As part of the American Rescue Plan passed in March, the Biden Administration increased the Earned Income Tax Credit for low- and middle-income workers. We are going to see millions of lives improved over the next year because of these changes, only to be erased when these provisions expire in 2022. We cannot let that happen. We must make these provisions permanent.
The film “Far East Deep South” follows Charles Chiu and his family’s journey from California to Mississippi in hopes of finding answers about his father and the filmmakers’ grandfather K. C. Lou. While the family learns about the life of K.C. Lou and his contributions to the surrounding communities in Pace, Miss., just northwest of Cleveland in Bolivar County, they also learn some harsh truths about life for Asian Americans living in the deep South during Jim Crow.
On the penultimate day of the Confederate Heritage Month, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves made a bold declaration: “There is not systemic racism in America.” The announcement, if it were true, could come as a relief to the 38% of Mississippians who are Black. But around 16% of those residents will not have the opportunity to express their gratitude to the governor in the next election because they are systematically disenfranchised due to an 1890 Jim Crow felony voting law.
The duplicitous nature of the relationship between policy makers and Wall Street opens the door to predatory lenders who prey on disenfranchised residents whose only access to banking is check cashing centers, payday-loan stores and ATMs. Major banking institutions like Wells Fargo and TD Bank have agreed to pay back hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution for illegal practices that targeted ADOS and other marginalized consumers.
Two wealthy Mississippi political donors “conspired” to “fraudulently” obtain more than $2 million in public education funds and used it to pay for teachers’ salaries at their private school in Jackson, federal prosecutors allege.
LGBTQ rights advocates say that Gov. Tate Reeves put transgender teen and young adult lives “in danger” today by signing Senate Bill 2536, “The Mississippi Fairness Act,” banning transgender students at public schools and colleges from participating in sports teams that match their gender.
Transgender teen and adult athletes in Mississippi could be forced out of sports teams that align with their gender or give up sports altogether after the Mississippi House approved Senate Bill 2536, sending it to Gov. Tate Reeves’ desk.
Mississippi’s K-12 public-school teachers may still get a $1,000 pay raise after lawmakers in the House and Senate reached a last-minute agreement. Some feared the raise could become a casualty amid a legislative impasse over a House tax-reform bill.
More than half of working Mississippians would no longer pay state income taxes starting next year under a bill Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn touted today as “probably the most extraordinary policy change that we’ve ever done—at least in my book.”
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