Poor People Have the Highest Effective Tax Rates

by | Jul 6, 2018

An argument used to undermine programs that provide tax relief for low-income people—such as Minnesota’s Working Family Credit (WFC) and Child & Dependent Care Credit—is that they provide tax relief to households that are not paying taxes in the first place....

Myths of the 2017 Federal Tax Act

by | Jun 20, 2018

The “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (TCJA)—the massive federal tax cut passed in December 2017—has failed to produce the benefits touted by its promoters. And if history is any indicator, there is no reason to believe things will change in the future. The following debunks...

The Federal Tax Act’s Minnesota Impact: Steeply Regressive

by | Mar 30, 2018

Corporate elites and wealthy Americans celebrated when Congressional conservatives and President Trump rolled out the so-called “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (TCJA) late last year—and with good reason. The TCJA was overwhelmingly regressive, sending a disproportionate share...

The Connection Between Public Policy and Prosperity

by | Sep 27, 2017

Since the end of the Great Recession, Minnesota has comfortably surpassed Wisconsin in terms of GDP and income growth, and job creation. Based on newly released 2016 data from the American Community Survey, median household income in the Gopher State is 15.5 percent...

Income Inequality, Tax Regressivity are Worse Than We Thought

by | Sep 14, 2017

There has long been convincing evidence—both at the state and national levels—that income inequality has accelerated in recent decades, with an increasing share of wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Extreme income inequality—coupled with stagnant or...