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POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS

Countdown to Tax Day: Bipartisan Proposals Advance Principle That Childless Workers Shouldn’t Be Taxed Into Poverty

As I’ve explained, childless adults are the lone group that the federal tax code taxes into or deeper into poverty.  Fortunately, policymakers of both parties — including President Obama and House Speaker Paul Ryan, as well as Senate Finance Committee member Sherrod Brown and House Ways and Means Committee member Richard Neal — have proposed ways to address this problem (see chart).  Specifically, they want to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit for childless workers and to lower the eligibility age, which would move toward making a key principle universal:  nobody should be taxed into poverty.