The Myths Behind Governor Corbett's PA Budget Myths
By Sharon Ward, Third and StateGovernor Tom Corbett's May 21 newsletter offered up responses to five "myths" the administration claims are circulating about his proposed budget for next year. The...
View ArticlePiecing Together the PA Budget Framework
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateSome details emerged Thursday about the state budget framework unveiled midweek by Governor Tom Corbett and legislative leaders, but questions still remain. More...
View ArticleThe Human Cost of Eliminating General Assistance in Pennsylvania
By Kate Atkins, Third and StateSince the Great Depression, Pennsylvania has had a General Assistance (GA) program — a small cash benefit that serves as a bridge to self-sufficiency for the temporarily...
View ArticlePA Starts New Fiscal Year with $400 Million in the Bank
By Michael Wood, Third and StateAfter a less than stellar May, General Fund tax collections bounced back strongly in June — exceeding estimate by $170 million, or 6.5%. This narrowed the 2011-12...
View ArticlePa. Budget: Failing to Invest in a Stronger State Economy
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateDespite ending the 2011-12 fiscal year with a $649 million fund balance, Pennsylvania fails to make the investments essential to building a strong economy or to...
View ArticlePA's July Jobs Report Is Out, and It's Not Good News
By Mark Price, Third and StatePennsylvania's unemployment rate shot up three-tenths of a point in July to 7.9%. Just two months before in May, the rate was 7.4%. Total nonfarm jobs in the state were...
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Pennsylvania's Natural Gas Tax Giveaway Exceeds $500 Million Mark
By Michael Wood, Third and StateThe state's Department of Environmental Production (DEP) recently published a biannual report on Marcellus Shale production in Pennsylvania. (Most states require monthly...
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Chaos at the PennDOT
By Sharon Ward, Third and StateNow that Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson has given the green light to Pennsylvania’s strictest in-the-nation Voter ID Law, tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians...
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Post-Labor Day Thoughts: Middle Class Can't Afford Another Lost Decade
By Mark Price, Third and StateLabor Day 2012 is behind us, but the challenges confronting the middle class are not.As we do each year around this time, the Keystone Research Center has released the...
View ArticleThe Manufacturing Jobs Score by President Since 1948
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateAfter former President Bill Clinton claimed the "jobs score" was better in Democratic presidential administrations than in Republican ones, Colin Gordon of the...
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Fact Checking PA Governor Corbett's Jobs Record...and Some Unsolicited Advice
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateGovernor Tom Corbett's administration has a new summary of Pennsylvania's recent job performance. Today's news that Pennsylvania's unemployment rate is as high as...
View ArticleConfused About Voter ID in Pennsylvania? You’re Not Alone
By Sharon Ward, Third and StateThe eyes of the nation are truly turned to Pennsylvania as the ACLU is back in court today challenging Pennsylvania’s strictest-in-the-nation Voter ID Law. The...
View ArticleChanging the Subject Doesn’t Make Payday Lending in PA a Better Idea
By Mark Price, Third and StateIn legislative hearings last month, proponents of a bill to legalize high-interest payday loans tried to change the subject and questioned the motives of some of their...
View ArticleNews Flash! Marcellus Shale Coalition Takes on Pennsylvania Charities
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateThanks to Citizens United, we are all the beneficiaries of unlimited corporate money in our elections — witness the onslaught of TV ads interrupting our ballgames...
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'How 'bout No, You Crazy Dutch....'
By Mark Price, Third and StateOn Monday night, the Lower Allen Township commissioners in Cumberland County considered a proposal from Ahold USA, the corporate parent of Giant Food Stores, for a...
View ArticleA Rare Victory In The Endless Fight Against Corporate Welfare
By Mark Price, Third and StateIn a rare victory against corporate welfare in Pennsylvania, Ahold USA has withdrawn its request for property tax breaks for a meat-packaging facility it is building in...
View ArticleMore Than 180 Voter Suppression Laws Proposed
By jamar Thrasher, Third and StateWe have written a lot about Pennsylvania's Voter ID Law, which has been put on hold by the courts for the upcoming election. Turns out we're not alone when it comes to...
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Not Exactly a Mahogany-paneled Corporate Boardroom
By Kate Atkins, Third and StateA hundred days after passage of the state budget, it is too soon to fully assess the impact of cuts to human services, Montgomery County's administrator for behavioral...
View ArticlePennsylvania Tax Giveaways and an Island in the Sun
By Jamar Thrasher, Third and StateA 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...
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Will Pennsylvania Take Full Advantage of Health Reform?
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateWith 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...
View ArticlePennsylvania Private Job Performance Through the Looking Glass
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateIn 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...
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In the Bid to Privatize PA's Lottery, One Is the Loneliest Number
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateOne 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...
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Few in PA Would Be Affected by Ending High-income Tax Cuts
By Sharon Ward, Third and StateThe Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center is out today with a new analysis finding that President Obamaâs plan to end federal tax cuts for high-income earners would...
View ArticleWhat to Make of the Fiscal Cliff Deal?
By Sharon Ward, Third and StateTell 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...
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PA Revenue Strong Midway Through Year; Tax Cut Could Have Big Impact
By Michael Wood, Third and StateWith 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...
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Mind the gap: Opting Out of Medicaid Expansion Leaves Low-income Families Behind
By Michael Wood, Third and StateFederal 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...
View ArticleThe Reports of Unions' Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateThere'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,...
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Republican Governors Opt-In to Medicaid Expansion
By Sharon Ward, Third and StateThere 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...
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Pennsylvania Among 'Terrible 10' Most Regressive Tax States
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateWorking 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...
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Imagine...A Minimum Wage Your Daughter Could Live On
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateThe 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...
View ArticleALEC Policies Sell 'Snake Oil to the States'
By Sharon Ward, Third and StatesThree national organizations offered a scathing criticism of policies endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, in a conference call with reporters...
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State Tax Cuts Take a Bite Out of Pennsylvania's Budget Pie
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateAdvocates 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...
View ArticleThree New Tax Breaks Will Cost PA Schools and Services
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateAfter making deep cuts to schools, early childhood education, and health and human services, Pennsylvania lawmakers are now considering new tax breaks that will...
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Ed Rendell’s Frack Attack
By Sharon Ward, Third and StateFormer 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...
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Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt
By Mark Price, Third and StateLast 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...
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Lives Are on the Line in PA's Medicaid Expansion Debate
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateLast 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....
View ArticlePA Shouldn't Miss a Real Opportunity to Close Loopholes
By Michael Wood, Third and StateIn the coming days, the Pennsylvania Legislature will be hammering out a deal to balance the 2013-14 state budget. One piece of the package will be a budget-related tax...
View ArticleFinal Pa. Budget Fails to Make Up Lost Ground
By Sharon Ward, Third and StateThe Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center has released a full detailed analysis of the 2013-14 state budget plan spending $28.376 billion, roughly $645 million (or 2.3%)...
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Pennsylvania’s Unremarkable Private-Sector Job Performance
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StatePhiladelphia Daily News Columnist John Baer is right to suggest that Governor Corbett’s jobs performance since January 2011 is less than “remarkable.”Baer's...
View ArticleToshi Seeger and Respect for the Working Man and Woman
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateToshi Seeger's obituary last week in The New York Times brought a smile to my face. Toshi provided her husband, the folk singer Pete Seeger, with the...
View ArticleDiversion Politics and Factual Errors with 'Americans for a Tiny Sliver of...
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateJennifer Stefano, the Pennsylvania director of Americans for Prosperity, published an op-ed in the Harrisburg Patriot-News Friday — the latest salvo in an...
View Article'This Is What the Middle Class Looks Like'
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and State"This is what democracy looks like." Even though this chant originated with the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO), which haven't yet led...
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Nearly 1.8 Million in PA Will See Food Assistance Cut
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateNutrition assistance is our nation’s first line of defense against hunger and a powerful tool to help keep families out of poverty. Come November, this critical...
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Health Law Saves Consumers by Requiring Insurers to Spend Premium Dollars on...
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateA key reform in the Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to spend 80% to 85% of premium dollars directly on medical care or quality improvement expenses as...
View ArticleWhat’s At Stake for PA Schools in Property Tax Debate?
By Michael Wood, Third and StateThe latest proposal to eliminate property taxes in Pennsylvania would leave school districts with $2.6 billion less in overall funding within five years, according to an...
View ArticleMore Fun With Shale Jobs Numbers in Pennsylvania
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateLast week, the Marcellus Shale Coalition trumpeted a new claim on the shale drilling industry's positive impact on Pennsylvania jobs:Raymond James analysts...
View ArticleDeath of an Adjunct
By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and StateAppearing earlier this month on a radio program in Pittsburgh with labor historian Charles McCollester, I heard for the first time the story of Margaret Mary...
View ArticleVideo: Don’t Let Property Tax Plan Derail PA Schools
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateThe future of Pennsylvania schools — and the quality of education every child receives — is at stake in a property tax proposal in Harrisburg.The plan to swap...
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Cut to Federal Nutrition Assistance Impacts Families and Children in Every PA...
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateA major funding cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) took effect November 1, impacting 1.8 million Pennsylvanians.SNAP, formerly known as food...
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Six-State Study Finds Industry Supporters Exaggerated Jobs Impact of Shale...
By Chris Lilienthal, Third and StateDrilling in the six states that span the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations has produced far fewer new jobs than the industry and its supporters claim. In fact, in...
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