Mississippi Today (https://mississippitoday.org/author/awolfe/)
Anna Wolfe, a native of Tacoma, Wa., is an investigative reporter specifically reporting on poverty and economic justice and the intersection between beats. Before joining the staff at Mississippi Today September 2018, Anna worked for three years at Clarion Ledger. She also worked as an investigative reporter for the Center for Public Integrity and Jackson Free Press. Anna has received numerous awards and recognition, including the Bill Minor Prize for Investigative Journalism 2018 and 2019 and first place for in-depth investigative reporting from the Mississippi Press Association 2018 and 2019.
From health care to retail, women dominate the workforce of some of the hardest hit industries. At the same time, women are also testing positive for coronavirus and being hospitalized at higher rates than men
Nissan plans to start production again on April 27, but the company hasn’t determined whether it’s safest to bring back employees all at once or staggered over time
National jobless claims surged to 5.8 million
The number would likely be higher if not for glitches on the state’s unemployment website and overwhelmed phone lines that prevented some people from successfully filing applications. The director of Mississippi’s employment agency encourages applicants to keep trying and vows to work out the technical issues
Agency’s understanding is that, under the Mississippi State Personnel Board rules, essential employees must use their vacation days “for the time being”
As the COVID-19 pandemic grinds the nation’s economy to a halt, many workers are forced to seek help from a Mississippi government considered the least-prepared for a recession
Gov. Reeves said Saturday Mississippi will waive work search requirements for folks receiving unemployment but most eligibility requirements have not changed
The week Congress passed and president signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which offers an additional $1 billion for state unemployment programs among other relief for workers
Mississippi’s leaders have often boasted that good paying jobs are widely available. Mississippi Today spent several months speaking with job seekers and analyzing the state’s jobs database. We found that despite the political rhetoric, even in comparatively good economic times, getting a stable living-wage job can be very difficult
Mississippi Today culled information from nearly 39,000 job openings on the state-funded job search engine called Mississippi Works during a snapshot in time in July 2019 and nearly 36,000 openings during a snapshot in January 2020.
We culled and analyzed 38,866 job openings that appeared on the website on July 1, 2019 and 35,949 on January 23, 2020.
A taxpayer-funded nonprofit at the center of a welfare fraud scandal hired ex-football phenom Marcus Dupree and subsidizes his 15-acre Flora ranch, where he runs a program to teach underprivileged children about horses. But little evidence exists about those services, and no one will answer questions about the program
Brett Favre hoped a Florida-based company, Prevacus, would locate and manufacture its drug in Mississippi, which produces some of the best athletes in the country. He turned to then-Gov. Phil Bryant.
Mississippi gave a politically connected nonprofit nearly $65 million in few-strings-attached welfare dollars. It seemed to fund anything but assistance for the poor — including pet projects for sports figures
