Amanda Barnes at home in Laramie (photo: wyomingrenegadeimages.com)
Widespread layoffs and cut hours have threatened Wyoming workers' ability to pay rent and their mortgages during the COVID crisis.

Proposal to help stop COVID-related evictions passes Wyoming legislative committee

The bill would create a program that uses federal emergency funds to reimburse landlords who have experienced rental losses as a result of COVID-19, protecting both landlord and renter. The Legislature will consider the proposal during a special session next week.
Wyoming's gender wage gap, low minimum wage, and lack of healthcare access make life difficult for many Wyoming women even during "normal" times.

Already behind, Wyoming women hit hard by COVID crisis

Low-wage workers living paycheck-to-paycheck are least prepared to grapple with layoffs and cut hours resulting from the COVID crisis. By far, most low-wage workers in Wyoming are women.
Gov. Gordon can direct the state attorney general to order sheriff's offices not to execute evictions.

Governor Gordon can and should stop COVID-related evictions in Wyoming

As unemployment spikes during the pandemic, Wyoming workers are increasingly unable to make housing payments. Federal measures and the goodwill of banks and landlords do not offer Wyoming families the housing protections they need.
Sen. Perkins might give handouts to coal companies, but not tax relief to poor folks or cost-of-living bumps for state retiree checks.

Wyoming Senate President singlehandedly kills two antipoverty bills

A tax rebate program for elderly and disabled poor people and a cost-of-living increase for retired state workers both passed the House. But the bills died in the desk of Senate President Drew Perkins, who refused to introduce them for consideration.
No one who doesn't have healthcare access was asked to participate.

The Wyoming Liberty Group’s Medicaid expansion dog and pony show

The Wyoming Liberty Group actively opposes Medicaid expansion, but it hosted a panel discussion to (allegedly) present “both sides” of the debate. It was facts and information against folksy catchphrases and scare tactics .

Wyoming Legislature does nothing to address the “State of Insecurity” low-income folks face — 2019 Legislative recap

Efforts to raise Wyoming’s minimum wage, provide tax relief to very poor elderly and disabled people, and help fund food pantries all died this session.
The Legislature huffed and puffed and, in the end, maintained the status quo.

Wyoming Legislature rejects all Medicaid-related bills, good, bad, and otherwise — 2019 Legislative recap

Proposals to expand Medicaid, to study Medicaid expansion, and to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients all died this session.
Roughly 1,700 people would have lost their healthcare access had the bill passed.

Wyoming House rejects Medicaid work requirements

Opponents of the bill agreed that encouraging people to work is a good thing. But threatening to take away their healthcare isn’t the right way to do it.
The program was funded with $4.2 million in 2016. A new bill asked for $2.3 million to be restored. Instead, it will get $625,000.

Wyoming Senate guts funding from a tax rebate program for elderly and disabled poor folks

Tens of thousands of people depended on the rebates prior to the Legislature’s ending the program in 2016. An effort to bring it back fizzled. Less than 15 percent of its funding will be restored.
Without Medicaid, people don't stop getting sick. They just go to the emergency room instead of the doctor.

Medicaid work requirements bill would dis-enroll 1,700 people in Wyoming, leaving hospitals and healthcare consumers to cover their medical costs

The bill would eliminate roughly $11.2 million in annual public healthcare spending, half of which Wyoming currently receives from the federal government. But without Medicaid, sick people seek healthcare from emergency rooms, which is even more expensive.
Recipients would receive refunds between $200 - 900.

Wyoming Legislature moves to reinstate tax rebate program for elderly and disabled poor folks

The rebate program had been in effect for 41 years before lawmakers canned it in 2016 in the midst of a mineral bust.
Amanda Barnes at home in Laramie (photo: wyomingrenegadeimages.com)

Profile of a hard-working Wyoming woman barely getting by — STATE OF INSECURITY

Meet Amanda. She's a typical low-wage worker in Wyoming. Like tens of thousands of others she's doing her best with a crummy hand made worse by the Wyoming State Legislature.