State urged to do more to keep track of economy

Jeffrey Libby

Thursday, Jan. 11, 2001 | 10:22 a.m.

A national report about economic trends has given rise to calls for more specific data to be generated at the state level, so that more informed public policy decisions may be made.

Edie Rassell, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, was in town Tuesday to speak about a report just issued by her group, titled "The State of Working America 2000-2001."

She spoke from the Maryland Parkway office of the Interfaith Council for Worker Justice.

While the country as a whole enjoyed significant gains in median family income, Nevada's family incomes have stagnated or worsened, according to the report.

But Rassell stopped short of assigning blame for the trend detailed by the EPI.

Instead, Rassell hopes Nevada will join the other 25 states that have worked locally to establish agencies to track state economic trends.

"As more policymaking is taking place at the state level, as more and more is devolved to states -- medical care, child care -- people have become more concerned," she said.

But in many cases people cannot find specific information at the state levels because no one is assigned to compile it, she said.

Marlene Richter, the Las Vegas director of the Interfaith Council, said she found that out recently when she sought an answer from the state demographer. She was looking for the hourly wage required to keep a family of four above the poverty line.

"It's been extremely frustrating to not be able to get answers to those questions," Richter said.

Eventually, by comparing U.S. Census data from 1990 with data from other states, she and the state demographer were able to estimate the wage as $8.63 an hour for a family of four.

"How can the city or county do any planning -- of nutritional needs like the school lunch program and the Head Start program, the subsidized flu shots -- how are they going to plan without good statistical information?" asks Michael Slater, the executive director of the Interfaith Council.

For his group, which spends much of its time competing for federal grants, the lack of numbers creates additional problems.

"It's hard to explain around the country what the need is in Nevada without accurate numbers," Slater said.

Keith Schwer, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at UNLV, says in most cases numbers tracking the poverty line and similar data are available. But he conceded that less economic information is available for Nevada than for other states with more diversified economies.

Marlys Morton, director of the Nevada Kids Count Project, housed at the Center for Business and Economic Research, said more can be done.

"As far as policy analysis for low-income, poverty-level and disadvantaged people of Nevada -- that angle hasn't been explored," Morton said. "Anything we can do to address the economic well-being of children and families in our state would be enlightening. It would help produce better policy."

Rassell said her numbers show that Nevada is doing as well as the rest of the country, but what's troubling is that the state used to be ahead.

"The state is resting on its laurels," she said. "It used to be better than the rest of the country."

Mark Stotik, director of workers' rights for the Interfaith Council, says his group will seek funding sources that would help start a state-level economic institute.

Schwer is supportive of such an endeavor. But he said a new economic institute supported by a politically active group would have to document its methodology to earn credibility.

"They would have to prove they're not just cooking numbers," Schwer said. "Then they'll be used."