Public Policy Blog
Talking about Poverty: Food Costs in the 1950s
By Kathryn Hazelett Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of blog posts to critically examine how poverty is defined, measured, and talked about, and how those conversations influence public policy. I know, I know. We’ve been talking about poverty. Why are we...
Talking about Poverty: Measurement
By Kathryn Hazelett Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of blog posts to critically examine how poverty is defined, measured, and talked about, and how those conversations influence public policy. Last week, we started our series on poverty with a discussion...
Talking about Poverty: Basic Needs
By Kathryn Hazelett Nearly 225,000 families live below the poverty line in Arkansas and Mississippi.[1] While we hear and talk about poverty a lot, we’re not always talking the same language. This is the first post in a series looking at how we define poverty, how we...
Tax-time Savings: A New Whitepaper and a Call to Action
By Janie Ginocchio As discussed in previous blog posts, income tax time is a good opportunity to encourage people to save, as tax refund checks are often the largest lump sum payment a household will receive all year. Southern Bancorp encourages savings at tax time...
Census 2020: Be Counted!
By Kathryn Hazelett Every 10 years, the United States counts its people – all of them. This is the census and it’s happening again in 2020. There is an entire government entity centered on the census – it’s that important. The census looks not only at the number of...
Advocacy 101: Local Decision Makers
By Kathryn Hazelett Editor’s note: This is the final entry in a series of blog posts about the legislative process on the state, federal, and local levels, and what you can do to help create and influence policy as a citizen. Entries from the rest of the series are...