Stephan Bisaha
Stephan Bisaha is the wealth and poverty reporter for the Gulf States Newsroom, a regional collaboration between NPR and member stations in Alabama (WBHM), Mississippi (MPB) and Louisiana (WWNO and WRKF). He reports on the systemic drivers of poverty in the region and economic development.
Before joining the team, Stephan spent three years as an education reporter for the Kansas News Service, a network of member stations in Kansas. He also spent a year as a Kroc Fellow for NPR, where he did the data analysis for an investigation into the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, produced Weekend Edition and reported in Birmingham.
He was born and raised in New Jersey. His hobbies include cooking, improv and physical fitness.
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The government provided Americans with a vital financial lifeline during the pandemic, including through the Child Tax Credit. The help improved lives – but for many it still wasn't enough. -
Louisiana and Mississippi rank at the bottom nationally when it comes to the percentage of tech jobs in the state workforce. Alabama sits in the middle of the list, mostly because of Huntsville’s research park.
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Guaranteed income as a form of social welfare will get its first test run in the Gulf South soon thanks to programs starting in Alabama and Louisiana.
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Updates to SNAP, TANF and the Child Tax Credit have helped families in the Gulf South, but not everyone has been able to access the improved benefits.
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Experts hail increases to federal funding for low-income families — like the Child Tax Credit and increases in SNAP benefits — as historic. But did they leave recipients better off?
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Southern ports report higher traffic, but problems on the ground keep them from being a true solution to the supply chain tangle.
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Charities are always looking for an answer to one big question: What is the best way to help people? Increasingly the solution they are trying is pretty simple: just give people money.
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A slowed rollout to federal aid, tedious applications and non-cooperative landlords are just some of the issues renters are now facing a few months after the CDC’s eviction moratorium ended.
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New data shows about $910 million meant to prevent evictions had yet to be used by the end of September in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
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Jackson, Miss., is a city with two identities. There's the part which is more than 80% Black, led by a mayor who wants to make it "the most radical city on the planet." Then there's the state capital.
