Pew Charitable Trusts

Massachusetts began offering career training because extensive research showed that finding and keeping a full-time job was the most important indicator of success in overcoming drug and alcohol addiction.

When Tadd Johnson got a call in February that a Native American tribal elder in northern Minnesota had died and authorities were preparing to do an autopsy over his family’s objections, the message was simple.

States have employed a host of energy-saving programs, green-purchase requirements, building efficiency standards and financial incentive arrangements to meet those goals. So how are they doing in meeting targets they have set for themselves?

Wisconsin was only one of about two dozen states where members of Republican-led majorities in one or both chambers introduced either right-to-work bills, aimed at preventing workers from being forced to pay union dues, or measures to roll back prevailing wage laws that establish workers’ pay on public projects.

Fed up with federal inaction, many states found their own ways to address crumbling roads and bridges.

Rural areas are more likely to be poor, with limited transportation, making it that much harder for the homeless to get to a center that can provide counseling, a housing voucher or medical care.