Climate change more severely threatens young generations than older generations

Reports and Proceedings - 

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)

Babies born in 2020 worldwide could expect to experience 2-7 times more extreme climate events – including heat waves, wildfires, crop failures, droughts, floods and tropical storms – under current global climate policy pledges than someone born in 1960, report Wim Thiery and colleagues in a Policy Forum. The findings provide a scientific perspective on intergenerational climate inequalities and underscore the challenges younger generations face due to inadequate climate action. 

“Our results highlight a severe threat to the safety of young generations and call for drastic emission reductions to safeguard their future,” write the authors. Under ongoing climate change, extreme climate events are expected to become more pronounced and occur more frequently over the next decades. As such, younger generations will likely live through far more of these events throughout their lives compared to older generations. 

This impending reality has fueled a surge of climate protests and litigation led by young people worldwide. However, these positions lack a comprehensive scientific perspective as current climate change assessments fail to quantify differences in lifetime exposure to climate change effects across generations. Here, Thiery et al. present a novel intergenerational analysis designed to predict impacts as they are experienced over a person’s lifetime. 

The analysis combines data from a collection of extreme climate event projections, global population data and data on future global temperature trajectories from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming. While the authors found that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius reduces the burden of younger generations, these generations will still experience unprecedented and unavoidable impacts unmatched by those experienced by older generations, particularly in low-income countries with rapidly growing young populations. The impacts under the current climate trajectories are far more grim.

28 ORGANIZATIONS ADVOCATING FOR RACIAL EQUITY SEEK A $3.5 TRILLION BUDGET RECONCILIATION PACKAGE

 September 15, 2021 The Honorable Nancy Pelosi The Honorable Chuck Schumer Speaker of the House Majority Leader U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Senate Washington, D.C. 20515 Washington, D.C. 20510 The Honorable Richard Neal The Honorable Ron Wyden Chair, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, Senate Finance Committee 1102 Longworth HOB 219 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 Washington, D.C. 20510 

Dear Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Schumer, and Chairs Neal and Wyden: 

The undersigned organizations advocate for the health, well-being, and economic security of Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and other communities of color. We write to make clear how important it is to communities of color that Congress enact a robust budget reconciliation package of at least $3.5 trillion in investments in our communities funded through fairer taxes on the rich and corporations. This legislation would advance racial equity by narrowing racial income and wealth gaps, as well as by funding these long-overdue investments. 

The investments likely expected to be included in the legislation center the needs of communities of color, and are especially urgent given the devastation of COVID-19 and the uneven economic recovery. These investments, outlined in President Biden’s Build Back Better plan and in the Senate- and House-passed budget resolution, include measures that will make health care, elder care, and child care more accessible and affordable for families while providing care workers with better wages and training; provide housing assistance; provide universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds, free community college, and major increases in funding for HBCUs, tribal colleges and other educational institutions devoted to serving communities of color; create a nationwide, comprehensive paid family and medical leave policy; and address the disproportionate impact of climate change on communities of color by expanding access to clean energy and transportation. 

The legislation is also expected to include extensions of the refundable tax credits expanded by the American Rescue Plan Act, which are especially important for families of color: the expanded Child Tax Credit, for example, has the potential to cut child poverty in half and especially benefits Black and Latinx children. These investments represent meaningful steps towards addressing long-standing inequities and will build back a better economy that works for all of us. 

The president has also proposed that these investments be paid for by requiring the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes and by cracking down on tax cheats. His tax plan would not increase taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year. 

Because of centuries of institutionalized racism—including in the tax code—white families on average have eight times the wealth of Black families and are five times richer than Latinx families. The average white household makes $28,000 more a year than the average Black household and $16,000 more than an average Latinx household. The pandemic has exacerbated racial wealth disparities: people of color have been on the front lines of the health and economic crises, and have experienced higher levels of unemployment and material hardship. 

Meanwhile, much of the nation’s wealthy white elite have thrived economically. The collective wealth of the country’s 700-plus billionaires has increased by $1.8 trillion, or 62%, during the pandemic—enough to pay for more than half of the ten-year cost of the $3.5 billion reconciliation package. The tax reforms of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda slated to be included in the reconciliation bill would narrow those gaps, as well as fund the investments noted above that will dramatically improve the lives of families of color. 

Several of President Biden’s proposed tax reforms would reduce racial economic disparities because they target income produced by wealth, including corporate wealth. It’s scandalous that 55 of America’s biggest corporations paid no federal income taxes last year. And that in 2018 over 1,500 U.S.-based multinational corporations paid an average U.S. tax rate of just 7.8%, while the average American household pays about 14%. 

The president’s corporate tax reform would raise around $2 trillion by increasing the corporate tax rate to 28% and closing tax loopholes that incentivize firms to outsource jobs and shift profits to tax havens. Corporations are overwhelmingly owned by rich, white people: the wealthiest 10% of households own nearly 90% of corporate stock; the top 1% own over half. 

Under current law, income from wealth is taxed at much lower rates than income from work: the top tax rate on employees’ paychecks is now nearly double the top rate on the most important forms of investment income (37% vs. 20%). Because people of color are much more likely to derive their income from work, rather than assets, these preferential tax rates overwhelmingly benefit wealthy white families. The president’s plan would make the tax code more equitable by making millionaires and billionaires pay the same top tax rate on all their investment income that workers pay on their wages. The plan would also close the stepped-up basis loophole that lets a lifetime’s worth of investment gains permanently escape taxation. 

The budget reconciliation package would provide more resources to the IRS to increase enforcement against wealthy tax cheats who evade paying what they owe, a group that’s mostly white. The reduction in the IRS’ funding has hampered its ability to go after such high income taxpayers—to the point where low-income taxpayers claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit, which especially benefits women and people of color, are audited at nearly the same rate as people making $1-$5 million a year. Giving the IRS more resources to pursue wealthy tax 3 cheats and requiring financial institutions to help the IRS in its efforts to identify likely and actual evasion would make tax enforcement more equitable and could raise $700 billion. 

The pandemic and protests of the past year-and-a-half have brought a long overdue focus to the structural and systemic racism within our economic systems. Whether as protestors in the streets demanding overdue justice, patients in the emergency room seeking life-saving treatment, or workers trying to stay both safe and employed, people of color have been on the frontlines of the crises. 

President Biden’s tax reforms will increase racial equity in the tax code and raise the revenues we need to support an equitable recovery. But if those reforms are weakened, the tradeoffs are stark: every dollar not raised from a billionaire means a dollar less for child care or the Child Tax Credit; every dollar not raised from a multinational corporation is a dollar not available for paid family and medical leave or affordable health care; every dollar not raised by cracking down on rich tax cheats is a dollar not available for affordable housing or combatting climate change. 

In short, the size and structure of the reconciliation bill matter to communities of color. Without the full measure of the authorized $3.5 trillion in revenues or investments, we will fail to fully capitalize on the opportunity to make historic investments that will advance racial equity. 

A massive lobbying campaign by corporations and the wealthy is underway to influence your decisions. The positions they’re pushing run contrary to virtually every public poll conducted in recent months—especially this one—which show strong support for both the taxes and investments proposed by the president. More than 700 national and state organizations have written Congress endorsing the president’s investments and tax plan. 

We implore you in the name of racial equity and justice: stand up to the demands of the wealthy and big corporations to preserve their privileges and escape paying their fair share of taxes. 

Sincerely, 

Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO Center for American Progress Center for Popular Democracy Coalition on Human Needs Collective Power for Reproductive Justice Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR) Color of Change Community Change Action Friends Committee on National Legislation Fund Black Founders Inc Groundwork Collaborative 4 The Institute on Race and Political Economy and Darrick Hamilton, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy, The New School Liberation in a Generation Movement for Black Lives National African American Clergy Network National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) National CAPACD - National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development National Coalition for Black Civic Participation National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA) National Education Association National Immigration Law Center National Women’s Health Network Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice PolicyLink Prosperity Now Rainbow PUSH Coalition Service Employees International Union SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective cc: Reps. Terri Sewell, Jimmy Gomez and Steven Horsford, Leaders of the Ways and Means Committee Racial Equity Initiative Members of the Congressional Black Caucus Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus 

Rebuilding the IRS Would Advance Racial Equity

 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The economic recovery package Congress is developing should incorporate President Biden’s full proposal to rebuild the IRS. That plan, which includes a large, multi-year funding effort and a critical new information reporting proposal, would advance racial equity by providing more resources to audit high-income filers, who are disproportionately white; improving auditors’ ability to effectively target those high-income audits; and improving services for honest filers.

Deep cuts in IRS funding after 2010 led to sharp reductions in the number of highly trained audit staff needed to audit the largest corporations and highest-income filers, whose returns are the most complicated. This, in turn, has led to a sharp drop in their audit rates, even though filers in the top 1 percent are responsible for a disproportionate share — more than 25 percent — of the $600 billionannual “tax gap” of taxes owed but not paid. These well-off filers are overwhelmingly white due to historical and continuing racial bias and discrimination, which have systematically reduced economic opportunity for households of color.

Its enforcement capabilities weakened by budget cuts, the IRS has focused instead on the simpler returns of low-income taxpayers, who are disproportionately households of color. Today, a low-income person claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is about as likely to be audited as someone in the top 1 percent, even though EITC claims represent just 6 percent of the tax gap. As a result, the most highly audited counties in the country are predominantly Black, rural counties in the deep South.

The Biden plan is designed to correct this inequity.

Its significant funding boost for IRS enforcement and upgraded computer systems would enable the agency to hire and train audit staff who are equipped to conduct the complicated audits of large corporations and very high-income and high-wealth people. While audit rates for high-income filers would rise, “[a]udit rates will not rise relative to recent years for those with less than $400,000 in actual income,” according to the Treasury Department.

The plan also includes another crucial component: new financial reporting rules to help IRS identify unreported income, which would help the agency detect tax evasion and discourage wealthy households and businesses from underreporting their income in the first place. The new rules would require financial institutions to report two new pieces of information — how much money flows into and out of bank accounts held by individuals and companies — on the form they already use to report interest income in these accounts.

The IRS already has income information for people who earn their income through wages and salaries via W-2 forms their employers provide to the IRS. But wealthy people who get the bulk of their income from less transparent sources, such as sales of assets and business transactions, often face no similar third-party reporting on their incomes. The proposal would address that imbalance by providing the IRS with information to help it uncover unreported income for which there is little or no third-party information like a W-2.

Treasury estimates that the Biden Administration’s IRS proposal would generate $700 billion over ten years — $460 billion of it from the new reporting requirements alone. This represents significant revenue that people at the top of the income scale already owe under current law.

As Emory University Professor Dorothy Brown has written, “[p]roviding increased funding for the IRS to conduct audits is a necessary step toward a more equitable tax system. Rich white Americans should pay their fair share of taxes.” That’s why 88 organizations dedicated to promoting social, racial, gender, and economic justice have urged policymakers to “prioritize rebuilding the IRS’s enforcement capabilities and dedicating additional enforcement resources to ensuring wealthy Americans and large corporations pay what they owe.”

More fundamentally, the revenue from reducing tax evasion by the wealthy would help finance other measures in the recovery legislation to expand economic opportunity and security for people with lower incomes and people of color. Strengthening the IRS is part of an overall plan to reduce racial income and wealth gaps from both ends of the spectrum to advance racial equity.

Other elements of Biden’s IRS proposal would also promote racial equity. For example, requiring paid tax preparers, which many low- and middle-income filers use, to meet minimum standards of competency would help ensure that the filers (many of whom are people of color) can access the information and assistance needed to accurately claim tax benefits to which they are entitled.

While some have expressed concern that the information reporting proposal could discourage people of color who are “unbanked” from using financial institutions, that assertion is based on a misleading and incomplete characterization of the proposal, which is designed to protect privacy, to impose no burdens on taxpayers, and to shield low- and moderate-income people from higher audit rates. It further ignores the fact that the economic recovery package creates many new potential pathways for households of color to become banked, including the monthly and fully refundable Child Tax Credit, which can be directly deposited to bank accounts.

Given the relative simplicity and large potential benefits of the Biden Administration’s IRS proposal — including how it would advance racial equity — it deserves the support of both lawmakers and the financial industry, and to be included in any final economic recovery package.

Why CT needs progressive budget (tax and spending) reform

CT Voices 

Complete report

 Progressive tax reform would support the state’s economy and working- and middle-class families, especially families of color. As detailed in CT Voices’ report on tax reform, Connecticut’s tax system is regressive, meaning the state’s working- and middle-class families, especially families of color, pay a higher percentage of their income in state and local taxes than the wealthy, which exacerbates the pre-tax wage inequality reviewed earlier. At the same time, Connecticut’s tax system slows economic growth by disproportionately burdening working- and middle-class families because those families spend a greater percentage of their income on economic goods and services than the wealthy spend—in economic terms, working- and middle-class families have a higher marginal propensity to consume (MPC). 

Put together, tax reform comprised of a child tax credit and an equal-sized tax on dividends and capital gains would be revenue neutral (i.e., it would not increase or decrease the state’s overall tax revenue when excluding the positive effect of the program on economic growth) and it would address the state’s main economic problems: it would boost the economy because the expansionary effect of the tax cut component is significantly larger than the contractionary effect of the tax increase component; and it would support working- and middle-class families, especially families of color, by decreasing their disproportionate tax burden.

Progressive budget (tax and spending) reform would provide even more support for the state’s economy and working- and middle-class families, especially families of color. Based on the fiscal multiplier effects detailed above, a budget that incorporates both progressive tax reform (i.e., shifts the disproportionate tax burden on workingand middle-class families to the wealthy) and progressive spending reform (i.e., shifts existing spending to programs that more directly benefit working- and middle-class families) would provide more support for Connecticut’s economy and working- and middle-class families, especially families of color, than a budget that incorporates only tax reform or spending reform. Progressive budget (tax and spending) reform along with an overall increase in tax and spending levels has the potential to provide the greatest support for the state’s economy and working- and midd

Both progressive tax reform (i.e., shifts the disproportionate tax burden on working and middle-class families to the wealthy) and progressive spending reform (i.e., shifts existing spending to programs that more directly benefit working- and middle-class families) would provide more support for Connecticut’s economy and working- and middle-class families, especially families of color, than a budget that incorporates only tax reform or spending reform. Progressive budget (tax and spending) reform along with an overall increase in tax and spending levels has the potential to provide the greatest support for the state’s economy and working- and middle-class families, especially families of color. 

A budget that, in addition to progressive tax reform and progressive spending reform, incorporates a progressive tax increase (i.e., increases the overall tax level through higher taxes on the wealthy) and a progressive spending increase (i.e., increases the overall spending level through higher spending on programs that support the neediest families) would provide more support for Connecticut’s economy and working- and middle-class families, especially families of color, than a budget that only incorporates some of these changes. 

18.7 million U.S. workers still need our help

 

Economic Policy Institute:   A disappointing August jobs report showed jobs growth cooling thanks to the Delta variant causing caseloads to surge. Down significantly from June and July, only 235,000 jobs were added in August and segments of the U.S. workforce still face health and safety risks by going to work in person. EPI experts have analyzed the data and released this updated chart, which shows just how many U.S. workers are still suffering from the economic downturn caused by the pandemic—18.7 million U.S. workers still need our help.

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There’s more to the story than the 8.4 million people classified as officially unemployed. The true magnitude of COVID-19’s lasting effects on U.S. workers includes another 3.2 million people who are unemployed but have been misclassified as employed or out of the labor force. 4.2 million have dropped out of the labor force altogether, and 3.0 million people are still employed but have suffered pay cuts or loss of hours, resulting in a net loss in take home pay. That means a whopping 18.7 million U.S. workers are still in need, highlighting how crucial it is to continue safety nets like the federal pandemic unemployment insurance benefits that were allowed to expire this Labor Day.

An estimated 15.5 million adults under 65 went without medication due to high drugs costs

 

 An estimated 15.5 million adults under 65 and 2.3 million seniors were unable to pay for at least one doctor-prescribed medication in their household, according to a new study from West Health and Gallup analyzing the impact of high drug prices on consumers. While affordability of prescription drugs is an issue for all age groups, in a survey conducted in June, younger adults report not filling needed prescriptions at double the rate of the nation’s seniors in the prior three months (8% vs. 4%). When asked about skipping pills to cut costs, the divide between age groups held similarly (13% vs. 6%).  

The West Health/Gallup study on prescription drug prices is based on findings from four nationally representative polls conducted separately in January, March, April, and June. This comes as federal lawmakers craft a $3.5 trillion budget package that is expected to include legislation empowering Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for its beneficiaries, as well as for the more than 150 million Americans enrolled in private plans.

“Regardless of age or insurance type, Americans need help at the pharmacy counter and enabling Medicare to negotiate drug prices is just what the doctor ordered. It is an essential and long overdue policy change that would level the playing field between giant pharmaceutical companies and everyday Americans,” said Tim Lash, Chief Strategy Officer for West Health, a family of nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations dedicated to successful aging and lowering healthcare costs.

Overall, 7% of survey respondents in a June survey said they couldn’t afford to fill at least one prescription in their household in the prior three months, unchanged from the 6% measured in March 2021. However, among respondents in lower-income households, the rate nearly doubled from 10% in March to 19% in June, a statistically significant increase. People with chronic conditions such as diabetes (12%), COPD (12%), and those who are immune compromised (15%) also couldn’t afford their prescriptions at almost twice the rate of Americans generally. Studies have shown that when people living with chronic disease do not maintain their medication regimen, it can lead to a worsening of disease, higher cost care, and premature death.

These experiences likely contribute to why most respondents overwhelmingly support the federal government taking a bigger role in lowering healthcare costs regardless of political affiliation, racial background, or type of insurance. Nine in 10 Americans believe drug pricing needs to undergo major reform when weighed against maintaining the status quo, and another 82% report that the government is not doing enough to ensure prescriptions drugs are affordable. And, even when evaluating the impact of lower drug costs on the pharmaceutical industry, by a 4-to-1 margin, Americans show little concern that lower drug prices will mean less competition and innovation.

“Prescription drugs don’t work if you cannot afford them,” said Dan Witters, Gallup senior researcher. “Across multiple studies, we are measuring adults from all age, race and ethnic groups, political parties, and income levels are reporting that they are struggling to afford medications. And amidst these reports are strong and consistent sentiment for more government action to rein in costs.”
 

Please expand “community eligibility” in the National School Lunch Program

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Local, state, and federal policymakers each have important opportunities in the next few weeks to enable more children in low-income families to get enough to eat, thereby improving their health and educational prospects, by expanding an option in the National School Lunch Program known as “community eligibility.” But time is of the essence. The deadline for the initial local and state opportunities is September 30, and Congress is finalizing its economic recovery package, which could increase federal reimbursements to help more schools adopt the option.

The start of this school year marks ten years since schools serving large numbers of children with low income could offer meals at no charge to all students thanks to community eligibility. First implemented by schools in Illinois, Kentucky, and Michigan in 2011, community eligibility has transformed how children in low-income areas receive meals at school. Qualifying schools can offer breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students without having to collect and process school meal applications, which increases participation while reducing paperwork for parents and administrative work for schools.

The option is only available to schools with large shares of students from low-income families. For a school (or group of schools) to qualify, 40 percent or more of its students must qualify for free school meals automatically, usually because their household receives SNAP (formerly food stamps) or Medicaid benefits. Many other children in these schools are approved for free or reduced-price meals based on an application; few are much above the income limit for reduced-price meals.

For the 2019-20 school year, nearly 15 million children in more than 30,000 schools and more than 5,000 school districts received free meals through community eligibility — representing more than 1 in 4 elementary and secondary students nationwide.

A growing body of research shows that community eligibility may contribute to a range of positive outcomes for students, including better academic performance, lower student suspension rates, and more students with a healthy body mass index. But more than 30 percent of eligible schools haven’t adopted community eligibility, primarily because their federal reimbursement (which is based on the share of their students who qualify for free meals automatically) wouldn’t cover enough of their costs.

Here are the opportunities right now for policymakers to expand community eligibility.

• School districts serving large numbers of low-income students can adopt community eligibility to offer school meals at no charge to all students for the next four years. Over the last year, many more schools have become eligible for community eligibility, or eligible for higher federal reimbursements under it, because more children are participating in SNAP. But some school districts haven’t applied for community eligibility because COVID-19-related waivers have allowed schools to offer meals at no charge to all students for the last school year and the current one. Those waivers, however, expire at the end of June 2022.

  School districts can lock in higher reimbursement rates for continuing to offer free meals to all students over the next four years by applying for community eligibility before the September 30, 2021 deadline.

  Alternatively, school districts could apply for the next school year by June 30 of each year, but applying now avoids the possibility that a district’s reimbursement would shrink in future years as the economy recovers and SNAP participation declines.

• Officials in 35 states can apply to begin or expand use of Medicaid data to automatically enroll more eligible children for free or reduced-price school meals. In schools not participating in community eligibility, eligible children have to submit an application, with the same information they might already have provided to another program. Some children miss out on free or reduced-price school meals because their families don’t know they can apply or don’t understand the application. School districts are required to use SNAP data to enroll children in low-income families for free school meals automatically using a data-matching process known as “direct certification.” Since 2012, selected states have been using Medicaid data for direct certification under an Agriculture Department (USDA) demonstration project, and USDA recently announcedthat the rest of the states can apply to join.

  Using Medicaid data for direct certification helps schools automatically enroll more of their low-income students. This makes more schools eligible for community eligibility and increases reimbursements for schools that are already eligible. It also helps connect children in low-income families with free or reduced-price meals even if their school doesn’t qualify for community eligibility. States can apply by September 30, 2021 to join the demonstration for the 2022-23 school year and can apply within the following year for the 2023-24 school year.

• Through the Build Back Better Act they’re now developing, federal policymakers can increase reimbursements under community eligibility so more schools serving low-income areas can offer meals at no charge to all students. Under community eligibility, school districts must cover any costs that exceed the federal reimbursement. Because the reimbursement sometimes falls short of covering a school’s full meal costs, many eligible schools choose not to participate — more than 3,700 eligible districts and more than 13,700 eligible schools in the 2019-20 school year. President Biden, in his American Families Plan, proposed increasing the reimbursement formula, which would enable a much wider group of schools to offer meals at no charge to all students when the COVID-19-related waivers expire. The budget resolution adopted by the House and Senate in August includes funding that could support such an increase. Policymakers can include the reimbursement increase in the economic recovery legislation they are crafting.

By taking advantage of these three opportunities, policymakers can reduce children’s food hardship, improve their educational prospects, and help them lead healthier, more productive lives.