How much has the COVID-19 pandemic changed America’s fiscal future and affected President-elect Biden’s opportunity to set a new course for fiscal policy? Largely as a consequence of the pandemic, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in September projected a deficit of more than $3 trillion for...

Postsecondary education can be a critical step on the path toward economic independence, but many low-income students who are independent for tax purposes face tremendous financial difficulties when trying to complete postsecondary school. Extending the Economic Security Project’s cost-of-living...

A taxpayer’s decision to itemize deductions or to claim the standard deduction on their income tax return is often framed as a simple calculation: Claim the greater of the two so as to minimize tax liability. But in states that require taxpayers to use the same status on their state income tax...

This policy brief shows that the COVID-19 pandemic and associated policy responses substantially raised federal deficits, but only on a temporary basis. We project that the debt-to-GDP ratio, currently 98 percent, will rise to 190 percent in 2050 under current law, compared to a pre-COVID...

Every government health program should operate under the same budget constraint that applies to other government programs. Failure to do so represents bad budgeting and economic, social, and health policy; redistributes income in perverse ways; and makes health care...

NOTE: This is an updated version of the analysis published November 10, 2020.¹

The Tax Policy Center (TPC) has analyzed the macroeconomic effects of the tax proposals that President Joe Biden advanced during his 2020 presidential campaign. We find the...

Simplifying the student aid application process and making the system easier for students and families to understand and navigate has long been high on the agenda of policymakers and advocates for college access. Despite progress, the process for completing the Free Application for Federal...

NOTE: This is a corrected version of the analysis originally published October 15, 2020.

This brief updates estimates of the revenue and distributional effects of former vice president Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign tax...

Fiscal policy was of primary importance to the white supremacist governments that came to power on a wave of electoral fraud, intimidation, and violence at the end of the Reconstruction. By the end of the 19th Century, the fiscal system, like the larger legal framework of the Jim Crow South, had...

The earned income tax credit (EITC) and child tax credit (CTC) provide substantial benefits to working families with children. The EITC also provides modest benefits to workers without custodial children, often called “childless workers” for tax purposes. Together, the credits lift almost 9...