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Health insurance coverage woes, math challenges, gas gouges, and the electoral map, all products of tank-based thinking this week!
- More private sector shortcomings. In an Economic Policy Institute report, Elise Gould traces the 5.4 percent decline in employer-sponsored insurance coverage (ESI) between 2000 and 2007. This amounts to a loss of coverage for over 3 million Americans under age 65. Though the rate slowed a great deal in 2007, Gould points out that this was due largely to the public sector picking up the slack through increases in Medicaid and SCHIP. Ultimately, this further underlines the failures of the private sector, which, when left to its own devices, fails to ensure the well-being of all Americans.--SW
- Maths is hard. A study published Friday in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society examined data from the world's most difficult math competitions for young people, and found that most U.S. competitors are immigrants or the children of immigrants from countries where math education is prized and math talent is cultivated. The study suggests that while many young Americans have exceptional mathematical talent, they are rarely identified because our culture does not value talent in math, discouraging boys and girls from excelling in the field. -- DH
- Fueling inequality. The Urban Institute has released a study outlining the effects of skyrocketing energy prices on poor Americans. It finds that a majority of all American workers commute to work by car alone, but gas prices comprise a significantly higher proportion of the income of poor commuters, taking up 8.2 percent of their income on average, as opposed to the 2.1 percent for commuters above the poverty line. The study has serious constraints, using travel time to work as a proxy for gas burden. A number of relevant factors, such as the fuel efficiency of cars and the landscape of the commute (city or highway) are missing. The study suggests that these flaws mask the way impoverished people are burdened by the inefficiencies of cheaper and poorly-maintained cars. But it's interesting to note that the voracious appetite for luxury sedans and SUVs puts wealthier folks at the whim of gas prices, too. -- ZA
- Change we can see, track, and study. The Blueprint for American Prosperity, a Brookings initiative, put out two reports last week on the political geography of battleground states in the Heartland and the New South. Both areas have seen demographic changes that will alter their voting pattern from 2004. Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri remain white working class states, but their metropolitan areas have experienced an influx of Latinos and white college graduates, turning those regions blue. Migrants from New York and New Jersey have turned Virginia and Florida purple, as Republican voters there hoofed it to North Carolina and Georgia. Brookings looked at battleground state demographics in the Northeast and the Intermountain West, too; visit their site for the full set. -- CP
-- TAP Staff
