Southern schools are filling teacher vacancies at a higher rate than the rest of the nation, according to new data from the National Center for Education Statistics. The United States is estimated to have a teacher shortage of at least 55,000 vacant positions. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Elyse Carmosino breaks down the numbers:
Information released this week from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that while 88% of Southern schools needed to fill two or more teaching vacancies before the start of the 2024-25 school year — 6 percentage points more than the national average — the region fared better than others when it came to filling those vacancies, with 81% of Southern schools reportedly filling two or more by August. The national average was 74%. When it came to why Southern schools faced challenges hiring for open positions, 63% blamed having too few candidates, while 71% pointed to a lack of qualified candidates applying. National numbers for those categories were 62% and 64%, respectively.
Trump proposals could drain Social Security in six years
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign proposals could deplete the nation’s Social Security Trust Fund within six years, according to a new report from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The nonpartisan group did not perform an analysis of Vice President Kamala Harris’ proposals because they would have a negligible effect. The Washington Post’s Julie Zauzmer Weil reports:
Compared to prior presidential campaigns, [CRFB senior policy director Marc] Goldwein said, “I can’t think of anything that would be this order of magnitude” in its detrimental effect on Social Security’s bottom line compared to the policies Trump has proposed. Most directly, Trump has promised that no Social Security recipients should have to pay federal income taxes on their benefits. Under current law, 40 percent of beneficiaries pay taxes on some portion of their Social Security. The tax they pay on their benefits goes directly back to the trust fund, and getting rid of it could cost the program almost $1 trillion over 10 years, the report forecast.
How private equity gutted hospitals
Private-equity firms now own one in five for-profit hospitals in the United States, which is bad news for quality health care. Bethany McLean, writing in a guest column for the Washington Post, examines the failure of Steward Health Care, to show how investors can make a financial windfall while patients suffer and taxpayers are left to foot the bill:
There’s a growing body of evidence that Steward is not the exception — that private equity’s involvement is not making health care better. A review of more than 55 studies cited in Markey’s report found that private equity investments were associated with up to 32 percent higher costs to patients and insurers. Another study found that private equity-acquired hospitals have lower staff-to-patient ratios and less experienced or licensed staff than other hospitals. A recent Harvard Medical School study of Medicare patients at hospitals before and after private equity acquisition found that patients suffered 25 percent more hospital-acquired complications, including 27 percent more falls and 38 percent more bloodstream infections, post-acquisition. And so on.
Companies avoid $1 billion in taxes
Fifteen U.S. companies were able to avoid more than $1 billion in taxes because of a policy included in the 2017 Trump tax law, according to the Economic Policy Institute. EPI’s Joe Hughes and Spanda Marasini explain:
One of the tax cuts included in former President Trump’s signature 2017 tax law was the deduction for Foreign-Derived Intangible Income (FDII). The FDII deduction provides a lower effective tax rate on income earned from intangible assets, such as patents, trademarks, and other forms of intellectual property. To contain the costs of the original tax law, the FDII rate was set to rise in 2026 but still not to the full 21 percent corporate tax rate. But lawmakers should consider abandoning the FDII break entirely. Corporate financial data analyzed by ITEP shows that many large, multinational corporations have benefited substantially from the FDII break.
ICYMI: Gov. Jeff Landry is calling for a broad overhaul of Louisiana’s constitution and tax structure during a two-week special session planned for November. Invest in Louisiana recently hosted a webinar to unpack the governor’s plan and discuss how it would affect Louisiana citizens and the state budget. Click here to watch a recording of the webinar.
Number of the Day
176,882 – Number of Louisianans who cast ballots on Friday for the Nov. 5 election, a state record for the first day of early voting. (Source: Louisiana Secretary of State’s office via the Louisiana Illuminator)