Month: May 2026

New statewide polling shows Alaskans have near-record negative views of the state’s economy, with opinions more pessimistic than they were during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic emergency.

Those views, which mirror national trends, were published this week by Alaska Survey Research and analyst Ivan Moore.

On a scale of 0-100, Alaskans give the state economy a score of 42.6, two-tenths of a point above a record low recorded in fall 2023.

Moore has been asking Alaskans the same six economic questions regularly since spring 2010.

“I wish that we were living up right now to the old adage that how the economy goes in the United States, we do the reverse,” he said on Thursday when asked about the results.

The survey’s score peaked in 2014, when Alaska oil prices were near record highs, government spending was up and the Permanent Fund dividend was large.

When oil prices plunged in 2014 and 2015, so did public opinion. Opinions rebounded in late 2017 and early 2018 but tumbled again during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, then fell again when inflation spiked after the emergency ended.

“In the 3.5 years since, even though Covid is reasonably a thing of the past, and the inflation rate is back to normal, the index has not recovered,” Moore wrote in his latest analysis. “Alaskans are as pessimistic about economic conditions in Alaska today as they were in the depths of the worst winter Covid months.”

Speaking by phone, he said that “even though the inflation rate is back to normal, it doesn’t mean that things aren’t still shockingly expensive. The war in Iran is creating uncertainty. The price of gas has gone through the roof.”

National surveys report similar findings. Last month, the University of Michigan — which measures American consumer sentiment monthly — reported results on par with 2022, when opinions were at their lowest in decades.

Moore isn’t the only person who’s finding low opinions among Alaskans about the economy.

At Dittman Research, Matt Larkin regularly polls state residents on behalf of the Alaska Chamber of Commerce and other clients.

“I’ve been doing this 15 years,” Larkin said. “In my opinion, I’ve not seen the economic concern worse than it is now.”

This year’s survey, conducted in March, found 60% of respondents saying Alaska’s economy was either pretty bad or “not too good.”

That was an increase of eight percentage points from 2025.

Two-thirds of respondents said the state of Alaska is on the wrong track, continuing a streak that began in March 2016. The last time more Alaskans said the state was headed in the right direction than the wrong direction was in January 2015. 

Larkin also said that his survey found that many Alaskans were likely to believe that even if economic conditions improve, the improvements would not benefit them personally.

While both Moore and Larkin said their polls are a good barometer to check on public opinion, they also said that the results may be an indicator for this fall’s election campaigns.

“It strikes me that, with all the political races this year, I think the candidates that can best understand and appear to be offering real solutions are going to likely do well in that environment,” Larkin said.

“I think that’s the challenge for all these campaigns: How do they speak to a voter base that’s very, very down right now about the economic prospects for their personal lives, but also the state in general?”

The post Alaskans are more pessimistic about the state’s economy now than they were in 2020 appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

After four years of effort, the Alaska Legislature has passed a bill offering additional support for the underfunded organization that offers free legal help to Alaskans facing civil lawsuits.

“We’re so excited,” said Maggie Humm, executive director of the Alaska Legal Services Corporation. 

ALSC is the state’s largest provider of free legal assistance for survivors of domestic violence and abuse. It generally supports Alaskans who are unable to afford an attorney on their own.

Under state law, Alaska must provide criminal defendants with a defense attorney. No such mandate exists in civil cases, so the work falls to the ALSC, a nonprofit that lacks the budget to take on every request for help.

On Wednesday, the state Senate voted 17-3 to pass House Bill 48 and give the corporation 25% of all state court filing fees, up from 10%. The change is worth an extra $400,000 to the corporation.

The change does not affect funding for the Alaska Court System; the fees are otherwise used for general purposes, not the courts specifically.

Humm said earlier this year that ALSC provided legal help to roughly 6,200 Alaskans in 2024. By email on Wednesday, she said she expects another 800-850 people will be helped by the additional money.

Because the House passed HB 48 on a 27-13 vote in February, the Senate’s action on Wednesday will send the bill to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for final approval or veto.

Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, proposed an identical bill in 2023, and while that bill passed the Senate, it never received a vote in the House before the 33rd Alaska Legislature expired in 2024.

That left Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, to reintroduce the bill last year and restart the legislative process. 

By email, Humm said that if signed into law, the bill “helps to ensure that more low-income Alaskans facing issues such as domestic violence, elder fraud, and access to earned benefits receive the legal help they need to protect their safety, stability, and dignity. Investing in legal services benefits all Alaskans by helping resolve problems early, before they become more serious and costly challenges for both individuals and our communities.”

ALSC has been trying since 2011 to pass a bill that reserves 25% of the state’s court fees for the corporation. In 2018, the Legislature passed a measure allocating 10%. 

The post Legislature approves extra legal help for Alaskans who can’t afford attorneys appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

A commercial fisherman in Kodiak will plead guilty to stealing 16 yellow cedar trees from the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska.

Mitchell Keplinger, charged with theft of government property in April, was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on Wednesday for his formal arraignment.

Keplinger signed a plea deal the day after he was charged. Under the terms of the deal, he will avoid jail time but will pay $85,682.17 in restitution and be on probation for three years, a term that may later be reduced to no less than 18 months.

That would be significantly lower than the maximum penalty for theft of government property, which can be punished by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Keplinger’s attorney did not return a phone call seeking comment on Wednesday.

According to the text of the plea deal, Keplinger and his boat, the 54-foot seiner Alinchak, were working in the Sitka herring seine fishery in late March and early April 2024. After the fishery closed, Keplinger used his boat and crew “to harvest Alaska yellow cedar trees on U.S. Forest Service lands near Sawmill Creek, Sugarloaf Mountain and in and around Sitka Sound.”

The plea deal states that Keplinger knew that a permit was required to cut the trees and knew that he did not have that permit.

“Keplinger’s crew, who were cutting the trees at his direction, had covered one of the stumps with moss to conceal the theft,” the plea deal states.

Paul Robbins, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service in the Tongass, said by email that yellow cedar “is important culturally, ecologically, and economically. Its strength is seen in durable wood products from canoe paddles to engineered timber frames and the unique rot-resistant chemistry of its heartwood allows it to live for over 1000 years and to persist long after death as sequestered carbon.”

The 16 trees allegedly taken by Keplinger yielded 22 logs, “belonging to the United States, with a market value of $4,476.25,” according to the plea deal.

Keplinger then used his boat to take the logs to Kodiak, the plea deal states. The restitution required under the plea deal includes the cost of transporting the logs back to Sitka and the Forest Service.

“Timber theft by individuals is not common on the Tongass National Forest,” Robbins said.

Court documents do not state why Keplinger took the trees or how the theft was discovered. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska declined to talk about anything not covered by public court documents, as did Robbins with the Forest Service.

The post Kodiak fisherman will plead guilty to stealing trees from Alaska’s Tongass National Forest appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.