Alaska Progress Report

Alaska long-term care costs highest in nation

The annual cost of care report from Genworth compares long-term care costs across the nation. As usual, Alaska ranks in the top three in median annual costs across all relevant measures:

• Licensed homemaker services: #1, $55,484 versus $41,184 nationally.
• Licensed home health aide services: #3, $56,628 versus $43,472 nationally.
• Adult day care: #2, $27,040 versus $15,860 nationally.
• Assisted living, one bedroom single occupancy: #2, $66,000 versus $39,600 nationally.
• Nursing home, semi-private room: #1, $273,750 versus $73,000 nationally.
• Nursing home, private room: #1, $232,505 versus $81,030 nationally.

As care moves from home to community to facility the costs go up and the disparity between Alaska and the national average widens. A lot of that is likely due to the cost of care in rural communities, where keeping a facility open is even more expensive. One anomaly from the data above is that a private room costs less than a semi-private room in Alaska; this would make sense if the only private rooms available were in urban areas, where costs tend to be lower, while semi-private rooms are averaged across the entire state to include more expensive rural communities.

Rural energy costs up to five times higher than Anchorage

From a recently completed Commonwealth North study, Energy for a Sustainable Alaska: The Rural Conundrum: "Recent studies have demonstrated that the poorest households in rural Alaska spent up to 47% of their income on energy in 2008, more than five times their Anchorage neighbor. Given the meteoric rise in the cost of oil since then, estimates of the burden today are significantly higher.

"The Commonwealth North Rural and Alterative Energy Study Group received presentations from regional organizations on energy plans in various stages of developments. Virtually all the plans included some version of renewable energy - generally still in the early concept design stage - and interconnection of communities to that generation source. All the plans appeared to be very high cost, upward of $500 million per region, and none would dramatically lower the cost of energy without massive government subsidies.

"The Renewable Energy Fund, established in 2008, is authorized to underwrite $250-300 million of energy projects, but with projects for small communities coming in at $4-5 million each, it is likely that per-community renewable solutions will cost $2 billion statewide, and will at best keep electricity prices stable into the future. Heat and transportation fuel substitutions will greatly increase this number."

2010 Trooper reports spotlight rural sex crimes, alcohol abuse

The 2010 Annual Report for the Alaska State Troopers is out, and the historical data for the period 2006-2010 shows offenses have increased over the past few years in almost all of the ten categories tracked. Yet in almost every category the number of offenses in 2010 are still fewer than the high point earlier in the period tracked.

In sheer numbers assault is the leader with 3,775 offenses in 2010, significantly higher than any other year 2006-2009. Theft is the only other category to set a high-water mark in that period. Criminal mischief is the only category to decline 2009 to 2010. More disturbing is the unequal distribution of crimes. The Anchorage Daily News reports that the C detachment, which covers Western and Southwestern Alaska from Kotzebue to Kodiak to the Aleutians, has an extremely disproportionate share of offenses, especially in the areas of sexual assault and sexual abuse of a minor: about half of all offenses in each category statewide are recorded in C detachment's area of operations.

Alcohol, not surprisingly, is often a contributing factor, as the 2010 annual report of the Alaska Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Enforcement makes clear: "Of all cases initiated by the Alaska State Troopers in 2010, 37% involved drugs and/or alcohol. Of all violent crime cases, 61.9% involved drugs and/or alcohol... Alaska’s criminal justice professionals recognize that alcohol is the primary substance of abuse in Alaska and is the leading cause of violent, suicidal, and accidental deaths, especially in rural areas."

Alaska tied for second-lowest poverty rate

It must be true, I read it in the American Community Survey (as reported by the Alaska Dispatch): "According to the survey, 9.9 percent of Alaska households fell below their respective poverty thresholds in 2010, putting the state in an effective statistical tie for second-lowest with Connecticut, Maryland, and New Jersey. New Hampshire's rate was found lowest, at 8.3 percent. Mississippi's was highest, at 22.4 percent."

More on poverty from the Alaska Economic Overview: "Alaska is a high-cost place to live, which can be especially challenging for those who have the least. To accommodate these high costs, federal poverty guidelines are 25 percent higher in Alaska than in the Lower 48. (Hawaii also has special poverty guidelines.) The guidelines are used to determine eligibility for a number of federal programs.

"In Alaska in 2010, a person was considered to be living in poverty if he or she earned up to $13,600 annually, or up to $27,940 for a family of four. For comparison, the average annual wage in the state was $47,700, as shown in the chart below. According to the 2010 American Community Survey, 9.9 percent of all individuals and 7.2 percent of families in Alaska were living at or below the poverty line."

Alaskan women earn 67 cents to a man's dollar

From the October 2011 Alaska Economic Trends: "On average, women in Alaska earn less than men, and that gap exists across all industries, age groups, geographic areas, and most occupations. In 2010, an Alaska woman earned 67 cents to a man’s dollar — a 5 cent increase from 1990.

"Nearly half of Alaska workers are female, but women here make less than 40 percent of total state earnings. This disparity translates into lower average annual earnings for women and a gap of $14,361 from men’s earnings in 2010. The average Alaska woman earned $29,323 — 67 percent of the average man’s $43,684.

"The discrepancy isn’t easy to explain. Within the same occupation, earning differences by gender may be a result of training and experience disparities, the number of hours worked in a year, or discrimination. This report doesn’t examine these variables, which are not measured by any currently available data source."

Violent death in Alaska, suicide most common

Grim statistics from the state: "The Alaska Violent Death Reporting System 2003-2008 Summary report provides a detailed summary of six years of data concerning all types of violent deaths collected by the Alaska Violent Death Reporting System."

• In 2003-2008, there were 1347 violent deaths in Alaska, accounting for 7% of all deaths in Alaska and a combined rate of 33.7 violent deaths per 100,000 persons.
• Suicide accounted for the highest rate of violent death (21.7 per 100,000 persons), followed by the combined rates for homicide/legal intervention (6.4 per 100,000 persons) and undetermined intent and unintentional firearm deaths (5.5 per 100,000 persons, respectively).
• Highest rates by age group were found among children aged <1 yearand adults aged 20-29 years (84.0 and 59.9 per 100,000 persons, respectively).

View the entire report for the gory breakdown. Also available, a new report on deaths from firearms: "From 2003–2008, firearm injury hospitalizations and deaths disproportionately affected males, Blacks, AI/AN people, and people living in the Northern and Southwest regions. Firearm injury death rates by intent were consistently highest for suicide, but this was not the case for hospitalization rates. A plausible explanation for this difference is that suicide attempts with a firearm are almost always fatal."

Alaska ranks 30th on obesity, 2nd on breastfeeding

You gotta love a report titled, "F as in Fat." Published annually by the Trust for America's Health (burp!) the report ranks states on a number of obesity-related measures:

• 25.9% of Alaskans are obese, and 64.9% are overweight or obese compared to 68% nationwide.
• In Alaska 23.9% of men and 28.1% of women are obese.
• 5.9% of Alaskan adults have diabetes, tied with Colorado for the lowest rate.
• 22.8% of Alaskan adults are physically inactive, rank 33rd.
• 24.3% of Alaskans have hypertension, ranked 48th.

These are mixed numbers to be sure, and they vary considerably by race although the margin of error for the minority samples in Alaska are very high. Policies and programs are looked at as well, and Alaska is generally portrayed in the study as lacking most best-practice efforts to curb obesity and related health problems.

On a very positive note, the report says that although only 13.3% of mothers in America are breastfeeding through six months, in Alaska that rate was 23.7% in 2007, the second highest rate in the nation, just behind Oregon.

Alaska 20th for infant mortality rate in 2007

According to a recent National Vital Statistics Report (v59, n6), Alaska had 73 infant deaths in 2007, the latest year's data. This ranked Alaska as the 20th lowest state with a infant mortality rate of 6.61 deaths per 1,000 live births, versus the national rate of 6.74. This is an improvement from 2006 when we were ranked 28th with a rate of 7.0 versus a national rate of 6.68.

"...more than half (54 percent) of all infant deaths in the US in 2007 occurred to the 2 percent of infants born very preterm (less than 32 weeks of gestation). Still, infant mortality rates for late preterm infants (34-36 weeks of gestation) were 3.6 times, and those for early term (37-38 weeks) infants were 1.5 times those for infants born at 39-41 weeks of gestation, the gestational age with the lowest infant mortality rate. The three leading causes of infant death - Congenital malformations, low birthweight, and SIDS - accounted for 45 percent of all infant deaths. The percentage of infant deaths that were “preterm-related” was 36.0 percent in 2007."

"...Across the U.S. rates are generally higher in the south and Midwest and lower elsewhere. For 2005-2007 infant mortality rates ranged from 10.64 for Mississippi to 4.88 for Washington and 4.89 for Utah. The highest rate noted (12.80) was for the District of Columbia (D.C.); however, the rate for the D.C. is more appropriately compared with rates for other large U.S. cities, because of the high concentrations of high-risk women in these areas."

Alaska one of 12 states with no online services for low income

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: "Virtually all states have made basic program information on the five main state-administered low-income benefit programs — SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as Food Stamps), Medicaid, CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program), TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), and child care assistance — available to the public via the Internet.  Many, however, go much further, providing information such as application forms and data on the number of participants.  A number of states allow individuals to apply for benefits and transact certain related business online."

Oh well, at least we can apply for the Permanent Fund Dividend online...

Alaskan women earn 76.5 percent of what men earn

From the National Partnership for Women and Families, using their Alaska Fact Sheet: "In Alaska, on average, a woman working full time is paid $39,017 per year, while a man working full time is paid $51,019 per year. This creates a wage gap of $12,002 between full-time working men and women in the state." That means women in Alaska earned 76.5% of what men earn, on average, in 2009. That's roughly the same as the national rate.

The fact sheet also notes: "The women of Alaska are increasingly responsible for the economic security of their families and cannot afford to face discrimination and lower wages.

• Nearly 64 percent of working mothers in Alaska bring in more than a quarter of their families’ income, and 27,017 households in Alaska are headed by women.
• Nearly 22 percent of women-headed households in Alaska live below the poverty level. Eliminating the wage gap would provide critical income to 5,916 families living in poverty."

A related report from the feds, Women in America 2011: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being, presents some good news to go along with the bad, perhaps most importany that nationally, younger women are more likely than younger men to have a college degree.