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June 26, 2006

They Work Hard for Their Money

We’ve told you about how the income gap between the nation’s wealthiest and poorest citizens has grown in recent years. Here’s a disturbing parallel: An ‘economic snapshot’ released last week by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that the gap between what the average CEO earns and what the average worker earns is the highest it’s been in more than 40 years. Today’s CEO-to-worker pay ratio is 262:1 – meaning the average CEO makes in just one day what it takes the average worker an entire year to earn. And that doesn’t even include their stock options or cooking the books.

Read the entire snapshot, and check out the cool chart, at http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621. Then send a link to your boss. Or not.

Your Say on Payday Lenders

Some people refer to payday lenders as predatory. The truth is, that’s probably an overly nice term. They’re more like legal loan sharks. Only difference is, they won’t send a guy to break your kneecaps with a baseball bat if you can’t make your loan payment. They’ll happily roll your loan over – for a hefty charge. And while it’ll save your kneecaps and assorted other bodily parts from harm, it will throw you into a cycle of suffocating debt. New Mexico VOICES for Children, along with other groups that advocate for the poor, has long wanted the state to exercise some regulation over these sharks. Some attempts have been made, but none successfully.

Now, the Financial Institutions Division of the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Dept. is taking up the matter – and they want your input. Check out the proposed regulations at http://www.rld.state.nm.us/fid/News/Proposed%20Payday%20Rule%2012%2018%207.pdf. While it’s not impassioned prose, it isn’t inscrutable either. Then email your comments to FID@state.nm.us or call (505) 476-4885.

The deadline for public comment is 5pm on June 30.

How KIDS COUNT in New Mexico

Every year the Annie E. Casey Foundation takes a look at child welfare in the U.S. by studying ten key indicators – such as the rates of child poverty, mortality and teen pregnancy. Every year, each state is ranked on their overall performance and, every year, New Mexico hovers near the bottom with other poor states like Louisiana and Mississippi.

The 2006 KIDS COUNT data book will be released tomorrow – which is why we can’t give you any hints today. We can, however, send you to the Casey Foundation’s website at http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/ where a pdf version of the book will go online tomorrow at 3am. If that’s a tad early for you, you can wait until the sun comes up and swing by the NM VOICES office and pick up a free copy (we’re open 8:30am to 4:30pm). If you have even more patience, you can send a check for $5.50 (to cover the postage), along with your return address, to: NM VOICES for Children/KIDS COUNT, 2340 Alamo SE, Suite 120, Albuquerque, NM 87106, and we’ll mail you a copy (while supplies last). Of course, you can send us a check for $550.00 instead. We won’t be able to send you fifty-five hundred copies of the data book, but we will sing your praises--straight from the heart).

Race Matters Task Force

Join us on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 at 2:30 p.m. to discuss the recommendations that resulted from the RACE MATTERS conference and how to take those recommendations forward. Visit http://www.nmvoices.org/racematters.htm for more information and to register.

Your financial support is critical to our work. Please consider making a contribution today at http://www.nmvoices.org/donate.htm