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It’s Not Really About Work: Why Pennsylvania Should Reject Work Requirements
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Month: April 2018
The Trump Tax Bill Wasn’t For You
By Sean Kitchen It’s Tax Day 2018, and you know what that means? The country’s wealthiest Americans are about to experience long-term gains from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center is concerned about the effects of the tax cut law and legislation that would make temporary tax cuts permenant after 2025. A new report from the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy shows that the top 1% will receive more federal tax dollars than the bottom 60% in 47 states, and the top 20% will gobble up the majority of returns from the temporary tax provisions that were baked into the bill as tax cuts for the middle class. The top 20% will also receive a larger and more disproportionate tax cut in relation to their income. The report published by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy explains that those in the top 20%… Continue reading
“Work Requirements” and the Political Appeal of Cruelty
From Third and State, April 17, 2018 We at PBPC are engaged in a major effort to push back against legislation in the PA General Assembly to create work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP. The new federal Farm Bill put forward by House Republicans, which authorizes the SNAP (Food Stamp) program, has similar provisions. We have been pointing out that the stereotypes used to justify work requirements are simply untrue. We show that stereotypes that justify harsh measures affecting those who are struggling with low incomes are based on falsehoods. The American social safety net almost entirely benefits people who cannot work — the elderly, ill, and disabled — or working Americans. It offers very little to able-bodied men and women who do not work. People who receive Medicaid and food stamps mostly work when they can find employment and are not ill, disabled, in school, or taking care of young children… Continue reading
Work requirement bills are a cruel election-year ploy
Published in the York Dispatch on April 14, 2018 Republicans are rushing legislation to create “work requirements” for recipients of Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps through the General Assembly. A bill to create “work requirements” for Medicaid may be voted on as early as Monday. Similar legislation for SNAP will likely be considered shortly thereafter. The Republican rationale for work requirements rests on the old, stereotypical (and false) idea that those who rely on the social safety net are unwilling to work because they are lazy or because the very existence of the safety net creates a “culture of dependency” that discourages work. It assumes that people with low-incomes are different from, and less deserving than, the rest of us. And, between the lines, supporters of this legislation imply that the recipients of Medicaid and SNAP are urban, people of color. None… Continue reading
PreK-12 Education Funding in Pennsylvania: Where Do We Stand?
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