Housing Vouchers and Tax Credits: Pairing the Proposal to Transform Section 8 with Expansions to the EITC and the Child Tax Credit Could Cut the National Poverty Rate by Half
Vice President Biden’s campaign put forward a plan to address the housing affordability crisis through the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. Such an expansion could lead to substantial reductions in the national poverty rate, which we quantify for the first time in this brief.
Income Guarantee Benefits and Financing: Poverty and Distributional Impacts
In this brief, we explore the feasibility of financing a guaranteed income and the potential poverty impacts. In general we find that income guarantee plans can work to reduce poverty at reasonable costs, such as through a fundamental federal income tax reform and carbon tax-and-dividend plan. However, poverty impacts depend on who is eligible and how the benefit is financed.
Comparing Recent Income Maintenance Proposals
As we approach the 2020 Presidential election, we compare recent income maintenance proposals and discuss how design affects costs and poverty impacts.
The Case for Counting Children in a Carbon Tax Dividend Plan: Net Benefits and Poverty Implications for a Per Capita Dividend
Carbon dividend design can have an impact on the child poverty rate. We find that providing carbon dividends to all adults and children would reduce adult poverty and child poverty. However, limiting carbon dividends to adults only would increase child poverty. If children are not counted, many working class families could be taxed into poverty.
A Renter’s Tax Credit to Curtail the Affordable Housing Crisis
To address the housing affordability crisis for low-income Americans, we argue for a refundable renter’s tax credit that could reduce the poverty rate by 12.4 percentage points and the deep poverty rate by 8.8 percentage points.