Our weekly Top Five feature offers big stories or views from the past week with policy and legislative implications.
- Zika virus to spread as battles rage on funding to curb it, The Post and Courier, April 17, 2016
South Carolina is one of only nine states where there have not been cases yet of Zika virus. But with mosquitoes prevalent throughout the state, officials don’t expect this to last long. Meanwhile, officials struggle on how to fund ways to attack it.
- Labor market improving for young graduates, but still tough for blacks, Economic Policy Institute, April 21, 2016
“A new EPI analysis finds that while the labor market for recent high school and college graduates has improved, young people still face elevated unemployment and weak wage growth. Moreover, the overall improvement in the labor market for young graduates belies significant challenges faced by many young people, especially people of color.”
- Some tools states have to promote economic opportunity, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, April 13, 2016
“With most state legislatures now in session, policymakers are making fiscal policy decisions that will profoundly affect future economic opportunities in communities across the country. States face a fundamental choice: they can provide the resources required for public investment in schools, transportation, health care, safe communities, and other building blocks of economic growth, or go down the path of tax cuts and skimping on public investment. When it comes to the former, states have many tools at their disposal to promote economic opportunity.”
- Middle-class Americans live paycheck to paycheck, The Atlantic, May 2016
Writer Neal Gabler outlines how half of Americans say they would have trouble finding $400 to pay for an emergency. An excerpt: “Many of us, it turns out, are living in a more or less continual state of financial peril. So if you really want to know why there is such deep economic discontent in America today, even when many indicators say the country is heading in the right direction, ask a member of that 47 percent. Ask me.”
- Guide for a contested GOP convention, NPR, April 21, 2016
Just to whet your national political taste buds: With GOP frontrunner Donald Trump energized by a big win in New York, there’s a better chance that he may win the presidential nomination on the first ballot. But it will still be hard and if he doesn’t, there will be a contested convention. Here’s a look at what could happen. Learn about unbound delegates, free agents, “zombie delegates” and more.
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