Fact Sheets
Fact Sheet
Investing in the Housing Trust Fund would create jobs and expand housing opportunities across Alabama
Alabama lacks more than 90,000 homes for households making minimum wage or less. That means many hard-working Alabamians, seniors, students, veterans and folks on fixed incomes can’t afford a safe place to call home. State investment in the Alabama Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) would provide flexibility to meet a variety of housing needs across the state, [...]
Fact Sheet
Keep kids covered: Congressional inaction threatens ALL Kids coverage for Alabama children
Federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has expired, and health coverage for millions of American kids is at stake. Despite a history of strong bipartisan support, Congress allowed a Sept. 30 deadline to pass without renewing federal funding for the program, which offers affordable coverage for children whose low- and moderate-income families don’t [...]
Fact Sheet
What’s at stake for Alabama Medicaid?
Our state simply can't afford any more Medicaid cuts. Alabama's Medicaid program is essential, and it has already been cut to the bone. More than 1 million people -- or one in five Alabamians -- have Medicaid coverage, and almost all of them are children, seniors, pregnant women, or people with disabilities. Medicaid covers thousands of [...]
Fact Sheet
Budgets for FY 2018 fall short of real need
The Alabama Legislature last week passed 2018 state budgets that once again fall short of meeting critical needs. While lawmakers avoided a repeat of last year’s General Fund (GF) crisis, which required a special session to resolve, the new budgets highlight structural flaws that will continue to hinder public services in our state until leaders [...]
Fact Sheet
SB 284 offers Alabama consumers protections from high-cost loans and moves lending reform forward
Most states have laws against usury, or excessive interest. Alabama’s Small Loan Act of 1959 caps the interest rate on traditional small, short-term loans at 3 percent a month, or an annual percentage rate (APR) of 36 percent. But more recent laws covering payday and auto title lenders allow APRs many times higher than that. For [...]
Fact Sheet
Juries matter: Why Alabama must end judicial override
The right to a trial by jury is one of the most sacred elements of the American criminal justice system. The basic principle of being judged by a jury of peers is a cornerstone of a nation built on a populist spirit and suspicion of elites. But in Alabama, members of a jury in a capital [...]
Fact Sheet
A higher minimum wage would help Alabama families make ends meet and strengthen our state’s economy
Too many hard-working Alabamians aren’t paid enough to get ahead. Alabama ranks in the bottom third of states for average hourly wages. Around 77,000 Alabamians earn wages at or below the $7.25 per hour minimum established by the federal government in 2009, and another 394,000 earn less than $10 an hour. In the absence of a [...]
Fact Sheet
What Alabamians should know about a state lottery
On the question of a state lottery, Arise’s member organizations hold widely varying positions, some of them based on strong moral or religious beliefs. Because our bylaws prevent us from taking positions that deeply divide our membership or offend members’ deeply held beliefs, Arise Citizens' Policy Project and Alabama Arise are neutral on the lottery. However, [...]
Fact Sheet
A long-term budget fix includes Medicaid expansion
As Alabama lawmakers grapple to prevent devastating Medicaid cuts, the time is right to address a related threat to our state: the health coverage gap. Nearly 200,000 Alabama workers we depend on every day – in agriculture, food service, retail, home health and other fields – have no access to regular health care. They have no [...]
Fact Sheet
A menu of options to improve voting rights in Alabama
Alabama is famous around the world for our historic fights over equal access to the polls. Our entire democratic system depends on how elections are structured and who can participate. When barriers exclude people from voting, they often lose faith in a system that doesn’t seem to value their voice in our society’s decision-making process. [...]