By Chris Lilienthal, Third and State Last week, hundreds of people from across Pennsylvania took the Capitol by storm to put faces to the debate over expanding Medicaid health coverage in Pennsylvania . The “Lives on the Line” rally featured a number of speakers who talked about the stress of working full-time without health insurance. One woman named Petrina has [...]

By Mark Price, Third and State Last week, the Pennsylvania Senate Banking and Insurance Committee in a narrow vote approved Senate Bill 975 , opening the door to thousands of predatory payday lenders to come to Pennsylvania and charge fees on short-term loans that equal an annual interest rate of over 300% on a typical two-week payday loan. In April, the [...]

By Sharon Ward, Third and State Former Governor Ed Rendell got into some hot water last week with an op-ed in the New York Daily News touting the economic benefits of hydrofracking. ProPublica quickly outed the Governor for his ties to the drilling industry, and Rendell owned up to the fact that he is a consultant to Element Partners, which [...]

By Chris Lilienthal, Third and State After making deep cuts to schools, early childhood education, and health and human services,  Pennsylvania lawmakers are now considering new tax breaks that will largely benefit a small number of higher-income earners. Last week, the Senate Finance Committee approved legislation that would create a new loophole in the state inheritance tax. It [...]

By Chris Lilienthal, Third and State Advocates delivered half a pie to every Pennsylvania legislator Tuesday. Why half a pie? To remind them that a decade of large tax cuts for businesses has left schools, health care services, and local communities with a smaller share of the state budget pie. Tax cuts enacted since 1999 have drained close [...]

By Sharon Ward, Third and States Three national organizations offered a scathing criticism of policies endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, in a conference call with reporters last week. Their findings strike a stake in the heart of ALEC claims that its view of the world — lower taxes, fewer workplace protections, and diminished [...]

By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and State The Australian minimum wage this year is $15.96 per hour. I know this mostly because my daughter lives in Melbourne these days (not forever, I hope). When she arrived there 18 months ago, she got a job at a minimum-wage restaurant. She earned enough to cover her rent and other expenses. [...]

By Chris Lilienthal, Third and State Working families in Pennsylvania pay a far higher share of their income in state and local taxes than the state’s wealthiest earners, according to a new study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Pennsylvania’s tax system scored so poorly that it made the list of the “Terrible 10” [...]

By Sharon Ward, Third and State There is growing bipartisan agreement that the optional expansion of Medicaid provided by the Affordable Care Act is too good an opportunity to pass up. This month, the Governors of Arizona and North Dakota, both Republicans, announced their intention to opt-in to the Medicaid expansion, joining their counterparts in Nevada and [...]

By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and State There’s a good deal of crowing in conservative circles this week about the new 2012 numbers on union membership. Union membership nationally  fell by about 400,000, to 14.4 million . Union membership in Pennsylvania declined 45,000 , including 59,000 in the private sector. Of course, for anyone who cares about, say, the American Dream, democracy, [...]

By Michael Wood, Third and State Federal health care reform is moving forward thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year — and it is a great deal for Pennsylvania. Unless the state decides to “opt out,” Medicaid coverage will be expanded to include many Pennsylvanians who are uninsured. One group that will benefit immediately are parents [...]

By Michael Wood, Third and State With a strong December showing, the commonwealth now has a General Fund revenue surplus of $171 million (1.4% above estimate) for the first half of the 2012-13 fiscal year, double the Corbett administration’s revised estimate for the entire fiscal year. The strong December collections exceeded estimate by $112 million (or 4.8%). The increased revenue is a good [...]

By Sharon Ward, Third and State Tell us what you think about the Fiscal Cliff deal. Take our two-question survey. The agreement reached by President Obama and Congress on January 1 was both historic and disappointing — and it leaves much unsettled. The urgency of the Fiscal Cliff has dissipated, but significant threats remain to federal funding for state and local services [...]

By Sharon Ward, Third and State The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center is out today with a new analysis finding that President Obama’s plan to end federal tax cuts for high-income earners would have very little impact on taxpayers in most Pennsylvania counties. In over half of the state’s 67 counties, fewer than 1 in 100 residents (that’s 1%) would pay [...]

By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and State One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do … Although I’m dating myself, some of you may recognize the Harry Nilsson song made famous by Three Dog Night. We recommend that Governor Tom Corbett download it to his iPod as he contemplates whether to accept a solitary bid from Camelot Global Services to [...]

By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and State In the 1890s, scientist George Stratton reported that, after four days of wearing a lens that inverted his vision, his brain reprocessed what he saw and flipped everything back up the right way. John Micek’s Friday article  brought this experiment to mind. Micek quotes Pennsylvania House Speaker Sam Smith summing up the accomplishments [...]

By Chris Lilienthal, Third and State With the election decided, it is now clear that the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. That’s great news for Pennsylvanians, some of whom have already begun to benefit from the health reform law, and many others who will see more gains as major provisions take effect in 2014. As Judy Solomon writes [...]

By Jamar Thrasher, Third and State A few weeks ago, the Pennsylvania General Assembly fast-tracked a bill in the waning days of the legislative session to allow certain private companies to keep most of the state income taxes of new employees. News reports to follow indicated the new tax giveaway was designed to lure California-based software firm Oracle to [...]