Category Archives: Social Policy

The Working Families Tax Credit is an investment in Washington’s recovery

Posted on April 7, 2021 by kebaird

Published, Washington State Wire, April 5, 2021 (With Aaron Katz)

We all know the massive toll that COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout have taken on us all. But at long last, we are starting to see hopeful signs of better days ahead – increased vaccinations, restrictions lifted, and plans for kids to return to school. So now – right now – is when Washington state needs to invest in proven strategies that will ensure our state’s long-term health and economic recovery.

House Bill 1297, which funds an updated Working Families Tax Credit, is just that kind of proven strategy. It puts direct, flexible cash into the hands of those who need it most. In our respective fields of economics and public health, we know that this kind of direct cash is a powerful tool for getting our economy on track and improving the collective health and well-being of people in our state.

Modeled after the highly successful federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), this policy would provide working families with an annual base credit of $500 to $950, depending on family size, with the credit phasing down as incomes rise. Because nearly a half-million Washington state families would qualify for the credit, it would reach one in four kids. This type of direct, flexible cash can be the lifeline that helps someone start a microbusiness, or allows them to pay for needed medical care or unexpected car repairs. Continue reading →

Posted in Fiscal Policy, Inequality, Social Policy, State Budget, Tax Policy, Washington State

Washington should invest in Child Savings Accounts to help bridge income gaps

Posted on March 5, 2019 by kebaird

Published March 5, 2019 in the Seattle Times

“The Fleecing of the Millennials.” This is the provocative headline of a recent opinion piece by a New York Times columnist. David Leonhardt convincingly makes the case that the income gap between younger and older generations has been widening.

There’s nothing alarming about an older generation having more income and wealth than a younger one, of course. But Leonhardt investigates trends in this gap over time. He found that, on average, today’s young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 earn the same now as they did nearly half a century ago. Meanwhile over this same time period, the income of those between 55 and 64 grew by a quarter; and it grew by 75 percent among the retired population.

Examining trends in wealth by age reveals an even wider gap opening: On average, middle-age adults today possess considerably less wealth than did their 1975 counterparts, while wealth among the retired population is 50 percent higher than it was in 1975.Leonhardt’s column reveals that today’s young adults face a substantially more challenging economic environment than did young adults in the past. Unlike past younger generations like my own, young adults today have more difficulty obtaining well-paid jobs, establishing good-paying careers and accumulating the wealth needed to ensure economic stability.

One striking feature of this growing gap is that for the most part, state and federal policy does much less than it could to address it. Spending on Social Security and Medicare has been rising steadily; meanwhile, that on education, training and child care languishes. Within a decade, annual interest on our national debt is projected to approach $1 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This is the cost of past government spending made possible through loans to the federal government, lending which future generations will have to repay.

Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Higher Education, Inequality, Social Policy, State Budget, Washington State

The outdated way we measure poverty hurts those in need

Posted on December 5, 2017 by kebaird

Published in the Seattle Times Dec. 3, 2017

This fall the U.S. Census Bureau brought good news when it informed us that the nation’s poverty rate had fallen from 13.2 to 12.7 percent.

But now more than ever, we should be suspicious of this news.

The reason is that the messenger — the official poverty rate — is deeply flawed. A close look into it reveals that it is unmoored from its purpose of measuring the share of Americans struggling to make ends meet. And it’s drifting farther from that principle. As underscored by recent events in the other Washington, it is time to reattach our poverty indicator to the reality of people’s lives today.

To calculate a poverty rate requires first setting the threshold income below which someone is poor. The U.S.’s threshold, three times the cost of a minimum food diet, is more than 60-years-old and was set when food was families’ most costly expense. No wonder a family of four today with $25,000 in income is not officially poor: Our threshold doesn’t match the reality facing low-income households.

Next comes the challenge of defining income. As conservatives point out, we underestimate income by omitting the value of many cash and noncash government benefits. This practice dates to a time long past when government expenditures on tax credits, food stamps and housing subsidies weren’t that significant.

Continue reading →

Posted in Health Care Policy, Inequality, Social Policy, Uncategorized

When it comes to unfair tax systems, Washington is No. 1

Posted on February 2, 2015 by kebaird

Published in Tacoma’s News Tribune February 1, 2015

The start of the 2015 legislative session has brought stiff competition for the most suitable image of Washington’s tax code. Reuven Carlyle, chairman of the House Finance Committee, called it a Ford Pinto, the automotive jewel once named by Forbes as “The Worst Car of All Time.”

A bit more kindly, Gov. Jay Inslee evoked earlier transportation history, finding the moniker jalopy more fitting to the tax system’s barely functioning condition.

Sticking with the transportation theme, my vote is with the sedan chair, that 17th-century European conveyance in which the rich and royal rode, carted around by bearers.

There is much to dislike about taxes, of course, but those we pay in Washington are especially onerous. Start with the hundreds of tax breaks, each one no doubt enacted some point in the past to encourage a worthwhile pursuit. Or not. Continue reading →

Posted in Inequality, Social Policy, State Budget, Tax Policy, Washington State

Profit motive drives US health-care cost disparities

Posted on August 23, 2014 by kebaird

Published in The News Tribune, June 19, 2013

Back when he was president, Ronald Reagan famously (or infamously) reduced complex concepts to simple ones he thought the public could understand.

To explain the size of our nation’s debt, which in 1981 had just topped $1 trillion, he summoned the image of one trillion dollar bills stacked one on top of the other. My mind’s eye still can see that tower of bills reaching up beyond the stratosphere, extending one-quarter of the way to the moon. Continue reading →

Posted in Health Care Policy, Social Policy

As inequality in the US grows, the rest of the world progesses

Posted on August 23, 2014 by kebaird

Published in The News Tribune, March 27, 2013

Two months ago, economists from around the world converged in San Diego for their annual convention. Dozens presented papers on the hot topic of growing income inequality in the United States.

These papers led to lively and at times heated debates, some of which have subsequently spilled over onto blogs as well as the nation’s opinion pages.

The tendency to focus on the U.S. and our troubling upward trend in inequality is a natural one. But it also misses astonishing progress on the inequality front. Continue reading →

Posted in Inequality, International, Social Policy

That rising tide seems to be missing a lot of boats

Posted on August 23, 2014 by kebaird

Published in The News Tribune, March 14, 2013.

Another encouraging sign of slow economic recovery came last week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). It reported that nationwide, February experienced a net increase of 236,000 new jobs.

A year ago, unemploy-ment sat at 8.3 percent; today it is 7.7 percent. A painfully slow improvement, for sure, but at least the labor market is headed in the right direction.

Or is it? Continue reading →

Posted in Fiscal Policy, Inequality, Social Policy

We can save much grief by getting ahead of social problems

Posted on August 23, 2014 by kebaird

Published in The News Tribune, February 27, 2013.

Each year as a nation, we spend more than $150 billion on research to find health-improving products. Such research has led to spectacular advancements in the health of those born prematurely or afflicted with heart disease, diabetes or cancer.

Yet when it comes to promoting a healthy population, we shouldn’t be so quick to congratulate ourselves. Continue reading →

Posted in Health Care Policy, Inequality, Social Policy

Untreated mental illness raises the risk factors for violence

Posted on August 23, 2014 by kebaird

Published in The News Tribune, December 19, 2012

The news from Newtown, Connecticut has many of us revisiting recent horrors where unstable citizens in our own communities committed the unspeakable crime of killing off-duty police officers, a sleeping father, a park ranger, and far too many others. Yet even these senseless crimes pale in comparison with the terrifying violence visited last week on children at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof passionately, predictably — and correctly – has called for stricter control and regulation of our nation’s guns. Continue reading →

Posted in Health Care Policy, Social Policy

It’s unfair to group the ‘welfare state’ into single lump

Posted on August 23, 2014 by kebaird

Published in The News Tribune, November 22, 2012

Often, holiday meals like those at my house consist of a range of separate contributions which collectively add up to the Thanksgiving Dinner. As we sit down to partake of the varied assortment of dishes, no one would think of criticizing the turkey because the mushroom soup dish contained more fried onion rings than green beans, or because someone insisted on adding a bag of marshmellows to the sweet potatoes.

The fact that different dishes are on the same table doesn’t somehow turn them into one “Dish” called “Thanksgiving Dinner” that deserves a singular judgment. Instead, we pass judgment on the successful (and quietly perhaps, the less successful) features of each individual dish. Continue reading →

Posted in Health Care Policy, Inequality, Social Policy

← Older posts