Tax Policy Center

Social Security

: TaxVox

The SECURE Act Falls Far Short Of Enhancing Retirement Security

Congress seems about ready to pass a package of about 28 retirement and pension plan changes the House calls the SECURE (Setting Every Community Up...
June 17, 2019C. Eugene Steuerle
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

How Government Tax And Transfer Policy Promotes Wealth Inequality

Federal tax and spending policies are worsening the problem of economic inequality. But the tax breaks that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy are only part of...
February 5, 2019C. Eugene Steuerle
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

If Tax Refunds And Benefits Are Delayed By Shutdown, That Would Hurt Vulnerable Americans

For many US households, the ongoing partial government shutdown is inconvenient. But for low-income households, it may become a severe hardship. If the shutdown goes...
January 14, 2019Elaine Maag
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

Congress Should Make The EITC Available To Older Workers

The earned income tax credit (EITC) lifts millions of workers out of poverty each year. But older workers who do not live with minor children...
January 13, 2019Elaine Maag
Federal Budget and Economy: TaxVox

How To Shutdown Future Shutdowns

As the partial shutdown of the federal government enters its 17th day, the stakes are rising. Shutdowns have numerous negative economic and political effects, but...
January 7, 2019William G. Gale
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

Immigration Curbs Will Weaken Social Security

President Trump has proposed deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants and backed curbs on legal immigration into the US. The president’s aggressive views on immigration...
February 21, 2018Howard Gleckman
: TaxVox

A Tax Credit to Give Middle-Class Workers a Raise

When the middle class was suffering from the ravages of the Great Depression, demagogues of the right and left blamed easy scapegoats and offered populist...
August 2, 2017Leonard E. Burman
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: TaxVox

Sanders’s Domestic Program Would Help Most Households, But Add More Than $18 Trillion to the Debt

Sanders’s Domestic Program Would Help Most Households, But Add More Than $18 Trillion to the Debt. Most American families would receive new government benefits that would exceed their higher taxes under the domestic policy agenda of Democratic Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. But even though
May 9, 2016Howard Gleckman
: TaxVox

"The Long and Winding Road... Will Never Disappear..."

The Senate’s six-year highway bill inches forward, after dropping a Social Security provision. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won 14 Democrats’ votes for the bill after he agreed to drop a $2.3 billion offset. The money would have come from barring people with felony warrants from getting Social
July 24, 2015Renu Zaretsky
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

How Many Americans Get Government Assistance? All of Us

The other day, the Census Bureau put out a new report that concluded about one-in-five Americans received government benefits in 2012. But the study, called Dynamics of Economic Well-Being: Participation in Government Programs, 2009–2012: Who Gets Assistance, takes a far too narrow view about who
June 4, 2015Howard Gleckman