The working poor are burdened with some of the most complex tax returns in the country as they annually claim Earned Income Tax and Child Tax refundable credits. In the coming months, low- and middle-income Americans who received unemployment insurance payments during the Covid-19 pandemic may also face a “tax trap” that unexpectedly reduces their…
Publications
Social distancing is essential to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, but it also reduces opportunities for millions of Americans to earn a wage or buy goods and services from others. As a result, state and local income and sales taxes that fund education, public safety, and other essential services are drying up. Meanwhile,…
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…
Press
As federal and state governments outline plans for reopening the economy, lawmakers will have to grapple with the challenge of getting tens of millions of Americans back to work as quickly as possible. More than 47 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the pandemic began, with the unemployment rate at 13.3 percent in May. The economic damage has…
Ben Ritz, the Director of PPI's Center for Funding America's Future, presented to students during two breakout sessions at the New England College Convention in Manchester, New Hampshire this week. The first session was a joint presentation about the national debt as an intergenerational issue with Bob Bixby from The Concord Coalition and Brian Riedl from the Manhattan Institute. The panelists…
Congress voted this week for a $1.9 trillion tax and spending deal, over a quarter of which was added to our $23 trillion national debt. Thanks to this and other fiscally irresponsible legislation signed into law by President Donald Trump, the federal government will run an annual budget deficit of over $1 trillion this year and every year that comes after it. Yet…
Blog
It's hard to take your eyes away from the ongoing political drama in Washington, as the presidential transition turns violent and even fatal. Yet at the same time, it's important to note additional evidence that basic government competency functions have been ignored under the Trump Administration. As the Washington Post reported earlier this week, the IRS…
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…