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New Medicaid expansion incentive clears the path to a healthier Alabama
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 answers a question Alabama policymakers have been asking for years: How can we pay for Medicaid expansion? It’s a solution that lawmakers should embrace immediately to build a better, healthier future for our state. And it’s a step you can urge the governor to take today. An incentive [...]
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Arise legislative recap: March 12, 2021
Arise's Carol Gundlach breaks down the American Rescue Plan and what it means for Alabama families including expansions to the Child Tax Credit and EITC helping to reduce poverty across Alabama.
News Releases
Federal relief package will reduce Alabamians’ unmet health needs, hunger, housing instability and other hardships
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 will reduce poverty while expanding health care, housing and nutrition protections across Alabama, according to analyses by Alabama Arise and other research organizations. President Joe Biden signed the new federal COVID-19 relief package into law Thursday. The law will slash poverty by expanding tax credits to struggling households [...]
News Releases
Policies to advance racial, gender equity key to Alabama workforce’s COVID-19 recovery, new Alabama Arise report shows
Alabama should rebuild from the COVID-19 recession by lifting policy barriers to economic opportunity and charting a path toward a more equitable and inclusive future, according to The State of Working Alabama 2021, a new report that Alabama Arise released Monday. Medicaid expansion and a state law guaranteeing paid sick leave both would help strengthen [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2021
Introduction When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Alabama in March 2020, it didn’t just cause massive human suffering and economic disruption. It also revealed suffering and disruption that have long existed and that policymakers have long neglected – or even perpetuated. COVID-19 has laid bare deep racial inequities in Alabama’s economy and social system that have [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2021, Section 1 – Introduction: The high cost of failing to protect the common good
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Alabama in March 2020, it didn’t just cause massive human suffering and economic disruption. It also revealed suffering and disruption that have long existed and that policymakers have long neglected – or even perpetuated. COVID-19 has laid bare deep racial and gender inequities in Alabama’s economy and social system that [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2021, Section 3 – Assessing the damage: COVID-19 and Alabama’s labor market
Where are we now? The COVID-19 recession hit vulnerable Alabama workers hard and fast. Alabamians working in low-paying industries suffered immediate and severe job losses, which fell hardest on women and people of color. Unemployment insurance (UI), designed for just such a moment, was inadequate and insufficient to the needs of these workers because of [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2021, Section 5 – Why coverage matters: Health care in the time of COVID-19
Where are we now? While the COVID-19 pandemic has slammed all segments of Alabama’s economy and society in one way or another, the health care industry is where most of these effects converge. By the end of 2020, more than 350,000 Alabamians had tested positive or were considered likely positive for the virus, 72% of [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2021, Section 6 – The ugly reality: Alabama’s hunger problem during the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to widespread hunger in Alabama. We all have seen the pictures – lines of cars stretching for blocks waiting to receive an emergency food box, desperate appeals from food banks that distributed as much food in the first six months of the pandemic as they did in the prior year, [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2021, Section 7 – No place to call home: Housing insecurity amid COVID-19
Where are we now? More than 800,000 job losses in the first eight months of the pandemic caused Alabamians severe economic damage and heightened insecurity. Thousands of Alabamians face potential eviction and homelessness as a result of the pandemic. And unfortunately, the state’s recent scattershot approach to eviction policy has resulted in inconsistent protection for [...]