Congress has enacted the Big Brutal Bill and Donald Trump has signed it into law.
This bill is deadly.
According to researchers from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts plus other health care cuts—the largest in history—will result in the deaths of 51,000 people per year. Those deaths include 18,200 people who are eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare, 20,000 people who will lose health care coverage due to the elimination of the premium tax credit for the Affordable Care Act, and 13,000 deaths due to staffing cuts at nursing homes.
At a time when so many are struggling to afford the basic costs of living including groceries, new data from the Urban Institute shows that 5.3 million families will lose $25 or more per month in SNAP benefits, with the average such family losing $146 a month in help paying for food. Sixty-two percent of the families experiencing these very large SNAP losses include children.
All of this is being done in order to pay for extending the Trump tax scam—making tax breaks for the rich permanent—and funding Trump’s mass immigration detention and removal machine.
Congress needs to hear from you. Send a message thanking those who stood up and voted against this monstrosity of a bill, or send a message to your members of Congress who voted for it, admonishing them for their vote.
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The cuts are unacceptable edition. Throughout the pandemic, certain Americans have borne more of the brunt of COVID-19 than others. The elderly have experienced the highest death rates. People with low incomes and people of color have been more likely to get sick, and to face economic displacement though job loss, lack of access to affordable child care, and even homelessness. These vulnerable Americans now face new threats: cuts to many programs critical to those in need.
President Biden gets it. “Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible,” he told us during his State of the Union address. “That’s why we’re building an economy where no one is left behind.”
A brand new caucus has emerged in the U.S. House of Representatives. Its arrival is good news, if perhaps a bit overdue. Last week, members announced the launch of the Congressional Dads Caucus, which will focus on pro-family issues such as an expanded Child Tax Credit, national paid family and medical leave, and more funding for child care and health care.
We all need physical safety before we can do anything else. Without a roof over our heads, that sense of security is impossible. And with two small children in tow, things get scary. And after fleeing a dangerous domestic situation with my baby and 9-year-old son, with no home but the small moving truck I had rented to escape, I still felt unsafe and terrified. I left economic security and a beautiful Victorian home overlooking a lush green park in Savannah, Georgia and drove to Jacksonville, Florida — where I discovered the only affordable options for housing for us were uninhabitable apartments.
The debt ceiling edition. There just might be some good news on the COVID-19 front. New cases, hospitalizations, stays in ICUs and test positivity are all down sharply, compared with two weeks ago. This follows a post holiday bump reported in early to mid January. Meanwhile, the “tripledemic” of RSV, flu, and COVID-19 is easing off, as hospitals nationwide report improving conditions.
For some time, human needs advocates and many economists have maintained that the U.S. tax code discriminates on the basis of race and ethnicity by increasing disparities between families with wealth – more often White families – and families without wealth. Now, for the first time ever, a U.S. Treasury Department study has confirmed these suspicions: White Americans disproportionately benefit from a variety of tax breaks, including those aimed at investors.
When inflation began ravaging Americans’ pocketbooks and wallets in early 2021, it was middle-income Americans who mostly bore the brunt. That’s because inflation then was in part driven by gas costs and a shortage of used cars, which led to higher prices. Americans with low incomes, while hurt, were affected slightly less. Last year, that changed, according to a new report by the New York Fed.
If you work for a big corporation, there’s a very good chance your boss has already raked in more cash than you will all year. If the typical CEO of a large U.S. corporation clocked in at 9 am on January 2, by 3:37 pm that afternoon he’d made $58,260 — the average annual salary for all U.S. occupations. In less than seven hours on the first workday of the year, that CEO made as much as the average U.S. worker will make all year long.
It began, in part and strangely enough, with a banana. Entrepreneur Jimmy Chen hoped to develop software that would make it easier for people with low incomes to apply for SNAP benefits. While conducting research and interviews and studying how poor people shop, he noticed people buying one very cheap item – often a banana – so that they could find out their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) balance, which was printed on their receipt.
As tax filing season begins, you may be wondering about recent efforts to strip the IRS of billions of dollars of funding. Last week, House Republicans voted to rescind the $80 billion in new IRS funding included in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. While this cut will not ultimately be enacted (the Democratically-controlled Senate will not pass the bill and President Biden has indicated he would veto it), it brings attention to the critical need for more – not reduced – IRS funding.
The XBB.1.5 edition. New COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are on the rise in many parts of the country. Hospitalizations in particular are at the highest level they’ve been in almost 11 months. Some of this increase was anticipated due to the aftermath of the holidays – a time when many family members and friends gather indoors. But the increase in caseloads is also due to the rapid emergence of XBB.1.5, which is more transmissible than any other omicron subvariant we’ve seen so far.
On January 5, 2023, the Biden Administration announced new border enforcement measures aimed at increasing security at the border and reducing the number of individuals crossing unlawfully. The first policy announced is two-fold: it includes a new pathway for Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans with the requirement of having U.S.- based sponsors to enter the United States. But also announced is an expansion of Title 42, a policy that allows for the rapid expulsion of individuals back to those same countries without the opportunity to apply for asylum.