Lead poisoning is often treated as if it’s a problem of the past. But its harmful legacy lingers today, particularly in the soil of urban centers across the United States. This story also appeared in Grist One in every two American children under the age of 6 tested between late 2018 and early 2020 had […]
Posted inToxic Labor
They clean up after natural disasters. Now they’re getting sick.
Brothers Santos and Mariano have been chasing jobs after hurricanes for nearly two decades. And the grueling work of cleaning and rebuilding after natural disasters has taken a toll on their bodies. The brothers have been hospitalized following work accidents. One accident left Santos temporarily blind and another put Mariano in a coma for days […]
Posted inToxic Labor
Transcript: Toxic labor
MARÍA HINOJOSA: WHEN POWERFUL HURRICANES, WILDFIRES OR FLOODS DESTROY COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE UNITED STATES; SCORES OF WORKERS EMERGE FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY READY TO CLEAN AND REBUILD. AND, DEAR LISTENER, YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW THIS, BUT IT IS IN FACT LATINO IMMIGRANTS WHO ARE THE ONES MORE THAN LIKELY TO PERFORM THE HARDEST CLEANING TASKS […]
Posted inAcademic Freedom
Covering clashes on campus as academic freedom challenges mount
Academic freedom in higher education is facing increased scrutiny at colleges and universities nationwide. It’s a story about campuses big and small, public and private, liberal and conservative, with few, if any, geographic boundaries. “When it comes to higher education, I don’t know if there are any safe places,” Karma Chavez, the chair of the […]
Posted inImmigration
Reporting on missing migrant children
I started reporting on missing migrant children four years ago, almost by accident. I was trekking up a steep muddy road in the northern highlands of Guatemala, looking for the mother of a 16-year-old who drowned in the Rio Grande, when a man outside a small chapel greeted my fixer and me. The man waved […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
What publishers of color taught me about building equitable collaborations
I’ve spent the past few years stewarding collaborative projects between the Center for Public Integrity and local newsrooms. These partnerships have expanded the depth of our reporting and strengthened our ability to reach audiences — and, we hope, offered equal value to our partners. But that’s not a simple matter, or a safe assumption if […]
Posted inWho Counts?
How a data wrinkle led me to a story about disinformation and our democracy
I just wanted to get the latest version of Missouri’s voter registration database cleaned up to load into The Accountability Project, a database of 1.9 billion public records. Working on TAP is a part of my job here at the Center for Public Integrity as a data reporter for local initiatives. While I was preparing […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Former Public Integrity newsroom leader lifted up ‘forgotten voices’
Lisa Yanick Litwiller, a former Center for Public Integrity director of audience whose humor, compassion, leadership and talent contributed to award-winning projects that focused on inequality, died of cancer Monday surrounded by her family at home in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. She was 46. Yanick Litwiller came to Public Integrity in 2021, building an audience team […]
Posted inLabor
Worker death in Louisiana confined space showcases dangerous trend
Early this year, Elmer Perez began his Monday shift at 9 a.m., welding inside a ship at Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors in Houma, Louisiana. Hours after Perez skipped lunch, his coworkers went looking for the undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. They found him unconscious inside the small space he was working in. The workers removed his body […]
Posted inHigh Courts, High Stakes
Public Integrity state court investigation is a Toner Prize finalist
A Center for Public Integrity investigation that revealed an under-the-radar effort pushing state high courts rightward — with far-reaching consequences — is a finalist for a Toner Prize honoring excellence in political reporting. “High Courts, High Stakes” is one of six projects recognized in the journalism contest’s national category. Other finalists include ProPublica’s investigative reporting […]
Posted inUnhoused and Undercounted
Amid rise in student homelessness, federal funding set to expire
For decades, schools have struggled to identify and support homeless students. Investigations by the Center for Public Integrity and our reporting partners in 2022 and 2023 showed that schools often undercount such students and flout the federal law that promises them equal access to education. Advocates cite meager federal funding as one reason schools don’t […]
Posted inWho Counts?
States ditched an election partnership. Voters will feel the consequences.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Eric Fey is bracing for Election Day snarls because of a decision his state made last year. This story also appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Missouri pulled out of a collaboration known as the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which helps states keep voter rolls accurate — such as […]
Posted inImmigration
When migrant children disappear, many cases remain unsolved
CULPEPER, Virginia — Jessica Mariela Domingo-Méndez skipped breakfast the morning of Jan. 20, 2023, and ran out the front door of her sister’s house to catch the school bus. The 17-year-old never returned home. This story also appeared in Scripps News Sixteen-year-old Horlandina Lopez-Perez left her aunt’s home in the middle of the night on […]
Posted inImmigration
Why are kids from Guatemala coming to Culpeper?
CULPEPER, Virginia — For years, Angie’s parents resisted her pleas to bring her to the United States. There was no legal path to bring her here from Guatemala, and she was too young to travel by herself. But the pandemic changed everything. Two years ago, the family — parents, grandfather and uncle — put their […]
Posted inImmigration
New data shows why the U.S. needs more immigrants
As the fight over immigration reached peak chaos in the U.S. Senate earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office held a press conference nearby. The director’s briefing about the latest economic forecast seemed disconnected from the political drama playing out a few blocks away. But its analysis was closely linked to immigration policy. The nonpartisan […]
Posted inUnequal Burden
How states can make taxes more equitable
Oregon taxpayers will become some of the first in the nation to have the option to self-identify their race and ethnicity when they file their tax returns next year. The reason is both simple and complex: Especially at the state level, taxes worsen America’s yawning wealth gaps rather than easing them. A growing number of […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
What will generative AI mean for the racial wealth gap?
Kelcey Gibbons, a doctoral student who studies African Americans in technology and the Black middle class, is not quite sure what she makes of generative artificial intelligence and how it might impact the racial wealth gap. Gibbons anticipates that generative AI will force organizations to rethink which skills matter in the workplace, aggravating existing inequalities without […]
Posted inUnequal Burden
More tax cuts put states’ revenue at risk
At least a dozen proposals for income tax cuts that would primarily benefit wealthy residents and big companies are already on the table for state legislatures to consider in 2024 — and more are likely to come. This follows on the heels of 26 states cutting their personal income tax rates, corporate income tax rates […]
Posted inWho Counts?
In more places this year, people can vote in their first language
A larger swath of the country will have access to translated ballots this year than in any prior presidential election. Under federal Voting Rights Act requirements, 331 voting areas in 30 states must provide language access to more than 24 million voters with limited English proficiency. That’s a 26% increase in voting areas under the […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
The little-known corner of finance pitching heirs on fast cash
Don’t call them “lenders.” That’s the pushback David Horton got after an article he co-wrote called “Probate Lending” published in a law review journal in 2016. The article described the business practice of offering an estate’s beneficiaries an advance on their expected inheritance. In each deal he analyzed, the heir would get a slice of […]
Posted inAcademic Freedom
DEI attacks pose threats to medical training, care
When Andrea Montañez visited her Orlando-area cardiologist two years ago to treat her abnormally fast heart rate, the receptionists and nurses often misgendered her. This story also appeared in USA TODAY For a couple of years following her transition, Montañez’s insurance information still listed her deadname and identified her as male. Despite informing the office […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Denied
The decades-long fight in a community treated as a dumping ground
Protecting people’s health from environmental hazards, Maricela Mares-Alatorre and her family found out the hard way, is a never-ending fight. She was in high school in the late 1980s when her parents, both farmworkers, organized to help prevent the construction of a toxic waste incinerator in the landfill near Kettleman City, a tiny agricultural community […]
Posted inUnhoused and Undercounted
Homeless-student investigation honored in data journalism contest
A collaborative Center for Public Integrity investigation into the patchwork safety net for homeless students has been recognized with a special citation in the Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Philip Meyer Journalism Award. The contest honors “the best uses of social science research methods in journalism,” often sophisticated and groundbreaking data analyses. “Unhoused and Undercounted,” in […]
Posted inWho Counts?
More states are pushing for race and ethnicity data equity
Middle Eastern and North African people in Nevada who are often misclassified as white or undercounted by state service providers will have a choice to self-identify for the first time under a new sub-category that more accurately represents them. As of Jan. 1, a new state law requires that all government agencies in Nevada collecting […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Public Integrity wins January Sidney Award for debt collection investigation
A Center for Public Integrity investigation into states’ harsh and often counterproductive collections tactics for unpaid income tax has won the January Sidney Award. The prize is awarded by the Sidney Hillman Foundation to an “outstanding piece of journalism that appeared in the prior month.” Among the findings: at least nine states can suspend or […]
Posted inElections
Resolutions for a free and fair 2024 election
It’s a big election year with an imposing backdrop: swirling misinformation, changing laws around voting and deep concerns about the health of American democracy. On top of a monumental presidential election, U.S. voters will select 11 governors, 34 U.S. Senators and 82 state supreme court justices, decide dozens of statewide ballot measures and choose literally […]
Posted inAcademic Freedom
Attacks on tenure leave college professors eyeing the exits
This story also appeared in USA TODAY Subscribe on Google | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon College professors once regarded Wisconsin as one of the safest places to work, with the right to be tenured baked into state law. Then, in 2015, the state removed that right and sent dozens of instructors running toward the exits. Karma Chávez was among those […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
How distrust in government leads to civic disengagement
Professor Manuel Teodoro did not set out to write a book about civic engagement and democracy. He was just curious about some roadside water kiosks. In “The Profits of Distrust,” Teodoro and his co-authors, Samantha Zuhlke and David Switzer, explore the relationship between civic engagement and the sale of bottled water or from a kiosk. […]
Posted inUnequal Burden
Behind on state income taxes? Here’s what you need to know.
What happens if you don’t have the money to pay your state income tax bill? As the Center for Public Integrity has investigated the impact of state taxes on economic inequality, we kept hearing how states’ collection practices weighed on lower-income residents. But states typically put fewer specifics on their websites than the IRS does […]
Posted inUnequal Burden
State tax collectors push struggling people deeper into hardship
This story also appeared in USA TODAY In rural Abita Springs, Louisiana, it’s nearly impossible to get anywhere by foot. Driving is a means of survival. Jacques LeBourgeois, 66, understands this better than most. He lost his driver’s license because of a tax debt to the state. “I get a letter in the mail, saying, […]