News, Opinions & Events
Trump floats giving Americans cash for health care and tariff dividends – NBC
“Administration officials expressed caution around the ideas, saying there were no formal proposals being sent to Congress and that the president was ‘brainstorming.'”
Republicans claiming they know how to reform the US health care system look like hyperactive two-year-olds trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube. Many in the White House and Congress know they do not understand the US medical-industrial complex well enough to lower its humongous cost and increase access. Slapping GOP reform legislation based on paying cash for health care on the bargaining table as a trade-off for one more year of affordable ACA exchange premiums would be a dangerous blunder. It would only work for the top 5% of US earners. The rest of us lack the money and power to face off against insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, and drug companies – and their lobbies.
Would Epstein’s private island be an appropriate location for the Donald Trump Presidential Library?:
Jeffrey Epstein emails: Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and more – NBC
Trump, allies reach out to Boebert, Mace ahead of Epstein discharge petition deadline – Hill
Do Republican congress-women have Trump by the balls? > MTG: How about those ACA exchange subsidies?
More and more, Israel’s government has become the international poster child for institutional racism, torture, apartheid, land theft, ethnic cleansing, and genocide – all justifiable actions according to Israeli leaders. Israel’s right-wing government continues hammering what was a democracy into a vicious abomination. A Middle East 4th Reich? The US government should not send one more US taxpayer dollar to feed the Israel’s war machine.
Israel Considers Instituting a Death Penalty for Palestinians—but Not for Jews – Harold Meyerson/American Propect
“Determined to prove that Zionism is indeed racism, a sizable minority of Knesset members backed that legislation.”
Some Israelis argue all soldiers are heroes, should not be prosecuted – msn/WaPost
“The details of the Sde Teiman case are grim. On July 5, 2024, a group of reservist soldiers led a Hamas detainee to an isolated area, blindfolded him, cuffed him at the ankles and hands, and conducted a search, according to the indictment described by an IDF statement earlier this year. They assaulted ‘the detainee with severe violence, including stabbing the detainee’s bottom with a sharp object,’ and cracked his ribs, punctured his lung and caused an inner rectal tear, the statement said.
“The video later leaked by Tomer-Yerushalmi showed soldiers wearing balaclavas leading the blindfolded man away from more than two dozen other detainees lying face down. The video also shows soldiers, including one with a barking dog, apparently trying to block a camera’s view of the detainee as he is surrounded.”
- Support for Israel among U.S. conservatives is starting to crack. Here’s why – NPR
- Most American Jews say Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza, poll finds – National News
- New York Times’ lies about Israel, Palestinians spreading among US Jews – opinion – Jerusalem Post
War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Grocery Prices Are Way Down. – Paul Krugman
“Lying has worked for Trump in the past. Is this a lie too far?”
Fact check: Trump’s lying spree about inflation – CNN
Or does the White House have economists who can’t count?:
Federal shutdown strains Virginia’s skies as controllers work without pay – Virginia Mercury
Remember when? It could be worse.:
Looking Back On When President Reagan Fired The Air Traffic Controllers – NPR
“…The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association (ph), PATCO, was protesting what they considered to be unfair wages and long work hours. They walked off the job. And two days later, on this day 40 years ago, Reagan fired more than 11,000 of those who hadn’t crossed the picket line. And that dealt a serious blow to the American labor movement…”
Trump says US faces ‘economic disaster’ if Supreme Court rules against tariffs – Reuters
What’s a president to do with his tariff money – if the Supreme Court (and Congress) let him keep it? Send checks to voters? Reduce the national debt? … Only his hairdresser knows.
Wall Street Journal dismisses Trump $2K dividend idea: ‘Hail Mary pass’ – Hill
BTW, the amount of tariff revenue collected so far roughly equals Social Security’s 2025 cash shortfall, meaning the amount Treasury must raise to fill the gap between what Social Security taxes are bringing in and what the program must pay out to beneficiaries. In this sense, Trump’s tariffs are an accidental experiment showing the magnitude of the impact on the US economy if Congress raised taxes to fund Social Security: Not much of a macro effect.
However, as pointed out many times on this website, broad-based tariffs act as regressive national sales tax that impacts the budget of low-income people the most. If policymakers, decide to keep Social Security solvent by raising taxes, higher-income people should shoulder most of the burden. High-income people are most able to absorb a tax increase in our increasingly unequal economy.
Georgia’s cautionary tale for hospitals as Medicaid work rules expand – Becker’s Hospital Review
“Safety-net hospitals face an up to 30% hit to their operating margins on average, but hospitals in certain states and rural areas could be hit even worse. Hospitals in Medicaid expansion states could see operating margins shrink by up to 13.3% on average under the new work requirements, according to a Sept. 18 analysis by The Commonwealth Fund. Safety-net hospitals may see reductions of up to 29.6%, with some rural hospitals facing even steeper declines.
“In 2023, Georgia launched its own Medicaid work requirement. While state officials lauded the program, a Government Accountability Office report published Sept. 3 found it led to coverage losses without increasing employment. Many beneficiaries were disenrolled due to difficulties navigating reporting systems, leading to higher uncompensated care costs. Georgia reportedly spent twice as much on administration as it did on enrollee care…”
1 big thing: The problem with a 50-year mortgage – Axios
“With a traditional mortgage loan, a homeowner steadily pays down debt and builds equity. A 50-year mortgage would involve very little paydown of debt over the first couple of decades. The 50-year loan would likely carry a higher interest rate than widely available 30-year mortgages, limiting the savings on the monthly payment.”
Historical Materialism 2025 part one: imperialism and war – Michael Roberts
One factor not mentioned: The world’s superpowers, whether imperialist or not, have hard-wired themselves to destroy one another in a matter of hours through a nuclear exchange. Therefore, after what may be an inevitable nuclear conflict, much of the Global South is more likely to survive to carry on human life.
ACA health care premiums are rising. These 8 Americans showed us how much. – msn/WaPost
Congress still has time to neutralize the health exchange premium shock facing millions of Americans needing coverage. The marketplaces created by the ACA fill a critical gap in an inequitable, bloated US health care financing system while absorbing a relatively small sliver of federal health spending. See article in Featured section.
Trump team secretly giving tax breaks to wealthy corporations: report – Independent (ungated)
How the Trump Administration Is Giving Even More Tax Breaks to the Wealthy – NYT
“The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service are issuing rules that provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax relief to big companies and the ultrarich.”
“‘Treasury has clearly been enacting unlegislated tax cuts,’ Kyle Pomerleau, a senior fellow at the think-tank American Enterprise Institute, told the Times. ‘Congress determines tax law. Treasury undermines this constitutional principle when it asserts more authority over the structure of the tax code than Congress provides it…'”
QED: See comments in post just below.
Sean Spicer Breaks Down Where Trump Admin ‘Missing The Mark’ On Economic Messaging – Daily Caller
“Democratic candidates beat their Republican opponents on Tuesday after campaigning on affordability.”
Actions speak louder than words. Republicans will make the same mistake as Democrats if they rely on “messaging” to plaster over the economic hardships more and more Americans are facing.
President Trump and his party need to reverse course. Here are a few of the ways that Republican policies are hurting workers while padding the pockets of wealthy supporters:
- Major legislation earlier this year cut taxes for the wealthy while choking off revenue needed to support public spending on health care, food, Social Security and other programs providing vital support to middle- and low-income Americans. It also drove up the national debt, making it harder to support spending on human needs in the future.
- Congress and Trump are now in court trying to cut off food stamps for tens of millions of people. Meanwhile, he is spending millions to build a Gatsbyesque golden ballroom at the White House.
- While health care costs soar out of control, the government shutdown triggered a huge increase in premiums, potentially pushing millions of people using health exchanges to drop coverage.
- Trump’s tariffs have begun pushing up prices – thereby impoverishing more and more voters. Tariffs are a national sales tax that impact low-income people the hardest.
- Neither party is pushing to raise wages. Higher wages would mean lower government spending on anti-poverty programs.
Money talks and bullshit walks.
Congress Could Get Millions of People Off of SNAP by Raising the Minimum Wage, but It Hasn’t — for 16 Years – Capital & Main
“1 in 8 people rely on federal food aid that has become a pawn in the government shutdown.”
US steps up presence in Gaza to support fragile ceasefire – Guam Daily Post/WaPost
As CCSE stated in a May letter to the Washington Post, the only way to stop Israel’s systematic killing of Gaza civilians is a strong US presence – boots on the ground. Instead of listening to Zionist propaganda on annual junkets to Israel, members of Congress should slowly walk through the wreckage of the Gaza strip to witness what $30 billion dollars in US military aid to Israel has achieved and talk with survivors to learn what has happened. While some members of a congressional delegation might smile in satisfaction, most would likely be shocked. Further enlightenment can come from touring Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank. Learn about how Israeli “settlers” supported by the military use KKK tactics to drive Palestinians from their homes and take their land.
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands – New Yorker
“The short documentary ‘Rovina’s Choice’ tells the story of what goes when aid goes.”
Stink tank?
Heritage staff in open revolt over leader’s defense of Tucker Carlson – msn/WaPost
Conservative think tanks in Washington, DC comprise a big tent brimming with lots of ideas. Heritage Foundation scholars – who put together the Project 2025 roadmap for the Trump Administration – continue grappling with big questions like this: Is coerced motherhood antisemitic? (CCSE Q: would such a policy apply only to overpaid intellectuals? Also apply to cleaning staff and other low-paid employees?)
Instead of attending a sleepy panel discussion at the Cato Institute lightly touching on the possibility of nuclear conflict between the US and China, CCSE staff should have put an ear to the wall at Heritage while watching outraged paid thinkers stream out the door. Where next? White House? Congress?
More kids?
Speak of the devil:
Judge orders Trump administration to deliver full SNAP benefits to states by Friday – NBC
Trump: Half rations for low-income Americans. Full speed ahead for golden ballroom for his friends.
Greene says rising costs are a ‘five-alarm fire’ — and accuses Republicans of ignoring it – Alternet
“During a Thursday interview with CNN host Kaitlan Collins, Greene said the ongoing standoff in which Republicans are refusing to include an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits in the legislation to reopen the federal government was creating a crisis for many of her constituents. She then lamented that the House was not in session to address expiring ACA credits and Americans’ other concerns about rising costs of living.
“‘To me, it is incredibly embarrassing. And I find absolutely pathetic, really, that all of us are not here in Washington D.C. working every single day to make sure that we can get the government open, but also solve the problem of affordability for the American people, and come up with a good solution once and for all for health insurance,’ she continued. ‘I think it’s going to start looking like chaos, really. Many people are very worried about this. It’s causing a lot of anxiety. Many people are already struggling day-to day, month-to-month with the cost of living. It is has remained high… And with this upcoming crisis, with health insurance premiums skyrocketing, I think this is like a five-alarm fire.'”
The American Affordability Tracker: Data on Americans’ finances and everyday costs – Urban Institute
Key Takeaways
- Urban research finds 52 percent of people in American families don’t have the resources to cover what it really costs to live securely in their community.
- This affordability crisis arises from household prices like child care, health care, rent, and home sales increasing faster than earnings. While average earnings have grown 38 percent nationwide since 2017, annual child care prices for two young children have risen by 40 percent, rents by 50 percent, and home sale prices by 80 percent, and the lowest-priced “Silver” health care plan on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace has risen 41 percent.
- Grocery prices have also become more of a cost burden for American households. Since 2019, the average monthly cost of groceries has risen by 32 percent, while earnings growth trailed slightly at 29 percent.
- Now, previously low-cost areas across the country have become substantially more expensive. Parts of Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, Nashville, and Central Florida have all seen costs for groceries, health care, and housing rise faster than other relatively low-cost areas.
FAA reducing air traffic by 10% across 40 ‘high-volume’ markets during government shutdown – AP
“Air traffic controllers have been working unpaid since the shutdown began Oct. 1, and most have been on duty six days a week while putting in mandatory overtime. With some calling out of work due to frustration, taking second jobs or not having money for child care or gas, staffing shortages during some shifts have led to flight delays at a number of U.S. airports.”
From fast food to beverage giants, brands see rising income inequality among customers – NBC
“McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said the ‘two-tier economy’ was a major factor in the fast-food giant’s decision to revive its ‘Extra Value Meal’ combos last month. ‘Traffic for lower-income consumers is down double digits,’ Kempczinski told CNBC in September. ‘We needed to step in.’…
“The U.S. economy has been turning more “K”-shaped for decades, with the high-earner cohort doing better and better while others fall further down the economic ladder.”
Mamdani defeats Cuomo: Here are 5 reasons why – Hill
American Socialism: Should the United States Become Socialist? – Britannica
“To consider whether the United States should adopt socialism or at least more socialist policies, the relevant terms must first be defined…”
Commies? Mamdani wants to use taxpayer $$ to open grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods. Trump is using taxpayer $$ to buy shares in big companies.
Sour grapes?:
So a Socialist Will Be Mayor of New York. Now What? – Daily Signal
Jonah Goldberg: Can socialism ever be more than just a fad in America? – msn
The Extraordinary Rise in the Wealth of Older American Households – Edward Wolff/NBER
“The wealth of households aged 75 and over increased from 5 percent above the overall average in 1983 to 16 percent above it in 2007, then continued to rise to 55 percent above by 2022. Correspondingly, the relative wealth of all other age groups declined during this period. For example, the mean net worth of households under 35 slipped from 21 percent of the overall mean in 1983 to 17 percent in 2007 to 16 percent in 2022.
“Wolff identifies three principal factors driving these shifts. First, homeownership rates among the oldest Americans rose by 11.5 percentage points (from 69 to 81 percent) between 1983 and 2022. Meanwhile, younger households saw their homeownership rates remain essentially flat at around 39 percent, falling further behind the overall national average of 66 percent in 2022.
“Second, direct and indirect stock holdings—through mutual funds, trusts, IRAs, and 401(k) plans—of households aged 75 and older rose from 56 percent of the overall average in 1989 to 347 percent in 2022.
“Third, while debt levels rose in absolute terms across all ages, the ratio of mortgage debt to house value declined for older households, from 21 percent in 1983 to 10 percent in 2010, where it remained through 2022. Meanwhile, for younger households, this ratio rose from 23 percent in 1983 to 76 percent in 2010 before moderating to 57 percent in 2022.”
Featured
“Understanding Inequality” – a seven-part series by CUNY Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality scholar Paul Krugman
- Part I: Why Did the Rich Pull Away from the Rest?
- Part II: The Importance of Worker Power
- Part III: A Trumpian Diversion
- Part IV: Oligarchs and the Rise of Mega-Fortunes
- Part V: Predatory Financialization
- Part VI: Wealth and Power
- Part VII: Crypto
At least two think tanks are holding meetings this month on how to address Social Security’s financing shortfall.
Updated Oct. 8, 2025
“This paper presents options – some favored by conservatives, others by progressives – as a framework for negotiating an equitable solution to Social Security’s financing shortfall. Taken together, the changes could generate up to twice as much in savings and revenue as needed to balance Social Security’s books…
“Congress could strike a deal drawing about half the savings needed to fix Social Security through a gradual benefit reduction by changing the formula for determining initial benefit levels while protecting the lowest earners. The rest of the gap could be filled through tax increases. These financing options provide room for targeted benefit improvements to help the lowest income pay their bills and families raise children.”
Thanks to The Hill for running our oped:
Judge says Trump administration ‘used antisemitism as a smokescreen’ against Harvard – USA Today
Trump Administration’s Cuts to Harvard Funding Are Unconstitutional, Judge Rules – msn/WSJ
CCSE correspondence with Harvard President Garber
“Prediction: Harvard University will be teaching students from all over the world long after what remains of Trump and his brain trust rest in silence beneath the ground. BTW, White House staff could benefit from taking free public finance courses at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Harvard has a positive fund balance. The United State government, not so much.”
No peace, no prize. – Karl Polzer
“Republican members of the US Congress, which is financing Israel’s now escalating ethnic cleansing of Gaza, have nominated President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. It is hard to fathom the depth and irony of their fawning depravity. The Nobel prize is clearly a trophy that he covets. But shouldn’t a peace prize have something to do with reducing conflict and killing? The US president and Congress, including a majority of Democrats, are doing the opposite of making peace. They are facilitating Israel’s daily, systematic killing, starvation, and displacement of entire populations of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank…”
“Economists and business analysts increasingly agree that Trump’s tariffs are raising prices. There is far less awareness that the historic spike in tariffs – coupled with the tax cuts just made permanent by Congress – comprise a major shift in the tax burden. Taken together, these two changes promise to make the US tax system more regressive. In our increasingly unequal country, taxpayers at the bottom of the economic pecking order are taking on proportionally more of the tax burden as the well-off shoulder less…”
New capitalism III: Capital – Branko Milanovic
“Why is capital so concentrated and why so few have it?”
“The new capitalism has even in the rich countries failed to produce what Margaret Thatcher, and Friedrich Hayek before her, called ‘property-owning society’. (For good measure, Thatcher added ‘democracy’ too.) Even when we include income from forced savings that becomes pension wealth, between one-half and almost 90 percent of the population in rich countries are financial-capital destitute. That percentage becomes more than 90, or even more than 95, in less developed countries…”
Related CCSE work:
Half of Americans have no retirement savings — here’s how Congress can look after them …. op-ed
How the U.S. Retirement Saving System Magnifies Inequality – Society of Actuaries
New Capitalism in America: Richest capitalists and richest workers are increasingly the same people – Global Inequality
Branko Milanovic: The World Under Capitalism – Stone Center/Toronto Public Library
Prof. Milanovic discusses two types of capitalism – “liberal capitalism” in the US and “political capitalism” directed by the Chinese Communist Party. Both systems have produced relatively high levels of income inequality.
Comparing United States and China by Economy – Statistics Times
Just-enacted 2025 budget legislation makes Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent. Here’s a CCSE presentation from just after Congress passed that bill:
What has changed? Remains the same?
2025 Social Security groundhog day:
US needs $28 trillion more over 75 years to pay promised benefits
“A few months after the Trump Administration chain-sawed Social Security’s leadership and staff, four newly installed senior officials overseeing the program released the annual report on its declining financial condition. This year’s actuarial forecast is a bit gloomier due in large part to a benefit expansion enacted by the previous Congress. However, in the big picture, not much has changed. Social Security’s looming insolvency remains…
“As I have pointed out to the Senate Budget Committee, the process of spending down Social Security reserves already is increasing overall federal spending and pushing up annual deficits. Drawing down reserves in the Social Security trust funds requires the Treasury to sell bonds (or find other sources of revenue) to raise cash to pay the program’s 74 million beneficiaries.
“On pp. 51-52, this year’s report estimates that Social Security will draw down $181 billion from the combined trust funds in 2025 with the amount rising to $405 billion in 2033. As a result, the federal government is gradually moving to finance part of the program’s benefits through newly issued debt substituting for now-insufficient payroll taxes...”
More on these issues can be found in these CCSE articles and testimony:
- Why Social Security’s big benefit cut won’t happen: The U.S. Treasury already is filling its funding gap – statement to U.S. Senate Budget Committee
- A ‘conservative/progressive’ path to Social Security solvency: bend the benefit cost curve, grow revenue, and protect lower earners – statement to Senate Appropriations Committee
- A Widening Gap in Life Expectancy Makes Raising Social Security’s Retirement Age a Particularly Bad Deal for Low-Wage Earners – Society of Actuaries
- Growing inequality has shrunk Social Security’s revenue. Revitalizing its tax base could help restore solvency without cutting benefits.
- Center on Capital & Social Equity work on Social Security and retirement savings (updated January 2025).
OBBBA’s 30-Year Price Tag – CRFB
“The House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) would add $3 trillion to the debt through Fiscal Year (FY) 2034 as written and $5 trillion if made permanent. Over the long run, it would add far more to the debt.”
Trump, Tariffs, and the Economic Outlook – AEI discussion
“Helping young people learn how to save and build up money for college and adult life are worthy goals. But new ‘Trump kids accounts’ embedded in the massive Republican tax and spending bill before the US Senate not only duplicate existing programs. They also would widen financial gaps between families in our already very unequal country. In addition, tax subsidies for money invested in Trump accounts would go mostly to well-off families and push up the national debt…”
Letter to US citizens:
Student expulsions are an attack on all Americans’ freedom of speech
“This is how fascism happens. First, they come for the powerless. In time, they
will come for you.”
“The federal government has had authority since 1986 to criminally prosecute individuals and companies employing workers not legally in the United State, but it has rarely used that authority regardless of the administration in office. A one-year snapshot taken during Trump’s first term found that no company was criminally prosecuted for having workers not authorized to be in the country, a Syracuse University study shows…
“Changing the equation to incentivize employers to help enforce, rather than skirt, the nation’s immigration laws does not mean subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment. No need to suspend billionaires and entrepreneurs in cages from a tower or use branding irons. It does mean applying and stiffening laws against hiring illegals and tax avoidance. Financial penalties, public shaming, and loss of contracts could be a start. If that isn’t sufficient, start putting law-breaking employers in jail. They are lining their pockets by stealing jobs from American workers, both native born and those immigrating legally.”
Multiple conflicts of interest:
“By directing a high-powered federal agency working to alter the size and nature of the federal workforce, Elon Musk may be jeopardizing the ability of companies he owns and directs, including SpaceX and Tesla, to contract with the federal government.”
Thanks to the Virginian-Pilot for running our op-ed:
Many questions, few answers about exempting tips from taxes – Karl Polzer/Virginian-Pilot
“Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposal to exempt tipped income from state taxes — like President-elect Donald Trump’s on a national level — could help some low-wage workers. However, it also poses risks for others and raises complex issues facing scrutiny as the state legislature begins its work…”
To provide access to all readers (the newspaper’s op-eds are gated), below is the original submission including links to sources:
Statement to 11/20/24 US House Appropriations Committee hearing on Social Security:
“As keeper of the federal government’s purse strings, the House Appropriations Committee plays a part in maintaining Social Security’s commitment to American workers, their families, and taxpayers. First, Committee members can weigh in as Congress and the Treasury find hundreds of billions of dollars annually in cash outside the appropriations process to draw down Social Security reserves. The Committee can also help ‘leave room’ in future budgets for revenue increases that might be necessary to keep Social Security solvent as it coordinates with House Ways & Means, Budget, and other Committees on tax and spending issues.”
The next President and Congress will face daunting fiscal issues. In the shadow of historic levels of national debt, lawmakers will be bargaining over trillions of dollars of taxes and spending as they deal with expiration of the Trump tax cuts. On top of that loom major Social Security financing gaps. Paying promised benefits will require the government to raise more than $2 trillion in cash over the next eight years and more than $24 trillion to achieve long-run solvency.
This paper presents policy options – some favored by conservatives, others by progressives – as a framework for negotiating a solution. Taken together, the changes could generate more than twice as much in savings and revenue than needed to balance Social Security’s books.
The nation’s biggest banks in effect have become today’s payday lenders.
Which U.S. Households Have Credit Card Debt? – St. Louis Fed
46% of American households held credit card debt in 2022.
– Expand the child tax credit to help more working-class parents and grandparents raising kids.
– Provide Social Security credit for unpaid work raising young children.
– Update/improve SSI so more people with disabilities can work, save.
– If taxes must go up, hold the working poor harmless.
Click here for longer version including references and related articles.
CCSE work contributes to Congressional hearing on financing Social Security
Center on Capital & Social Equity (CCSE) analysis and advocacy were evidenced during the June 4 House Ways & Means subcommittee on Social Security hearing of the program’s trust fund. Over the past years, CCSE has worked to explore issues affecting low-wage workers and lay groundwork to defend their Social Security benefits when Congress eventually refinances the nation’s most important social program.
It’s Social Security ‘groundhog day’ as trustees repeat annual forecast of declining finances
“…The trustees’ report, however, neglects to mention how Social Security already is impacting the overall federal budget. As pointed out to the Senate Budget Committee, the mechanics of spending down Social Security’s reserves require the Treasury to draw funds from general revenue and issue new debt to the public. As a result, Social Security is gradually and organically moving to paying for current benefits through debt substituting for now-insufficient payroll taxes that it traditionally relies on.”
Missing the obvious: life expectancy in the U.S. is closely related to income – Karl Polzer
“The underlying theory is simple: More income and wealth allow people and governments to support more years of life. Fewer resources put them at a disadvantage. Some politicians who see the connection may be leery of talking about it. Doing so would lead to awkward questions about improving working and living conditions for millions of Americans and dealing with growing economic inequality.
“The strong relationship between income and longevity is clear when comparing states… (E)ight of the nine states with the lowest median household income also are among the bottom nine in longevity. Similar clustering occurs comparing the highest ranked states across the two categories. Seven of the nine states with the highest median household income also are among the top nine in life expectancy.
“Realizing they are rowing in the same economic boat could prompt states to join forces on policy changes, particularly Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, New Mexico, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and others ranking at or near the bottom…
“Presidential candidate and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley strongly proposes raising the program’s retirement age on the premise that increased life spans are undermining Social Security’s long-term solvency. If long-held assumptions about longevity were challenged, and potential losses to low-income workers and low-income states caused by raising the eligibility age came to light, would she change her position? Republican candidate Donald Trump, by the way, opposes cuts in Social Security as do most Democrats…”
Thanks to the Washington Examiner for running this op-ed:
Senate minimum wage bills make bipartisan compromise possible – Washington Examiner
For longer version with references, see:
Previous work on this issue:
One way to make living easier in Virginia – letter to WaPost
Yes, raise the minimum wage, but don’t stop there – op-ed
“More Americans are rightly asking if Israel could neutralize Hamas without massive destruction and loss of civilian life. Indiscriminate air attacks by the Netanyahu regime already have killed and injured tens of thousands of Gazans with no end to the violence in sight. To put this in perspective, imagine how Washington, D.C., would look if a foreign government with the power to fence in the District of Columbia dropped a comparable number of bombs here while shutting off access to water and food and destroying most of the capital area’s housing and medical system. UN officials say conditions in Gaza are catastrophic.”
Thanks to the Washington Post for publishing our letter to the editor:
One way to make living easier in Virginia – Karl Polzer/letter to WaPost
“Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) told reporters he is ‘concerned about the cost of living in Virginia and we’re continuing to evaluate how best to address that,’ as reported in the Nov. 26 Metro article ‘Budget battle looms in Virginia. Facing a tighter fiscal environment and Democratic control of the legislature, Mr. Youngkin and fellow Republicans could help working families without denting the budget by making an expected Democratic push for a higher minimum wage a bipartisan affair.
“The GOP has been trying to attract more minority and working-class voters. However, party leaders have stopped short of addressing core economic issues, such as supporting higher wages and better benefits, and mainly stress cultural issues…”
Background Information on these issues provided to Virginia legislators
McCarthy & Co. offer themselves up on the cross to help motivate lazy poor people back to work
Work requirements are a policy failure: Why are they still an option? – The Hill
Thanks to the Washington Post for running our letter:
“Letting Americans Down”
“How can House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), President Biden and Senate leaders claim to represent the working class and poor when Medicaid work requirements are a focal point in the debt ceiling standoff and the Trump-era tax cuts are not? According to the Congressional Budget Office, the work requirements in the Limit, Save, Grow Act would have a tiny impact (about $5.6 billion in fiscal 2025) on the nation’s $31.4 trillion national debt, but they would increase the number of uninsured and state costs and have no effect on hours worked by Medicaid recipients.
“In contrast, ending the Trump-era tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit the wealthy, could put a major dent in the national debt….”
Because most of this site’s readers won’t be able to get through the newspaper’s pay gate, here’s the draft of the letter sent to the Post:
Debt ceiling negotiators focus on a ‘speck’ in benefits for the poor, ignore the ‘logs’ in their own eyes.
“Legislative Choices for Paying Promised Social Security Benefits”
Statement of Karl Polzer, Center on Capital & Social Equity,
U.S. Senate Budget Committee hearing: “Protecting Social
Security for All: Making the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share”
Has DT crossed the line into delirium tremens?
“It came out of his mouth during a campaign speech last month.”