On Tuesday, August 19, the Coalition on Human Needs is once again hosting a webinar to help advocates and analysts prepare for the release of annual data from the Census Bureau about poverty, income, and health insurance in the U.S.

The Bush administration announced yesterday that it will not enforce new requirements that would have made it more difficult for states to enroll children in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). USA Today reports that the administration will not be taking "compliance action" at this time on regulations that would have forced states to wait until children are uninsured for one year before being covered by SCHIP and also require states to enroll 95 percent of extremely low-income children in the state before expanding health care coverage to only somewhat low-income families:

Notes from the Economy: Prices, Earnings, Unemployment Claims The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released data for inflation and real earnings this morning, while the Labor Department reported on unemployment insurance claims for the past week.

What We Can Say and What We Can't The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report today showing that an average of two-thirds of companies operating in the United States paid no federal corporate income tax from 1998 - 2005. That's right, I said none. Zip. Zero. Nada. The report was requested by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Carl Levin (D-MI) as a follow up to a similar report GAO did in 2004 in which they found similar levels of tax liability reported on corporate tax returns from 1996 through 2000. In fact, in 2004, GAO found that domestically controlled companies and foreign controlled companies "reported tax liabilities of less than 5 percent of their total income, an estimated 94 percent and 89 percent, respectively, in 2000." Wow. Upwards of 90 percent of companies paid at most 5 percent in federal income taxes in 2000, despite the corporate income tax rate being 35 percent. While you digest that little tidbit (or maybe choke on it), let me tell you about transfer pricing, which is at the heart of these GAO reports and a long time thorn in the side of Sens. Dorgan and Levin, who I guess think corporations should pay taxes.