States will need more fiscal relief to avoid having to make deep budget cuts to meet their balanced-budget requirements, which would hurt families and communities while worsening the recession.
off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
New CBO Projections Suggest Even Bigger State Shortfalls
April 29, 2020
May 21, 2020: We have updated our estimate of projected state shortfalls. Please see this post for our new estimate.
State budget shortfalls from COVID-19’s economic fallout could total $650 billion over three years, we estimate based on new...
McConnell Argument Against State Fiscal Relief Doesn’t Stand Up
April 23, 2020
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defends his opposition to more fiscal relief for state and local governments by arguing that it would just “bail out” states that have mismanaged their finances, particularly their state employee pension systems. That’s far off base. In reality, states would...
Trump’s Budget Threatens States and Their Residents
February 12, 2020
President Trump’s 2021 budget would slice federal aid to state and local governments that provides health care, K-12 education, and more.
Large federal aid cuts would do lots of damage in states. Federal grants provide roughly 30 percent of state budgets across the country...
This MLK Day, Let’s Remember the Links Between Racial Justice and State Tax Policy
January 16, 2020
While Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is best known for his inspirational leadership in bringing down legal barriers to civil rights for Black Americans and other people of color, he also emphasized the need to reduce poverty and expand opportunity to achieve true racial justice. This MLK Day, we would do well to remember that state tax codes are a critical lever for policymakers not only to...
As School Year Begins, Time for States to Invest in Schools
August 22, 2019
As children across the country begin a new school year, their schools’ facilities and equipment aren’t as modern as they should be, due to sharp cuts in state funding for school capital projects over the past decade. As a share of the economy, state capital funding for schools — for example, to build new schools, renovate and expand facilities, and install more modern technologies — was still...
States Used 2019 Legislative Sessions to Boost Revenue for Schools, Other Services
June 27, 2019
With a new fiscal year set to begin in most states on July 1, state policymakers have raised revenue for public investments in schools and other areas that will lay a strong foundation for stronger long-term economic growth, and they’ve proposed additional revenue increases that need voter approval.
Many of the revenue increases, like New York’s millionaires’ tax extension or New Mexico...
K-12 Funding Still Lagging in Many States
May 29, 2019
Some states still provide much less K-12 funding per student than in the 2008 school year, when the Great Recession hit, according to new Census Bureau data and state budget documents....
Severe Teacher Shortage Shows States Should Better Fund Schools
April 24, 2019
The country’s severe shortage of qualified public elementary and secondary school teachers, which a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report details, demonstrates states’ need to raise adequate revenue not only to boost teacher pay but also to provide the resources that high-quality schools require.
While teacher protests over the...
K-12 Funding Up in Teacher-Strike States, But Room for More Growth
March 6, 2019
Protests by teachers and others helped drive substantial school funding increases over the last year in Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, four states that had cut school “formula” funding — the main state revenue source for schools — the most over the last decade. Still, formula funding remains well below 2008 levels in these states, as we explain in a...
