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The cost of raising a child…and the benefits

You can’t really put a price on  a child’s love and happiness, but the government is trying anyway.

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its annual report on the estimated costs of raising a child to adulthood. The 2008 estimate for a middle-income family clocks in at $221,190. (Read the AP story here.)

Before you wonder why the government is in the child-care expenditure business, here’s why the figures are important:

Issued by USDA each year since 1960, the report is a valuable resource to courts and state governments in determining child support guidelines and foster care payments. For the year 2008, annual child-rearing expenses for a middle-income, two-parent family ranges from $11,610 to $13,480, depending on the age of the child.

For the typical family in Oklahoma, the costs are slightly lower than the total estimates, most likely reflecting our lower costs of living. To raise a child to age 17, the USDA estimates that families in our region will spend between $149,610 to $346,320, depending on family income.

Here’s what the USDA estimates a typical family will spend their money on during the first 17 years:

The numbers also differ by income level. This chart shows that the highest-income families spend more than twice as much as the lowest-income families on child-rearing expenses:

In a somewhat understated aside, the report notes that it excludes expenses after age 17, with the largest being college or university education:

The expenditures also exclude costs made on children after age 17. One of the largest of these expenses is the cost of a college education. The College Board (2009) estimated that in 2008-2009, annual average (enrollment-weighted) tuition and fees were $6,585 at 4-year public colleges (in-State tuition) and $25,143 at 4-year private (nonprofit) colleges; annual room and board was $7,748 at 4-year public colleges and $8,989 at 4-year private colleges. For 2-year colleges in 2008-2009, annual average tuition and fees were $2,402 at public colleges.

Of course, the naked economics of quantifying a child’s life is alternately alarming and distasteful. So I’ll leave you with a few links to some recent psychological studies of how much children enrich their parents’ lives.

This report from a pair of British psychologists looks at the pleasures and rewards of time spent on daily activities:

In terms of pleasure, the results confirmed earlier findings, suggesting that we spend an awful lot of time doing things we don’t find pleasurable, including “work” and “shopping”. Out of 18 key activities, “time with children” and “sex” both came in around mid-table, far below “outdoor activities” and “watching TV”. However, consideration of the ratings for “reward” (as opposed to pleasure) told a rather different story, with “work” now the top scorer, and “time with children” not far behind.

Meanwhile, this report attempts to explain why children bring happiness even though everyone knows being a parent is hard work:

It is, on the other hand, much more likely that we as parents will end up spending a large chunk of our time attending to the very core process of child care such as ‘Am I going to be able to pick up David from his school in time?’ or ‘How do I stop Sarah from crying?’ Most of these negative experiences are a lot less salient than the positive experiences we have with our kids, which is probably why we tend not to think about them when prompted with a question of whether or not children bring us happiness. Nevertheless, it is these small but more frequent negative experiences, rather than the less frequent but meaningful experiences, that take up most of our attention in a day. It should therefore come to no surprise to us that these negative experiences that come with parenthood will show up much more often in our subjective experiences, including happiness and life satisfaction, than activities that are, although rewarding, relatively rare.

–Paul

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Are we obsessed with Web tracking?

How much is too much when it comes to tracking our lives on the Web? Has the deluge of information online made us think differently about we see our world?

USA Today has a fascinating story today on those questions, and more.

I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say that I can get a wee bit obsessive about tracking government information on the Web. After all, that’s part of my job description. But I hadn’t realized how much this story hit home until I thought about the time I’ve spent tracking purchases from Amazon or Apple. For example, when I bought my Apple laptop in 2005, I could track its movement from the factory in China to my doorstep in Oklahoma City. And I did. Obsessively.

Of course, I don’t think I’m quite to point where I track every instance of my life on the Web. That’s the subject of this story from Wired magazine. You can also check out The Quantified Self site here. And if you’re on Twitter, you can track your life using it with this project from data visualization site Flowing Data.

The prize for the most visually interesting personal metrics project has to go to graphic designer Nicholas Felton, who has been producing “annual reports” of his life since 2005. Here’s the latest cover from 2008:

Felton’s side project is called Daytum. The Wall Street Journal interviewed him for this story back in December. The Journal also helpfully put the phenomenon in historical context:

Today’s info-chroniclers are just the latest in a long history of diarists and scientists who kept notes by hand. Nineteenth-century English inventor and statistician Francis Galton, who introduced statistical concepts such as regression to the mean, was an obsessive counter who created the first weather map and carried a homemade object called a “registrator” to, among other things, measure people’s yawns and fidgets during his talks. (Mr. Galton’s preoccupation with data, specifically with human hereditary traits, also yielded an unsavory by-product — eugenics.)

In 1937, a social research organization called Mass Observation in London used about 2,000 volunteers to develop an “anthropology of ourselves.” For more than a decade, participants recorded such things as their neighbor’s bathroom habits and what end of their cigarettes they tapped before lighting up. Personal tracking also showed up in “Cheaper by the Dozen,” a 1948 book about efficiency experts Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth and their attempts to track and optimize the daily routines of their 12 children (including when they brushed their teeth and made their beds).

Finally, the award for too much information has to go to the squirm-inducing Bedpost!

–Paul

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Oklahoma lobbyist gift database updated

Want to see which companies and lobbyists have given to state lawmakers and other officials?

Then check out the updated version of  our Lobbyist Gift database on our Right to Know page.

Twice a year, the state Ethics Commission puts an Excel file on its Web site detailing gifts to lawmakers and public officials. We take the files, combine them into one database, and make them searchable online.

This summer’s update covers the first Legislative session since a new rule went into effect limiting lobbyist gifts to $100 per lawmaker. That means each lobbyist can give up to the $100 maximum for each lawmaker or official. The previous limit was $300 in a calendar year.

Just checking the database, the overwhelming share of gifts are either football and basketball tickets or meals. Of course, the popular stereotype is one of lawmakers getting wined and dined at fancy area restaurants. But my guess is that it’s always been more about time and access than big spending at ritzy restaurants. So the new gift limits, while laudable, may not be curtailing special interest influence as they were intended.

Here’s a few totals from the first half of 2009:

(Full disclosure: My wife, Jennifer, is a former reporter who is now press secretary for the Speaker of the House. She shows up in the lobbyist gift database a few times under her maiden name, Mock, and her married name.)

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Visualizing tribal gaming revenue

In our latest story about the state’s share of tribal gaming revenue, we included an interactive map of tribes across the state and how much their gaming operations contributed to state coffers.

I’ve now added the map to our Right to Know page under the “Maps” section.

I’ve also gone back and made a chart of the same information, broken down by tribe:

Source: Oklahoma Office of State Finance

It’s important to note that these amounts are what each tribe pays to the state from its gaming profits. The share is negotiated under the state’s Tribal Compact, which began in 2004 and expires in 2020. (Oklahoma voters approved State Question 712 in 2004.)

While each tribe might have negotiated slightly different terms, the model compact provides for the following fees paid to the state:

2. The fee shall be:
a. four percent (4%) of the first Ten Million Dollars ($10,000,000.00) of adjusted gross revenues received by a tribe in a calendar year from the play of electronic amusement games, electronic bonanza-style bingo games and electronic instant bingo games,
b. five percent (5%) of the next Ten Million Dollars ($10,000,000.00) of adjusted gross revenues received by a tribe in a calendar year from the play of electronic amusement games, electronic bonanza-style bingo games and electronic instant bingo games,
c. six percent (6%) of all subsequent adjusted gross revenues received by a tribe in a calendar year from the play of electronic amusement games, electronic bonanza-style bingo games and electronic instant bingo games, and
d. ten percent (10%) of the monthly net win of the common pool(s) or pot(s) from which prizes are paid for nonhouse-banked card games. The tribe is entitled to keep an amount equal to state payments from the common pool(s) or pot(s) as part of its cost of operating the games.

–Paul

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See who got $64 million in state tax credits

It’s been a couple of years in the making, but the full effects of the state’s Taxpayer Transparency Act are finally coming to light.

The Office of State Finance’s Open Books site earlier this month posted the names of more than 5,500 individuals and businesses that used state income tax credits in 2007. You can search by name, type of tax credit and tax year. (Right now, only 2007 information is available.)

Some quick calculations of the 2007 credits show that 5,545 claimants used more than $63.6 million in state income tax credits. The maximum credit was for almost $2.4 million, while the smallest was for $1.

Here’s a list of the top credits used in 2007:

Top Income Tax Credits 2007

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The top 20 claimants in 2007 used about one-third of the total claimed, or $21.16 million in income tax credits.

Top 20 Tax Credit Claimants 2007

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Some of the venture capital tax credits came under fire back in 2006 after creative accountants, bankers and tax attorneys found loopholes to exploit. The Legislature eventually closed those loopholes, although some don’t think the law was tightened enough:

March 26, 2006: Loophole in tax law threatens budget

April 17, 2006: Tax credits await changes

April 17, 2006: Tax credits may cost state millions

May 26, 2006: Senate approves plan to close loophole

Sept. 27, 2007: Tax credit letter causes public outcry

Oct. 12, 2007: State launches inquiry into fund

Sen. Randy Brogdon, R-Owasso, led the drive for the Taxpayer Transparency Act that allows scrutiny of state finances on the Open Books site. The latest part of the act compelled the state to post a searchable database of tax credit claimants on the site by Jan. 1, 2009.

Meanwhile, the members of the state’s Incentive Review Committee released their own report and recommendations for changes to the venture capital tax credits last year. The committee had problems with the Credit for Venture Capital Investment because only firms that qualified before 1992 could issue the credits:

The committee finds this disturbing for a number of reasons. First, this creates a significant competitive advantage for the firms that do qualify, at the expense of those that do not, violating the neutrality of the tax incentive. Second, if the benefits to the State from this credit are in excess of the costs, then one of two outcomes must be the result. Either potential opportunities to increase the State’s economic outcomes are being forgone, or the private benefit for facilitating the improved outcomes is being artificially targeted to firms that existed prior to July 1, 1992.

That particular credit expired Dec. 31, 2008, and was not renewed by the Legislature. However, the tax credits can be carried forward, so they could still be utilized in coming years by taxpayers who qualified before the cut-off date.

According to financial filings, executives of BOK Financial Corp., Bank of Oklahoma’s parent company, have bought that Venture Capital Investment tax credit in previous years:

In 2007, an affiliate of BOK Financial sold Oklahoma State Income Tax Credits to (a) George Kaiser, Chairman of the Board, receiving $9,234,100, and (b) Stan Lybarger, President and Chief Executive Officer, receiving $110,000. The credits are sold to affiliates as third parties.

Interestingly, Kaiser said earlier this month that legislators should stop tax credits for deep drilling by oil and gas companies.
–Paul

(Full disclosure: An executive of The Oklahoman/NewsOK.com’s parent company, OPUBCO Communications Group, shows up in the list of tax credit claimants on the state’s Open Books site.)

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Where did that bailout money go?

As Congress debates changes to the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, the reporters at ProPublica have been keeping a tally of which banks have qualified for the loan money.

So far, just one Oklahoma bank, the parent company of Stillwater National Bank & Trust Co., has qualified. You can read its SEC disclosure about the $70 million loan here.

The U.S. House of Representatives, meanwhile, is debating additional changes, including enhanced disclosure from the Treasury Department. That includes a database and “online reports.” The transparency advocates at the Sunlight Foundation have more on that effort.

You can search for other participating banks by downloading the latest Treasury Department report here. (PDF link)

–Paul

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New Lobbying Gift database

We’ve added a new lobbyist gift database to the Your Right to Know page, just weeks before the new legislative session starts. You’ll find it in the first column under “Data.” (A direct link is here.)

You can search by lawmaker, staffer or official for gifts from lobbyists and their clients from 2006 to 2008. The database uses information filed with the state Ethics Commission.

To help you get an idea of what’s in there, here’s a list of the Top 20 gift-givers from 2006 to 2008:

Lobbying Gift Totals Top 20

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And here’s the Top 20 recipients in the same time period, although a few of them have since left office:

Lobbying Gifts Top Lawmakers

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It’ll be interesting to see the effects of new rules from last July that now put the gift limit at $100 per lawmaker or staffer in each calendar year. The previous limit was $300.

Meanwhile, there’s talk of putting even more limits on gifts. My Capitol colleagues have the latest on that effort here.

(Full disclosure: My wife, Jennifer, is a former reporter who is now press secretary for the Speaker of the House. She shows up in the lobbying gift database a few times under her maiden name, Mock.)

–Paul

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Human errors account for most data breaches, report finds

For all the stock we put in computers these days, it’s user error that often gets us in the most trouble.

That’s the conclusion from the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center. It’s wrap-up of 2008 data breaches found that human errors — losing a laptop with sensitive data, sending a CD of data to the wrong address — accounted for most of the data breaches last year.

From its latest report:

Sadly, these trends continue to plague companies and government alike, despite education on safer information handling, new laws and regulations. Mal-attacks, hacking and insider theft, account for 29.6% of those breaches that reported the causal factor. Insider theft, now at 15.7%, has more than doubled between 2007 and 2008. On the other hand, data on the move and accidental exposure, both human error categories, showed noteworthy improvement, but still account for 35.2% of those breaches that indicate cause.

Here in Oklahoma, there are two laws on the books governing data breaches. The first, to do with government agencies, went into effect in 2006. The second, dealing with private businesses, was passed in the last Legislature and went into effect in November.

You can read the ITRC’s entire report here in PDF format. The list shows nine Oklahoma-related data breaches last year, including several businesses and government agencies.

Finally, a tip of the hat to the Washington Post, which has a story on the ITRC report here.

–Paul

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Tracking foreclosure stats

As my grandfather said, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.* And there’s more than one way to track properties in foreclosure.

One of my favorite bloggers, the Wall Street Journal’s Carl Bialik, has an interesting discussion of several data services used to track foreclosures across the country.

Now before I get a bunch of hate mail from the local Realtors and other real estate types, let me say that the residential property market in most of the state is in pretty good shape. In Oklahoma, we haven’t seen the kind of runaway, double-digit increases in home values that some parts of the country have seen in the last five years.

As my colleague, Real Estate Editor Richard Mize, likes to say, “There is no national housing market.” We’re a patchwork of local markets, with some doing better or worse than others. Tracking foreclosures in most markets is no easy feat, especially when much of the data comes from courthouse data that isn’t readily available online in many markets.

As Bialik points out in his column, the main media sources for foreclosure stats are the Mortgage Bankers Association, RealtyTrac and First American CoreLogic. All three have varying methodologies to their data gathering, which gives a slightly different picture to the foreclosure rates in particular communities.

Compounding the difficulty is that foreclosure is at its heart a legal process. So your home can be placed into foreclosure, but you might work something out with your lender before it actually runs the full course of the foreclosure process. Some of the private companies tracking foreclosure activity actually report it at several different points in the process, making the numbers a little murkier.

One thing is clear, though. If your property has made it to this list, it’s probably too late.

–Paul

*Sorry, PETA fans.

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A good time to buy lettuce…and pork

Rising gasoline and grain costs continue to dent consumer’s wallets at the pump and the grocery store, but if you’re in the market for some lettuce and pork, you’re in luck.

Turns out the price of lettuce is down 3.2 percent from last year. And pork is down 4.4 percent. That’s according to the latest Consumer Price Index numbers from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Over the weekend, The New York Times published an interesting graphical representation of inflation on consumer items. It’s an effective way to look at what items make up the broader Consumer Price Index and just how much each is weighted for its share of the typical consumer’s budget.

No prizes for guessing which category claims the one of the largest percentage increases, though. Predictably, it’s gasoline, which is up 26 percent from 2007 prices. Gasoline accounts for roughly 5 percent of consumer spending, according to the BLS.

In the food category, the largest increases were in eggs–up almost 30 percent. Other dietary staples like milk, cheese and bread rose between 12 percent and 14 percent.

There is some good news, though. If you’re looking for something to blow the federal government’s $600 rebate check on, take a look at the TV category in the chart. The cost of TVs is down more than 18 percent from last year.

–Paul

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