Fact Sheets
Fact Sheet
Health security for Alabama’s working families
Hundreds of thousands of uninsured Alabamians would qualify for Medicaid if Alabama expanded eligibility to adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. (That's about $15,000 a year for individuals and $31,000 a year for a family of four.) Many hard-working Alabamians have no health coverage because they earn too much to [...]
Fact Sheet
Private planning: The forces behind your power bill
People don’t have a choice about whether to buy electricity. Quite simply, it’s one of the things we’ve got to have to survive in the modern world. Your only real choice is how much you use – and even that amount can’t reasonably go below a certain threshold.
Fact Sheet
The basics: WIC saves lives, prevents malnutrition
Congress established WIC in the 1970s to try to reduce disturbingly high infant death rates, and the program has been a success story ever since. Infant mortality rates in Alabama and nationwide have fallen by nearly two-thirds since the creation of the program officially known as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. [...]
Fact Sheet
The basics: Alabama’s meager but vital TANF program
The cost of living has increased in the last two decades, but federal money for temporary cash aid for very low-income families has not kept up. The federal government in 1997 froze its allocations for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, informally known as welfare. Since then, the number of families receiving benefits has [...]
Fact Sheet
The basics: Child nutrition programs in Alabama
Many hungry children miss out on far more than regular meals. Hunger can do serious, long-term harm to a child's health and ability to learn, and childhood hunger is a bigger challenge in Alabama than in most other states. More than one in four of the state's children live in families with incomes below the poverty [...]
Fact Sheet
Out of step: Alabama’s unusual state tax system
Taxes are the tools that Americans use to pay for education, public health, transportation and other elements of the common good. But in Alabama, the tax system is upside down, with low- and middle-income people paying twice the share of their income in state and local taxes that the top 1 percent pay. This updated fact [...]
Fact Sheet
Hidden power: The story behind your electric bill
For most of us, the monthly electric bill is a fact of life. Though its share of the household budget rises and falls with consumption, electricity ranks with water, food and shelter as an essential expense. Meeting this demand in homes and businesses across Alabama requires production and distribution on an enormous scale. Because of [...]
Fact Sheet
Public Utility Regulation Without the Public
There has not been a public rate case for the Alabama Power Company (“Alabama Power” or “the Company”) in 30 years. Instead, the Alabama Public Service Commission (“PSC” or “the Commission”) has a regulatory process that allows Alabama Power to adjust its charges each year without any public evidentiary hearings and, indeed, without any participation [...]
Fact Sheet
Against the tide: The death penalty in Alabama
In Alabama, the death penalty is a curious exception to concerns about government efficiency. When it comes to executing people, a majority of Alabamians appear to trust the government to get it right every time. Lack of transparency in our capital punishment system prompts little public comment. Similarly, on the fiscal side, calls for reducing Alabama's [...]
Fact Sheet
No-frills Alabama Medicaid brings health care, jobs
Alabamians often are surprised to learn that Medicaid is a major engine for the state's economy. Medicaid creates thousands of jobs, supports rural hospitals and the state's only children's hospital, pays for medical equipment that all patients use, boosts tax revenue in local communities and enhances our quality of life. Medicaid touches the lives of average [...]