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In December 2017, just days before President Donald Trump signed the $1.9 trillion tax legislation that would create sweeping changes to the U.S. federal tax system, he told television viewers that “it’s going to be one of the great Christmas gifts to middle-income people.”

For several months, the president had been selling the legislation on the claim that the tax cuts would “be rocket fuel for our economy.” His claim was critical to defending against the criticism that most of the tax cuts would go to corporations and the very wealthy—supposedly, the money would ‘trickle down’ to the middle class. Unfortunately, nearly two years of evidence show that his administration's estimates were wildly wrong.

The March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, was formally named the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Dr. King later organized the Poor People’s Campaign as a multi-racial movement for economic justice, which advocated for living wages, income support for the unemployed, improved funding for education, the right to unionize for agricultural workers and access to land and capital. Dr. King’s legacy includes his efforts to secure both civil rights and economic justice. 

More than a half-century after Dr. King’s death, important progress has been made, but for Black Americans much of the economic inequality that he fought against remains.