Inequality and Poverty

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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Inequality Debate: What and Whither the Middle Class

Feb 15, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Certain policy goals and objectives are supported by the premise that the American middle class is broadly participating in and benefiting from the nation's steady economic growth of the last generation on an equitable basis. Another set of goals and objectives relies on the notion that persistent wage stagnation, debt burdens, and a growing sense of class inequality afflict much of today's middle class. Even within the progressive movement, such a division exists today, and it was out in full view for all to see this week.

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As the Wage Watch Wears On

Feb 15, 2007 by Dana Chasin

The behind-the-scenes struggle over the shape and size of the minimum wage tax package (covered here, here, with an outside critque here) is intensifying, with the White House weighing in heavily and a group of GOP senators raising new objections. The Admin's Feb. 13 Statement of Administration Policy on H.R. 976 endorses the $8.3 billion small business tax cut adopted by the Senate in S. 2. It is not surprising the president favors more tax cuts, but the timing of this release throws more fuel on the fire heading into a conference negotiation between the two chambers.

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Update: Monday Mark-Up for $1 B Rangel Tax Bill

Feb 7, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

This just in, per today's CongressDaily ($): House Ways and Means Chairman Rangel said this afternoon he would move to break the House-Senate stalemate over minimum wage legislation by marking up a small business tax bill next Monday [which] he expects it to be "in the vicinity of $1 billion." It will also include about $1 billion in offsets to make it revenue neutral. Rangel insisted for weeks on passage of a "clean" minimum wage bill -- one containing no tax breaks. Today, Rangel insisted that he will not let his arm be twisted in conference negotiations over the size of the tax package.

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Senate Passes Minimum Wage Increase with Tax Cuts Added

On Feb. 1, the U.S. Senate wrapped up nearly two weeks of debate with a 94-3 vote to approve S. 2, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. The bill raises the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour by 2009 and extends $8.3 billion of existing small business tax breaks. The fate of the bill remains uncertain because House Democrats are reluctant to provide tax breaks for small business in exchange for passing a minimum wage hike.

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OMB Watch Release Preliminary Budget Analysis

Feb 5, 2007 by Matt Lewis

OMB Watch has released a preliminary analysis of the President's FY 08 Budget request. President's Budget Full of Cheap Rhetoric; Wrong Priorities President Favors Tax Cuts for the Wealthy over Domestic Needs Check back here for additional analyses and commentary on the budget as the week progresses.

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Congress Hearing Middle-Class Midterm Message

Feb 1, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Washington seems to have gotten the midterm message from middle-class voters. No less than three congressional committees held hearings yesterday on the economic plight of the American middle class. The problem, in a word, is "insecurity," caused chiefly by:

steadily declining real wage growth in the the middle class over the 25-30 years (see chart)
technological change
increased international competition
rapidly rising education costs
large-scale corporate downsizings

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Sawicky on Min. Wage Tax Bogusness

Feb 1, 2007 by Craig Jennings

The Senate is scheduled to vote on the minimum wage package today at 2:30 PM...but now's a good time to check out Max Sawicky's erudite take on the unnecessary tax cuts attached to the minimum wage bill. One key passage on the tax cuts, AKA the Small Business and Work Opportunity Act of 2007 (SBWOA):

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Senate Wends its Way on Wage Bill

Jan 26, 2007 by Dana Chasin

The Senate has been making no concessions to the shortness of life in its deliberations on S. 2, the minimum wage bill.

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The Fiscal Impact of House 100 Hours Agenda

On Jan. 18, the House Democrats succeeded in passing the final piece of their six-part "100 hours" agenda. The combined fiscal impact of the bills — which implement 9/11 Commission recommendations, close energy tax loopholes and more — is significant: the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated $21.1 billion in savings and revenue over the next ten years if the bills are signed into law. H.R. 1: Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007

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Income Inequality Continues Apace

Jan 18, 2007 by Craig Jennings

The latest EPI Snapshot presents yet more data points on the trend in rising inequality. Lawrence Marshall and Jared Bernstein describe two notable measures of inequality growth: (1) The share of corporate income going to the owners of capital The most recent data (third quarter of 2006) reveal that owners of capital received 23.0% of all corporate income, the highest share since 1966. That means that the compensation of employees was at the lowest share in over 25 years. and (2) the share of capital income going to the top 1% of the income scale

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