Fact Sheets
Fact Sheet
30 days to pay: A simple but important step forward on payday lending reform in Alabama
Alabama borrowers pay interest rates of 456 percent a year on payday loans. These high-cost loans trap thousands of struggling Alabamians in a debt cycle that deepens poverty and hurts the state’s economy. SB 75, sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, along with a House version sponsored by Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, would extend the [...]
Fact Sheet
Medicaid expansion by the numbers
± 223,000 Alabamians are caught in the coverage gap, unable to afford health insurance. Another 120,000 or more are stretching to pay for private or employer-based coverage. 13 Alabama hospitals – including 7 rural ones – have closed since 2011. 88 percent of Alabama’s rural hospitals operate in the red. If we expand Medicaid to [...]
Fact Sheet
How the state grocery tax hurts struggling Alabamians
No matter how much or how little money we have, we all have to eat to live. But the share of earnings that people must devote to securing basic survival is not the same for everyone. Food takes a much bigger bite out of the household budget for low-income families than for richer ones. And [...]
Fact Sheet
Injustices remain in Alabama’s death penalty practices
Alabama took an important step toward death penalty reform in 2017, but numerous problems remain. That year, the state finally outlawed judicial override in capital cases. That change means judges no longer can impose the death penalty when a jury recommends life without parole. But the ban was not retroactive, and 35 people who were [...]
Fact Sheet
Ensuring basic fairness: Civil asset forfeiture reform in Alabama
Protection against unreasonable searches and seizures is a basic guarantee of both the U.S. and Alabama constitutions. But Alabama’s civil asset forfeiture policies allow police to seize cars, cash or other personal property without a conviction – or even a criminal charge – if they find probable cause to link the property to a crime. [...]
Fact Sheet
Automatic voter registration: Streamlining a basic right
Voting rights are a flashpoint in Alabama’s history. The long denial of those rights to African Americans led to Bloody Sunday in Selma, the march to Montgomery and eventually passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the half-century since, our state has taken a few steps that increase voting access for communities of [...]
Fact Sheet
Public transit is an investment in Alabama’s future
It’s time to jump-start public transportation in Alabama. Our lack of state support for this vital service is hurting people, communities and the broader economy. Many Alabama seniors, people with disabilities, and people with low incomes rely on public transit to go to work, get to the doctor and run essential errands. Yet unlike almost [...]
Fact Sheet
Medicaid work requirement hurts struggling families
Alabama Medicaid is trying to take health coverage away from our state’s poorest parents struggling to make ends meet. Gov. Kay Ivey has to get federal permission to make this harmful change. Here’s why that shouldn’t happen: The work requirement creates a no-win, catch-22 situation. It targets 75,000 of the poorest Alabamians. It’s a trap: They [...]
Fact Sheet
Proposed Alabama Medicaid changes are ‘a catch-22 that forces people into the coverage gap,’ Alabama Arise tells officials
Alabama’s proposed new Medicaid work requirement waiver would be costly, counterproductive, ineffective and harmful to thousands of families who live in deep poverty, Alabama Arise wrote in official comments submitted to state Medicaid officials on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018. “Threatening loss of health care in an attempt to force work efforts, without providing the supports that [...]
Fact Sheet
Payday lending reform: Ending a debt trap in Alabama
On busy highways and run-down streets across the state, you can’t miss them: big, bright signs promising easy money. From payday loans to auto title pawns to anticipation loans on tax refunds, Alabamians face a dizzying array of credit services designed to trap consumers in financial quicksand. This fact sheet highlights the pitfalls of payday [...]