It’s Friday!
Quotes of note
“The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson (1787)
“Back in 1927, an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said that the American people would never vote for socialism but he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program.” – Ronald Reagan
“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.” – Mark Twain
Education
The Great Teacher Salary Stagnation: Average Georgia teacher salaries increased six percent while per-student spending in Georgia increased 28 percent from 1992 to 2014, according to a new study “Back to the Staffing Surge” from EdChoice by Dr. Ben Scafidi. A slide deck on the major findings of the study and a podcast interview of Dr. Scafidi can be found here.
Health care
Right to try: In 2016, the Georgia General Assembly approved allowing Georgians with terminal illnesses to get access to pharmaceutical treatments that are still undergoing clinical trials. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Darcy Olsen of the Goldwater Institute notes that 1,400 Americans get access to such treatments every year. A similar compassionate-use program in France helps 12,000 – in a country one-fifth our size.
Surging popularity: Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), which were a creation of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, have grown substantially. In the 10 years from 2006 to 2015, HSA assets surged from approximately $1.7 billion to approximately $30.2 billion. Source: Benefits Pro
Poverty
Making progress on poverty: A new study by the American Enterprise Institute shows the poverty rate after accounting for taxes and transfers in Georgia decreased from 21.1 percent in 1976 to 16.7 percent in 2014. The national poverty rate declined from 18.5 percent to 16.0 percent during the same time period.
| 1976 | 2014 | |
| Overall Georgia Poverty Rate | 21.1% | 16.7% |
| Children | 24.5% | 19.7% |
| Adults | 17.5% | 16.1% |
| Elderly | 34.6% | 13.5% |
Friday Flashback
This month in the archives: In May five years ago the Foundation published, “License to Kill Business.” It noted, “[W]hen it comes to occupational licensing, Georgia has the 18th most burdensome requirements in the nation, according to a new report by the Institute for Justice.”
Media
Have you visited our social media sites lately? The Foundation has 3,211 Facebook “likes!” Our Twitter account has 1,733 followers at twitter.com/gppf. Follow us on Instagram, too!
Visit www.georgiapolicy.org to read our latest commentary, “Education is Key to Redeeming Lives in Prison,” by Gerard Robinson and Van Jones.
Have a great weekend!
Kelly McCutchen and Benita Dodd
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