All 50 States

With legislative sessions getting underway around the country, this Dispatch provides a list of key bills and policies that we encourage legislators to consider introducing.  While not exhaustive of the range of needed reforms in states, they emphasize initiatives of strategic importance that are being considered in multiple states.  Working with our various partners, Progressive States Network is providing staff support for these policies and will work to use movement in multiple states to generate national media and attention.  This in turn will create greater momentum to assist individual states in pushing bills to passage.  The following is a quick checklist of key policies with links to model legislation and policy summaries.

As the federal government considers an economic recovery plan that will most directly address the needs of those suffering and revive the economy, expanding funding for and modernizing state-based unemployment compensation systems should be a central part of any recovery plan. 

The New America Foundation recently issued a sobering analysis of the costs associated with failing to fundamentally reform health care in the US.  The Cost of Doing Nothing: Why the Cost of Failing to Fix Our Health System is Greater than the Cost of Reform details the staggering economic costs of doing nothing and the obscene burden on families and businesses, not to mention state and local governments.