Work and Economy

September 14, 2015 - The producer of electrical transformers receives tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer support, but a study found a top-line Howard Industries maintenance worker earns just 61 percent of the wages paid a similar worker at another Mississippi transformer manufacturing plant.

September 1, 2015 - Fossil-fuel apologists have accused the Obama administration of waging a war on coal, but the real war is the one coal companies have for years carried out against the health and safety of their workforce.

August 28, 2015 - A tale of two recoveries, black and white, by the numbers.

August 7, 2015 - The paucity of public and private investment in the rural South has caused outsized harm to African-American women and girls, but organizing efforts are underway to help them become leaders in building a more prosperous and just future for their communities.

July 24, 2015 - A new study finds that child poverty has risen nationally, with over a quarter of children in the South living below the poverty line. But the region has also seen improvements in child health insurance coverage and in educational achievement.

July 23, 2015 - Child poverty rates are higher in rural areas, especially in the South, where the manufacturing decline has wiped out jobs and tax revenue. Yet these communities tend to receive less philanthropic support. Advocates across the region speak out about the problem in the latest installment of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation's Southern Voices oral history project.

July 13, 2015 - In the latest installment of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation's "Southern Voices" oral history project, we hear from South Carolina leaders on local economic and community development efforts underway in the state.