Joint Economic Committee Democrats will release a report later this week on the costs of corruption for the U.S. economy. Beyond enriching the corrupt, evidence from around the world shows that corruption poses real and significant economy-wide costs.
President Trump’s plan to rely on public-private partnerships (P3) to meet much of the nation’s infrastructure needs took a hit last week when the Texas House rejected legislation that would have allowed P3s to participate in 18 highway projects in the state. Opposition to new tolls reportedly led to the bill’s defeat.
Congressional Republicans seem to have already forgotten the wreckage left in the wake of the financial bubble of the late 2000s. During the 2008 financial crisis and related recession, 8.7 million Americans lost their jobs, 3.8 million homes were foreclosed on, and households lost $17 trillion in wealth. As a result of Wall Street’s actions, the U.S. economy lost an estimated $7.6 trillion in goods and services from 2008 to 2018—lost output that Americans are still feeling today.
May 11 2017
The State of Child Care in America
As women have entered the workforce and become breadwinners, access to affordable, high-quality child care has become an increasingly important part of a family’s economic success. High-quality early learning and care provide many benefits to families
May 10 2017
The Costs of Child Care State-by-State
State-by-state graphics with information about the cost of child care for single mothers and families.
House Republicans are hoping to overturn the financial safeguards put in place to prevent the next financial crisis and to protect consumers from the costs of reckless, abusive, and fraudulent behavior on Wall Street. Republicans’ proposal, the Financial CHOICE Act (Choice 2.0), is a wrong choice for America.
TrumpCare’s funding for high-risk pools falls short by at least $200 billion over 10 years (a conservative estimate, assuming very small pools).
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnunchin recently claimed long-term economic growth will pay for the cost of President Trump’s proposed tax reform plan. This claim relies on using so-called “dynamic scoring,” a tactic long exploited by Republicans to justify not paying for immense tax cuts. However, dynamic scoring methodologies can lead to wildly different estimates that often underestimate how much these tax cuts increase the budget deficit.
May 05 2017
President Trump Job Tracker April 2017
To keep tabs on the current administration’s jobs numbers, a comparison between the April jobs report under President Trump and the average jobs report in the late 1990’s.
May 03 2017
The Retirement Crisis
Joint Economic Committee Democrats released a fact sheet today on the state of retirement in the United States as Republicans attempt to pass Congressional Review Act legislation making it harder for Americans to save for retirement. Far too many workers do not have access to a retirement savings plan through their employer and many earn too little to save. The fact sheet details that more than 30 percent of workers do not have access to retirement benefits through their employer, and nearly 70 percent of the lowest-paid workers do not have access to a retirement plan.
