News & Updates

Mid-Week Reads: Voter Suppression and Racial Economic Disparities

by | May 11, 2016 | Other

Every week, North Star will take some time out of our schedules to bring you our favorite reads from the past week.

Jeff Van Wychen

Stop Voter Suppression

Economist and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich neatly highlights various forms of voter suppression practiced by states around the nation and endorses “a new Voting Rights Act—that renews the law [i.e., the 1965 Voting Rights Act] that was effectively repealed by the conservative activists on the Supreme Court.” According to Reich, the right to vote “is too important to be left to partisan politics.”

Stephanie Fenner

Mind the (Income) Gap: What’s Behind Widening Economic Disparities Among Minnesota Minorities?

Minnesota has some of the worst racial disparities in the nation. The Pioneer Press analyzed U.S. Census data and found that families of color have long trailed white families by several measures of success, including income. The article touches on a number of issues, including immigrant needs, communities ignored, too many people of color in prison, and changing families.

Failure is Not an Option

Despite Minnesota having $12.5 billion in one time money and a structural general fund surplus of $6 billion, there is no surplus in transportation funding. This report details decades of declining revenue from dedicated funding sources of transportation...

Underfunded Minnesota: Collective Investment for a Brighter Future

The current budget surplus represents an important opportunity to improve the quality and affordability of life for Minnesotans. For decades, wages have largely stagnated, while workers and families have incurred steeply rising costs for major expenses like childcare,...

Losing Ground: State Disinvestment in Students

Our first report, “Losing Ground”, has a simple but stark finding: over the last twenty years, per pupil state aid received by Minnesota school districts declined by 20 percent, after adjusting for inflation. As state aid has fallen off, school districts have asked...

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