lack of adequate equitable access to health services and significant concern for prescription drug prices (for seniors in particular). Many people highlighted the need for mental health reforms, and several pointed out the mental health connection to issues of homelessness.
We heard concerns about ongoing, intentional barriers to voting. Many raised the need to improve voter access by making it easier, not more difficult, for people to vote. They said we need reforms like automatic voter registration, no-excuse and simplified absentee voting, a better process for restoring voting rights of people who were formerly incarcerated, an Election Day holiday and curbside voting. Issues about term limits for legislators and rank choice voting also were raised. While related to voting, but distinct, redistricting was also a concern.
People voiced passionate support for many criminal justice reforms. Several highlighted a desire to abolish the Habitual Felony Offender Act and the death penalty. They also raised their voices for reforms around juvenile justice, gun violence, community sentencing options and programs to build social and job skills of people who were formerly incarcerated. There was much discussion about the need for prison reform beyond just building new prisons. Some participants also mentioned police reforms, specifically people advocating for public access to police body cam footage.
Housing, education, child care, transportation, language barriers
We heard much discussion about the need for quality affordable housing, living wages and adequate funding of public education, including early childhood education and child care. Many also emphasized the connections between most of the issues of concern. Deficits in one area lead to insufficiency in many others.
We also heard concern about the need to improve public transportation in the state. Many were interested in environmentally friendly public transportation solutions and securing a funding source for the Public Transportation Trust Fund created a few years ago.
Among our Spanish-speaking members, many noted concerns with access to health care. These included eligibility concerns and disparities with information shared regarding documents and verification needed to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. They also requested a statewide Spanish-language hotline for addressing day-to-day inquiries surrounding public service benefits.
June 15 ‒ A better Alabama for all: Participants discussed the question: If you could wave a magic wand and fix one issue that addresses poverty in Alabama, what would that issue be?
June 29 ‒ Health care for all: Participants discussed ways to close the health coverage gap by expanding Medicaid in Alabama.
July 13 ‒ Justice for all: Participants discussed their priorities for improving access to voting and reforming our criminal justice system.
Stay in touch with Arise
We didn’t stop listening because the town halls ended. We want to hear from you, and we encourage you to contact the Arise organizer in your area:
Presdelane Harris (pres@alarise.org): Southwest Alabama and Mobile.
Stan Johnson (stan@alarise.org): Northwest Alabama, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa.
Mike Nicholson (mike@alarise.org): Southeast Alabama, Auburn and the Wiregrass.
Unlike legislative advocacy, administrative advocacy is an aspect of Alabama Arise’s work we don’t talk about often. Yet that’s where some of our biggest policy wins happen.
State agencies and leaders can accomplish some important policy changes via rule changes. Sometimes legislators pass policies with good intentions, but administrative barriers and red tape stop them from being fully effective. Our members and constituents often help identify barriers to remove.
Given the nature of Alabama politics, it’s strategically important at times to keep some changes under the radar. But in recent years, administrative action has led to big steps forward on some top Arise priorities:
Streamlining the process to access Medicaid, SNAP food assistance and TANF income assistance.
Creating more openings for Medicaid home- and community-based long-term care services.
Expanding the emergency flexibility of Medicaid and SNAP to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic via emergency waivers, and expanding the types of support available to TANF participants.
As we see new opportunities to expand and shore up the social safety net this year, a portion of our policy advocacy work will continue to be this type of behind-the-scenes administrative analysis and advocacy.
One example we’re working on now: pushing the Alabama Housing Finance Authority to distribute federal rental assistance more quickly. We’re also working with local advocates to streamline how city and county aid gets out into communities.
If you see a way programs aren’t being implemented effectively in your community, let us know! We’re continuing to expand our ability to track and support this type of advocacy. And we’re looking for new ways to engage more directly impacted people in our feedback to state agencies and decision-makers.
It’s Labor Day weekend. The days are ever so slightly cooler. Football season has started. And Alabama’s economy is officially “open for business.” So why are so many jobs still going unfilled in our state? Why are employers looking for workers and not finding them?
A look at some very interesting data can provide a few answers.
Unemployment vs labor force
Alabama’s unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the nation, a very impressive 3.2% in July. But another number doesn’t get as much attention as the unemployment rate: the labor force participation rate. Labor force participation is the number of people who are either working or looking for work divided by the total number of working-age, non-institutionalized people in the state.
Alabama’s labor force participation rate is one of the nation’s lowest. That means many people here are neither working nor looking for work. And that low number may tell us about why a lot of available jobs are not being filled.
In 2008, Alabama’s labor force participation rate was 60.6%. That means 60.6% of potential workers were either employed or looking for employment. By July 2021, our labor force participation rate had declined to 48th nationally at 56.7%. Alabama is also 44th nationally in the share of our adult population who are employed ‒ only slightly under 55%.
Barriers to work
We all know how hard-working the people of Alabama are. We pride ourselves on our work ethic, independence and resilience. But many Alabamians face significant barriers to employment that the pandemic has exacerbated. And those structural barriers have left many jobs unfilled while potential employees are unable to work.
One important explanation revolves around child care. In the recent study, “Where Are They Now? Workers with Young Children during COVID-19,” M. Melinda Pitts of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found that the workforce exits of women with children under age 13 accounted for much of the decline in employment. And she attributed much of this decline to the unavailability of quality child care during the pandemic and continued unwillingness to use child care services with the virus still raging. Even with schools and child care centers reopening, Pitts concluded, the continued risk of COVID-19, low vaccination rates and uncertainty about school closures would continue to depress employment rates among women with young children.
Pandemic’s effects
Every couple of weeks during the pandemic, the U.S. Census Bureau has conducted a survey in every state called the Household Pulse Survey. This survey asks a sample of people about how the pandemic has affected their lives, from food security to employment and income. The most recent results from Alabama, for the weeks of Aug. 4-16, provide meaningful insight into why Alabamians may not be taking advantage of the supposedly booming job market. (Arise calculated the following percentages based on survey results.)
Alabama findings
Despite the low unemployment rate, many Alabamians, especially women, are not yet employed. Among Alabama women who responded to the survey, 47% were not employed in the seven days preceding the survey, compared to slightly more than 37% of men who were not working.
When asked why they were not working, nearly 12% of Alabamians who are not retired and do not have a disability said they were caring for children not in school or day care. Another 5% said they were caring for an older adult.
About 5% of Alabama respondents who are not retired and don’t have a disability said they weren’t working because they were afraid of getting COVID-19.
More than 11% of Alabamians who are not retired and don’t have a disability said they had lost their job because of the pandemic.
About 4% of Alabama respondents who are not retired and don’t have a disability said they weren’t working because they didn’t have transportation to work.
The Household Pulse Survey doesn’t break out non-employment rates for men and women by race. But it does show non-employment rates are higher in general for Black people (nearly 49%) and Hispanic/Latinx people (46%) than for white people (40%). Whether because of COVID-19’s impacts or employment barriers or both, people of color are disproportionately affected. This is consistent with research by the Economic Policy Institute which found that Black Alabamians had a 2021 unemployment rate 40% higher than did White Alabamians.
Alabama businesses are desperately looking for workers, and Alabamians want to return to work. But for this to happen, our leadership needs to support workers instead of blaming essential income supports or the workers themselves for vacant jobs. What should elected officials do?
Recommendations:
Wages
Many of the jobs that remain unfilled are in the service sector. These are the public-facing jobs filled by people we hailed as “essential workers” last year. People essential to our recovery from the pandemic and its recession need a living wage. They also need employment supports like health insurance, paid time off and protections from potential coronavirus infection so they can return to work and still take care of their children and families.
Child care
Congress has appropriated significant funds to support child care centers and the parents who need them. And the Department of Human Resources has done a good job of targeting money where it most needs to go. But the number of respondents listing child care or senior care as the reason they are not able to work indicates even more needs to be done. Alabama should redouble its efforts to ensure safe, affordable child care and senior care are available when people need to work, including evenings and weekends.
Public transportation
Alabama lacks public transportation in all but our biggest cities. Even there, transit is limited and often doesn’t get people to the jobs available to them. If Congress approves new infrastructure funds, Alabama should invest heavily in public transportation in both urban and rural counties. These investments would help residents get to work, school, the doctor’s office and other essential locations.
Unemployment insurance benefits
More than 11% of Alabama Household Pulse respondents say they have lost jobs due to the pandemic. That may result from their employer laying them off, going out of business or closing temporarily. People unemployed because of the pandemic continue to need unemployment income (UI) benefits. Alabama’s unemployment compensation system unfortunately has failed to respond adequately either during the recession’s height or our slow recovery. The decision to reduce UI benefits in an effort to force workers back into jobs has only increased suffering without filling the vacant jobs. Alabama needs to invest in a robust unemployment compensation infrastructure. The state also needs to bolster benefits for laid-off workers still suffering the pandemic’s effects.
Health care
Nearly 9% of all the people who responded to the Household Pulse Survey in early August said they were not working because of disability or health problems. Adequate, accessible and affordable health care services can help people address health problems that make work difficult or impossible. Alabama must expand Medicaid to provide these health services if we want to jump-start our economy fully.
Public transparency
The Alabama Department of Labor should return to its former practice of releasing unemployment data via news releases. Months after cutting off the $300 federal supplement, UI claims remain at 297% of pre-pandemic claim numbers. This data shows that, contrary to the false narrative pushed by some officials, pandemic unemployment has never been a result of the increased benefits available through federal assistance. The state should return to publicly acknowledging the data that lays out recent policy mistakes and the number of Alabamians harmed by anti-worker decisions.
COVID-19 concerns
Finally, 5% of Household Pulse respondents who are not retired and do not have a disability said they had not reentered the workforce because of very realistic fears of COVID-19. Alabama and the nation need to ensure our investments in public health interventions and COVID-19 mitigation are science-based and effective. That includes efforts to address vaccine hesitancy and misinformation in Alabama.
