Tag: Work and Poverty

State Rep. Spencer Swalm seems intent to inflame these days, tossing out provocative bon mots on the House floor, in committee hearings and on...

The U.S. Census Bureau kicked off its 2010 Census "Tribal Road Tour" this week with a Native American ceremony blessing the Bureau van. The ceremony took place beside the Denver Art Museum's "Wheel" exhibit, a piece inspired by Native American architecture and the Big Horn medicine wheel in Wyoming.

Jeff Biggers, a civil rights activist and cultural historian, watched helplessly a dozen years ago as the hollers of Eagle Creek, Illinois — a corner of the Shawnee National Forest and his family’s home for roughly 200 years — were blasted away, the forested hills bulldozed by companies harvesting the lucrative coal seams underground — a scene from Avatar playing out before the movie was made.

DENVER-- A controversial bill that aims to diversify and open up decision-making at Pinnacol Assurance, the impressively profitable quasi-governmental workers compensation insurance provider, passed out of the House Judicial Committee Friday on a mostly partisan vote. The hearing highlighted the tensions that define Pinnacol, an entity designed to serve the public but also required to act as a business.

The payday loan industry gouges Coloradans like it does Americans across the country, targeting mostly low-income single women, including military spouses. Denver Democratic state Rep. Mark Ferrandino tried and failed to introduce legislation in 2008 that would have curbed the worst of the abuses, where desperate borrowers take loans at hundreds of percent interest and enter a debt cycle they rarely are able to exit. Ferrandino may try it again this year.

WASHINGTON-- As states from New Mexico to Illinois passed payday loan reform laws over the past few years, the movement to curb customer-gouging short-term high-interest loans seemed to be gaining steam and growing teeth. Ohio and Arizona voters even took to the polls to approve rate caps on payday lenders, regardless of threats that the industry would fold if it had to reduce rates from as high as 400 percent to 36 percent or less.

The Denver Post today posted a practical look at the recession reality of anti-tax conservative Colorado Springs. City lawmakers working within the shrinking city...

Thousands are feared dead in sections of Port au Prince reduced to rubble by the earthquake that hit Haiti Tuesday. Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael...

WASHINGTON-- Only a year ago, hopes were high that a big push by the government to stop foreclosures would be a great success, living up to its billing as “Help for America’s Homeowners.”

Last January started out with a foreclosure moratorium, allowing time for the Obama Administration to put the final touches on Making Home Affordable — its $75 billion signature program aimed at helping 3 to 4 million homeowners. After bailing out banks and the financial system, the administration turned its efforts to borrowers on the verge of losing their homes. The program rolled out with fanfare in the spring. But as 2010 begins, it is already clear that Making Home Affordable has fallen far short of its goals.

A new bill that would mandate Colorado insurance companies to cover birth control and maternity care is aimed at addressing the conditions that place Colorado among the worst states in the nation when it comes to providing for reproductive health.