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Fact Sheet
A temporary halt: Alabama’s executions
Alabama has a long and tangled history with the death penalty. A Tuskegee University archive preserves the grim evidence of the "lynch law" that long terrorized African Americans. The state's historic enthusiasm for legal executions, which remains strong, bears the stain of racism as well. One measure of the problem is the frequency of national court [...]
Fact Sheet
Alabama bound: Our unjust 1901 constitution
Advocates for a new Alabama constitution have been divided for decades over how best to achieve that goal. Some have wanted to hold a convention at which elected delegates would craft a new constitution all at once, subject to voter approval. Others have favored a gradual, article-by-article rewrite. A recent development may render the debate moot, at [...]
News Releases
ACPP Report: Alabama Workers to Feel Recession’s Fallout for Years
Many of the pathways Alabamians traditionally have used to get ahead have become more difficult to travel in the wake of the Great Recession, according to The State of Working Alabama 2011, a new Arise Citizens’ Policy Project report released today. Falling median household income, stagnating wages and soaring college costs have made it tougher [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2011
Well after the nation's official recovery from the Great Recession began, Alabama continued to feel the downturn's lingering effects in 2010: lower median household incomes, more poverty and more residents without health insurance. Unemployment has fallen from its 2009 peak, but the state's jobless rate remains above the national average. Higher poverty, fueled by lower incomes [...]
Fact Sheet
A tax on survival: Grocery tax policies in America
Food takes a much bigger bite out of the household budget for low-income families than for richer ones, and sales taxes on groceries thus hit harder at lower incomes. In recognition of this fact, most states either have exempted groceries from state sales taxes entirely or have devised ways to help offset grocery taxes for low-income [...]
Fact Sheet
Hands on: Alabama’s adult workforce development
As Alabama recovers from a recession that undercut a wave of record economic growth and employment, workforce development policymakers face a two-fold challenge: getting thousands of Alabamians back to work and gearing up the broader workforce for systemic changes in the economy. This fact sheet offers an overview of skills training programs and related components of Alabama's [...]
Fact Sheet
Teamwork for the common good
If you talk to a low-income Alabamian about the state's tax system, you're liable to hear two things. One is a boast that the state has some of the nation's lowest taxes. The other is a complaint that, nevertheless, the person pays too much in taxes. The statements may sound contradictory, but both are grounded in [...]
Fact Sheet
Same work, less pay: The wage gap in Alabama
Imagine the uproar if football officials suddenly were to declare touchdowns worth six points for one team but only five points for the other. Many workers both in Alabama and nationwide encounter just that sort of shortfall with every paycheck they receive. Despite decades of steady improvement, sizable earnings gaps remain between women and men and [...]
News Releases
ACPP Report: Recession Over, but Struggles Remain for Alabama Workers
Alabama’s unemployment rate doubled between 2008 and 2009, leading to more poverty, more uninsured residents and more economic insecurity for workers weathering the Great Recession, according to The State of Working Alabama 2010, a new Arise Citizens’ Policy Project report released today. Unemployment growth was swift and intense in Alabama last year, the report finds, [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2010
Like this summer's BP oil disaster, the Great Recession started for many Alabamians as something far away and impersonal. Then the disaster hit Alabama, and it hit hard. The resulting devastation was far-reaching, with scars that could last for decades even as things begin to return to normal.