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While working families across America struggle to make ends meet, the top 1 percent have reaped the benefits of a growing economy, with their share of all income nearly doubling to 20 percent since 1980. President Trump and Congressional Republicans say their new tax plan will put more money in the pockets of working Americans by providing them with real tax relief. Instead, it gives more in tax cuts to wealthy Americans and stacks the deck even further against the vast majority of households.
The road to tax reform will be long and winding with many bumps and turns along the way. But, where you start the journey matters and can reveal a great deal about priorities. The framework released by the White House and Congressional Republicans delivers major benefits to large corporations and wealthy individuals – at the expense of virtually everyone else. Rural Americans are barely an afterthought.
This fact sheet provides a snapshot of the current economic state of the Latino community in the United States. It includes the latest statistics on the economic well-being for the nation’s Latino community, including population, employment, and earnings data, among other key indicators. Together, these measures help paint a portrait of Latinos and their economic prospects for the future.
Latinos continue to be one of the fastest growing minority groups in the United States, and account for a combined $1.3 trillion in economic activity. Latinos are also more likely than the general population to become entrepreneurs. However, the unemployment rate for Latino workers stands at 5.1 percent compared to 3.7 percent for white workers.
President Trump and Congressional Republicans’ tax proposal threatens to take the state and local tax deduction (SALT) away from over 40 million households. State and local deductions are not a partisan issue – both red and blue state families use them to save hard-earned money on their federal tax returns. The SALT deduction ensures Americans are not taxed twice on the same income.
The child tax credit (CTC) is a crucial component of our nation’s commitment to ensure that all children grow up in financially secure households. The CTC provides both broad support for children and helps lift families out of poverty. Last week, Republicans released a tax plan they claim strengthens the CTC, but it falls woefully short of the meaningful reform working families need.
Joint Economic Committee Democratic staff are comparing job growth each month to the average in the late 1990s (a boom time in the economy), but also to the best individual month each series has ever seen.

Oct 04 2017

DACA by the Numbers

Since 2012, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has helped nearly 800,000 young people who came to the United States as children work legally, get driver’s licenses, pursue a college education, and lead their lives without the constant threat of deportation. To build on these gains, Congress should pass the Dream Act now so that all Dreamers have the opportunity to fully contribute in the American economy and to their local communities.
Congressional Republicans want to cut the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, but corporations have already been taking home more of their rising profits tax free. Corporate profits increased by more than 40 percent from 1979 to 2015, relative to GDP, while corporate tax revenue has fallen by more than 30 percent over the same period. Big corporations can lower their corporate taxes using a menu of hard-lobbied deductions and credits and by using accounting tricks to shift their profits to low- or no-tax countries. More than half of U.S. companies’ foreign profits are reported in just seven tax havens.