Maryland Gov. Wes Moore will issue a mass pardon of more than 175,000 marijuana convictions Monday morning, one of the nation’s most sweeping acts of clemency involving a drug now in widespread recreational use.
Maryland
12 Least Affordable States for Renters
Full-time staff are feeling the pinch in right now’s rental market. A nationwide housing scarcity and skyrocketing property values—coupled with fewer pay raises for the overall working inhabitants in current a long time—are fueling a squeeze within the rental market. However how inexpensive is hire in your state?
With a purpose to assess affordability, Foothold Know-how checked out hire and wage traits in every state and Washington D.C. based mostly on the U.S. Division of Housing and City Growth’s Honest Market Hire and the common renter’s wage in every state, as proven in a 2022 evaluation from the Nationwide Low Earnings Housing Coalition. The 12 least inexpensive states on this record are ranked based mostly on the variety of jobs wanted at a median renter’s wage to afford a modest two-bedroom unit.
HUD’s Honest Market Hire metric is often set on the fortieth percentile of hire for typical items—which means barely under the common hire in a given metro space. It excludes low-quality, already sponsored, and lately constructed items. And within the case of the NLIHC evaluation, “inexpensive” is used to explain month-to-month rental charges that equate to 30% or much less of a renter’s revenue.
Right this moment, a renter within the U.S. must make $25.82 an hour, up from $24.90 final yr, with a purpose to afford hire for a modest two-bedroom house, in response to the NLIHC. If the renter wants only one bed room of house, they might want to earn $21.25 per hour on common. Entry to secure housing is likely one of the core parts of the Social Determinants of Well being.
Hire affordability by state
In 49 states, together with Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, the common renter working full time doesn’t earn sufficient to afford HUD’s definition of a reasonably priced rental house. North Dakota, which has loved an oil and gasoline associated increase for the final a number of years, is the one state that breaks this mildew, in response to the 2021 NLIHC report. In virtually each state within the U.S., median family incomes haven’t saved up with the speed at which the median hire has risen, from the flip of the century via 2018. That’s in response to a report from the Heart on Finances and Coverage Priorities cited by the NLIHC.
A complete of 20 states nonetheless lack a state-level minimal wage regulation exceeding the federal degree, permitting companies to legally pay as little as $7.25 per hour for labor, which is the federal minimal wage. An individual incomes the federal minimal wage would wish to work greater than two full-time jobs every week to afford a modest two-bedroom rental unit. The federal minimal wage doesn’t improve with inflation, and the final time it was raised was over 13 years in the past. Nevertheless it’s removed from simply the lowest-paid People who discover the price of dwelling too excessive.
The common renter makes an hourly wage of $21.99, in response to the 2022 NLIHC evaluation of BLS information. About 5.8% of adults within the U.S. had been thought of housing insecure in Could 2022, the latest month for which the U.S. Census Bureau has revealed information on the portion of People behind on their hire or mortgage funds and who’ve little to no confidence they will pay subsequent month’s invoice. Housing insecurity was highest in New York, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
In the meantime, hire costs are being pushed to document ranges throughout the nation. Contributing to the will increase are a scarcity of accessible housing, together with each single-family properties and multifamily house complexes. Landlords have additionally cited the growing prices of sustaining properties as a purpose for rising rents. Since early 2021, the median hire within the U.S. has ballooned from round $1,500 to $1,879 in July 2022, in response to Realtor.com information. It was the seventeenth month straight for which median rents set a document.
As housing turns into extra unaffordable throughout the nation it will increase the probability of homelessness amongst weak populations, which may result in associated behavioral well being points..
#12. New Hampshire
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.3
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $1,015
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): Boston-Cambridge-Quincy HMFA
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Coos County
New Hampshire is the twelfth least inexpensive state for renters. It shares the Boston-Cambridge metro space with one other state that landed on the rating—Massachusetts. By comparability, New Hampshire is extra inexpensive for renters searching for a two-bedroom house than Massachusetts. Renters in New Hampshire earn a median wage of $20 per hour, which means a reasonably priced two-bedroom rental is simply out of attain—except renters tackle a further part-time job or extra working hours.
#11. Florida
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.3
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $1,069
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): Monroe County
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Levy County
Florida, which has seen an inflow of immigration from different states in recent times, is the eleventh least inexpensive state for renters in 2022. The common renter earns a wage of $21 per hour, and has to juggle a further job to afford a reasonably priced two-bedroom rental.
#10. Oregon
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.3
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $1,072
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Baker County
Renters dwelling in Oregon’s priciest metro space (Portland) want to tug in not less than six figures yearly to afford the common two-bedroom hire. That’s in response to an Condominium Record evaluation of hire information that makes use of the 30% of revenue rule for housing bills. Oregon is the tenth least inexpensive state for renters, and the common renter there earns $21 per hour, or simply over $40,000 yearly.
#9. Connecticut
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.3
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $1,108
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): Stamford-Norwalk
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Windham County
Connecticut ranks the ninth least inexpensive state for renters. A renter who earns the common wage of $21 an hour would wish to tackle not less than a further part-time job at the same price to afford a reasonably priced two-bedroom rental.
#8. Maryland
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.3
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $1,119
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): Washington-Arlington-Alexandria
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Cumberland and Allegany County
The common renter earns $22 an hour in Maryland, which means they must work greater than 40 hours every week to maintain prices on a reasonably priced two-bedroom rental beneath 30% of their revenue. Maryland is the eighth least inexpensive state for renters, although the lowest-priced leases may be present in Cumberland and Allegany Counties.
#7. New Jersey
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.3
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $1,211
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): Jersey Metropolis
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Burlington County, and Camden County
The least costly rents in New Jersey—the seventh least inexpensive state for renters—are present in suburban Philadelphia, the place the common hire on a two bed room house is $2,295, in response to Condominium Record.
#6. California
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.3
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $1,580
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): San Francisco
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Bakersfield
California ranks #6 by way of states which might be most troublesome for renters to afford housing. The common renter earns $30 an hour, the very best of another state within the prime 12 least inexpensive for renters. Nonetheless, a scarcity of housing inventory and the recognition of the Golden State has meant increased rents for the final a number of a long time. A employee has to juggle multiple job in California to afford a reasonably priced two-bedroom rental.
#5. Maine
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.4
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $815
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): Portland
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Piscataquis County
In Maine, a renter must work not less than a part-time job on prime of their common 40-hour workweek with a purpose to comfortably afford a two-bedroom house. The common renter earns $16 per hour, which means that in the event that they saved their housing bills every month to 30% of revenue, they may afford to spend $815 per 30 days on a rental. The common two-bedroom hire within the priciest metro of Portland, Maine is sort of twice that at $1,622, in response to information from Condominium Record.
#4. Vermont
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.4
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $856
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): Burlington-South Burlington
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Essex County
Vermont is the fourth-least inexpensive state to hire in, but it surely’s significantly dear for those who’re renting within the Burlington metro space. Essex County, positioned within the northeastern a part of the state close to the Canadian border with Quebec, provides the bottom rents within the Inexperienced Mountain State. The common renter earns $16 an hour, which means they should work extra than simply full time to maintain their housing prices at or under 30% of their revenue.
#3. Rhode Island
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.4
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $889
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): Newport-Middleton-Portsmouth
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Windfall-Fall River
The smallest state by land mass, Rhode Island, is the third-least inexpensive state to hire within the U.S. With a $17 an hour common wage, renters must juggle a number of jobs with a purpose to afford a reasonable high quality two-bedroom house. The Windfall-Fall River metro space provides a number of the greatest rental costs within the state.
#2. Massachusetts
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 1.4
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $1,431
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): Boston-Cambridge-Quincy
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Western Worcester County
Massachusetts is the second-least inexpensive state to hire. The common renter earns $28 an hour, however must work not less than a part-time job on the aspect with a purpose to comfortably afford a reasonably priced two-bedroom house. In Boston, the hardest metro space to afford hire, a scarcity of housing and surge of out of doors funding in beforehand inexpensive areas are turning up the warmth for renters.
#1. Hawaii
– Jobs at common renter’s wage wanted to afford a 2-bedroom: 2
– Month-to-month hire inexpensive at common renter’s wage: $1,071
– Costliest space within the state (per housing wage): City Honolulu
– Least costly space within the state (per housing wage): Hawaii County
The Aloha State ranks the only least inexpensive state when taking into consideration the common wages earned by renters. The common renter in Hawaii must work two jobs to afford a modest two-bedroom house on the estimated common wage of $21 per hour.
The island life continues to attract newcomers from the mainland, however Hawaii’s relative isolation within the Pacific Ocean additionally means increased worth tags on every part from meals to housing. Honolulu, a thriving vacationer market, is the state’s costliest metro space. The common hire for a two-bedroom house in Honolulu is greater than $2,700 per 30 days, in response to Condominium Record.
“I’m ecstatic that we have a real opportunity with what I’m signing to right a lot of historical wrongs,” Moore said in an interview. “If you want to be able to create inclusive economic growth, it means you have to start removing these barriers that continue to disproportionately sit on communities of color.”
Moore called the scope of his pardons “the most far-reaching and aggressive” executive action among officials nationwide who have sought to unwind criminal justice inequities with the growing legalization of marijuana. Nine other states and multiple cities have pardoned hundreds of thousands of old marijuana convictions in recent years, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Legalized marijuana markets reap billions in revenue for state governments each year, and polls show public sentiment on the drug has also turned — with more people both embracing cannabis use and repudiating racial disparities exacerbated by the War on Drugs.
The pardons, timed to coincide with Wednesday’s Juneteenth holiday, a day that has come to symbolize the end of slavery in the United States, come from a rising star in the Democratic Party and the lone Black governor of a U.S. state whose ascent is built on the promise to “leave no one behind.”
Derek Liggins, 57, will be among those pardoned Monday, more than 16 years after his last day in prison for possessing and dealing marijuana in the late-1990s. Despite working hard to build a new life after serving time, Liggins said he still loses out on job opportunities and potential income.
“You can’t hold people accountable for possession of marijuana when you’ve got a dispensary on almost every corner,” he said.
Nationwide, according to the ACLU, Black people were more than three times as likely than White people to be arrested for marijuana possession. President Biden in 2022 issued a mass pardon of federal marijuana convictions — a reprieve for roughly 6,500 people — and urged governors to follow suit in states, where the vast majority of marijuana prosecutions take place.
Maryland’s pardon action rivals only Massachusetts, where the governor and an executive council together issued a blanket pardon in March expected to impact hundreds of thousands of people.
But Moore’s pardons appear to stand alone in the impact to communities of color in a state known for having one of the nation’s worst records for disproportionately incarcerating Black people for any crimes. More than 70 percent of the state’s male incarcerated population is Black, according to state data, more than double their proportion in society.
The most diverse state on the East Coast, Maryland has a dramatically higher concentration of Black people compared with other states that have issued broad pardons for marijuana: 33 percent of Maryland’s population is Black, while the next highest is Illinois, with 15 percent.
Maryland is the only state in the D.C. region that has fully legalized cannabis sales, though both the District and Virginia have decriminalized possession and have gray markets for the drug. Virginia and D.C. have not issued mass pardons of cannabis convictions, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, but Biden’s pardons had impact in D.C. because they applied to thousands of people arrested on federal land.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown (D), called the pardons “certainly long overdue as a nation” and “a racial equity issue.”
“While the pardons will extend to anyone and everyone with a misdemeanor conviction for the possession of marijuana or paraphernalia, this unequivocally, without any doubt or reservation, disproportionately impacts — in a good way — Black and Brown Marylanders,” he said in an interview. “We are arrested and convicted at higher rates for possession and use of marijuana when the rate at which we used it was no different than any other category of people.”
Reducing the state’s mass incarceration disparity has been a chief goal of Moore, Brown and Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue, who are all the first Black people to hold their offices in the state. Brown and Dartigue have launched a prosecutor-defender partnership to study the “the entire continuum of the criminal system,” from stops with law enforcement to reentry, trying to detect all junctures where discretion or bias could influence how justice is applied, and ultimately reform it.
Maryland officials said the pardons, which would also apply to people who are dead, will not result in releasing anyone from incarceration because none are imprisoned. Misdemeanor cannabis charges yield short sentences and prosecutions for misdemeanor criminal possession have stopped, as possessing small amounts of the drug is legal statewide.
Moore’s pardon action will automatically forgive every misdemeanor marijuana possession charge the Maryland judiciary could locate in the state’s electronic court records system, along with every misdemeanor paraphernalia charge tied to use or possession of marijuana. Maryland is the only state to pardon such paraphernalia charges, state officials said.
The electronic records in some Maryland jurisdictions date back to the 1980s, while others begin in the 1990s or later. People with older cannabis convictions stored on paper records may also apply for a pardon.
Demographic data on those pardoned is limited as of Monday.
But Moore’s administration noted nearly a quarter of the pardoned convictions were in Baltimore — a city with a history of unconstitutional over-policing of Black communities — even though less than 10 percent of the state’s population lives there. In the D.C. suburbs, roughly 12 percent of the pardoned convictions are in Prince George’s County, and 6 percent are in Montgomery County.
An ACLU report from 2013 noted that cannabis arrests in states increased nationwide in the first decade of the century, and Maryland and D.C. had among the top five highest arrest rates in the country.
As recently as 2020, according to a state analysis, cannabis arrests in Maryland exceeded 10,000 per year — nearly a decade after possession of small amounts was decriminalized and three years after it became legal to be a medical patient.
As Maryland prepared to legalize the drug for recreational use in 2022 — joining nearly two dozen other states — a report by state analysts found that White Maryland residents use cannabis at higher rates than Black residents, but Black people were more than twice as likely to be charged with possession. By law, 35 percent of the tax revenue generated by legal marijuana sales must go back into communities where cannabis enforcement was disproportionate to the rest of the state.
“The entire basis of the work that we did was about righting injustices from the War on Drugs,” said Del. Jheanelle K. Wilkins (D-Montgomery), chair of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus. She noted Maryland has newly elevated Black people to key offices of power — the House speaker among them — and said, “We’re in this moment in Maryland where we’re truly focused on equity.”
People who benefit from the mass pardon will see the charges marked in state court records within two weeks, and they will be eliminated from criminal background check databases within 10 months. The convictions, however, will still appear in public court records unless someone applies for an expungement.
Other states have forgone pardons — which forgive the crime — and instead simply blocked cannabis convictions from public view. California, for example, has sealed, dismissed or expunged more than 200,000 convictions since a 2018 law passed requiring it.
The nationwide efforts to lessen the impact of marijuana convictions follow a recent loosening of federal regulations that could clear the way for more widespread access to the drug across the United States.
The Biden administration began working on the issue in 2022, when the president directed health officials to review whether existing science supported reclassifying cannabis so that it would no longer be considered a Schedule I controlled substance, which carries the most stringent restrictions. Other Schedule I drugs include heroin, LSD and ecstasy.
Health officials recommended reclassifying cannabis as a Schedule III drug, which puts it among substances such as Tylenol with codeine, ketamine and anabolic steroids. In April, the Drug Enforcement Administration concurred with federal health officials and Attorney General Merrick Garland officially recommended reclassifying the drug.
Although reclassification does not legalize cannabis federally, it does pave the way for more research on the drug and may broaden access to medical marijuana.
This year for the first time marijuana surpassed alcohol in daily use, with 17.7 million people reporting daily or near-daily marijuana use.
Liggins, who is being pardoned, said he applauds Moore’s forgiveness of marijuana crimes that would not be prosecuted under Maryland’s laws today — even if it wasn’t immediately clear how much this would transform his life.
Shortly after leaving prison in 2008, the Center for Urban Families helped find the job he still holds today with an HVAC construction company in Baltimore. He said his employer trusts him to lead teams on multimillion-dollar projects as a foreman, but Liggins cannot work on the highest-paying contracts with the federal government because of his marijuana convictions. Despite his pardon, Liggins is unsure whether a related charge for providing a false statement will still prevent him from working on those projects.
“A person can change,” he said. “A person should be able to pay their debt to society and start fresh.”
Ovetta Wiggins contributed to this report.
Maryland
DNA evidence from Los Angeles home invasion helps investigators find Maryland murder suspect
Authorities in Maryland tracked down a suspect connected to the 2023 killing of a mother of five with the help of DNA evidence from a home invasion in Los Angeles.
According to the Harford County Sheriff’s Office, Rachel Morin, 37, was found dead one day after going missing on a hiking trail on August 6 of last year. Officials said Morin was attacked and pulled off the trail before being killed.
The case remained unsolved for several months as the suspect escaped the scene, with only sketches released depicting his face.
That all changed on Friday, however, when a man was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma on suspicion of murder and rape in connection to Morin’s death.
The turning point in the case, authorities said, was DNA evidence from a March 2023 home invasion in Los Angeles. The alleged killer, 23-year-old Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, is also suspected of attacking a 9-year-old girl and her mother in the L.A. case.
Authorities say Martinez-Hernandez entered the United States illegally in February 2023 from El Salvador. He was identified through the DNA evidence in May, though it took more time to find his location before he was found in Tulsa.
There was no word on when he’ll be extradited to Maryland for a potential criminal trial. No motive is currently known, authorities said.
Game Time Comedy presents a night of great stand up comedy featuring nationally-touring headliners Sasha Srbulj and Dan Altano. Also featuring Garrett Harvest.
About Your Comedians
Sasha Srbulj is a standup comedian and creator of the comedy special ‘Artificial Ignorance’ on Amazon Prime. He performs regularly at major clubs in New York, around the US & Internationally. His inspiration is drawn mostly from the feeling of “this can’t be it?!” and that faint notion that buying more crap may not be the path to peace & fulfillment. Sasha has traveled the world and found peace of mind nowhere. Performances in Paris, Barcelona, Los Angeles, and all over New York have done nothing to quench the turmoil of his mind growing like tendrils of curly hair from an ever more confused head. Audiences find the entire process very amusing. You can find his sensibility in the nooks of consciousness where flashes occur like “I shouldn’t be eating this.” & “We elected who?”.
Dan Altano has carved a name for himself in the national comedy scene by narrating his life story with brutal honesty, wit, and heart. Raised in New Jersey, Dan headlines clubs and theaters across the country. Dan’s 2023 Album, Stand-Up Dad, debuted at #1 on the iTunes Comedy Charts and is currently played on constant rotation on Sirius XM radio. Offstage, Dan is the co-host of the podcast Rank It! and is a member of the sketch comedy group Sketch Artists.
Tickets are only $10
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