The federal government is on track to run a record-shattering $4 trillion budget deficit in 2020, in large part due to its aggressive fiscal response to the pandemic-induced recession. Some on the right have raised alarm about this borrowing, despite their support for budget-busting tax cut and border-control policies over the last three years. The…
Publications
Millions of America’s smallest businesses have been severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis. They’ve seen revenue evaporate and have been forced to lay off millions of workers. Over two million small businesses had simply disappeared by June 2020. The U.S. economy now finds itself in a deep hole, with millions of small businesses gone for…
As Covid-19 wreaks havoc in Southern and Sunbelt states, America’s battered economy faces a new round of shutdowns, bankruptcies and layoffs. Yet one sector seems strangely buoyant – the financial markets. From its all-time high in mid-February, the S&P 500 plummeted 34%, only to recoup all its losses by mid-June. What explains Wall Street’s remarkable…
Press
In recent days, Sen. Bernie Sanders and his campaign surrogates have accused former Vice President Joe Biden of being dishonest about his views on Social Security. Although much has been written about Biden’s position, far less scrutiny has been applied to what Sanders proposes to do with the nation’s largest federal spending program. That’s a problem, because Sanders’ agenda…
PPI's Ben Ritz joined an expert panel on Capitol Hill last week to discuss the recently published report by Social Security's trustees. The annual report projected that the program's trust funds face insolvency within the next 16 years, after which point beneficiaries face the prospect of an across-the-board cut of 23 percent. All panelists encouraged…
It would be better to go cashless, while creating new low-cost banking options for poor residents Is cash a bane or a boon? The underlying trends are clear. Across the country, from high-end salad chain Sweetgreen to the new Amazon Go stores, more and more retailers are going cashless as technology improves. For a company…
Blog
Consumers are getting turned down for all sorts of financial products, from personal and auto loans to credit cards. The Wall Street Journal, using Equifax data, reports that credit card approvals totaled 483,000 in the week ending May 10, down from 856,000 in the week ending March 22. To compare to the year prior, weekly…
Two bills introduced in Congress, H.R. 6370 and S. 3508, ‘‘Disaster Protection for Workers’ Credit Act of 2020’’ would impose a moratorium on credit reporting of “adverse information” for the duration of the coronavirus crisis. Credit scores are an integral part of the consumer credit underwriting process as their power to predict the likelihood of…
Join Paul Weinstein, Jr., Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and Joanne Gaskin, Vice President of Scores and Analytics at FICO, for a discussion on the changes FICO has made to its models, and how they may impact credit scores, particularly for millennials and GenZ. Or listen to the full audio here without…
