Budget Matters Blog

Category: Social Insurance, Earned Benefits, & Safety Net


Remembering Recovery on November 3, 2010

NPP very recently updated all its Federal Priorities Database expenditures and indicators to the state level with the latest data available. We invite you to use the database – especially if you want a post-election memory of the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). See what funding ...

Social Security's Flat Line

Yesterday, the Social Security Administration released an extraordinary amount of data – all the way to the ZIP code-level – focused on Social Security beneficiaries (categorized by the government within three groupings: Old Age, Survivor and Disability). The data lets us see not only the number of folks in a ...

A “Depression” by Any Other Name

President Harry Truman once said, “It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.” And while economic experts may tell us that the current recession ended in June 2009, for almost 15 million Americans, this is still a depression.According to the September 2010 ...

Obion, Tennessee: the story of Gene Cranick and an un-paid fire fighting fee

On the afternoon of September 30, a fire destroyed Gene Cranick's home in Obion County, Tennessee. The fire department was on-hand before the fire became un-controllable, but didn't move to extinguish it. It turns out, firefighters arrived because Mr. Cranick's neighbor paid his annual rural fire service fee guaranteeing his ...

Serving up a Discretionary Budget Pizza The first slice for Bangor, Maine

In the last couple of years it's become strikingly clear that the majority of people in the United States do not know where or how their federal tax dollars are spent. As a result, they feel disengaged from both the personal and societal impacts of federal spending and believe they ...

New Poverty Data Out: What's the Impact on Women?

The U.S. Census Bureau released a report showing a significant decrease in U.S. economic security, tied to a rise in unemployment, between 2008 and 2009. The report highlights trends in median income, poverty and health insurance coverage during this time frame.NPP's Income Security and Labor provide a powerful context for ...