In Case You Missed It...

This week on Off the Charts, we focused on the federal budget and taxes, unemployment insurance, state budgets and taxes, the minimum wage, and income inequality.

• On the federal budget and taxes, Richard Kogan noted that Congress has already agreed to its 2015 budget plan, through last December’s budget deal between Senate Budget Chair Patty Murray and House Budget Chair Paul Ryan.  Chuck Marr pointed to his commentary on growing bipartisan support for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

• On unemployment insurance, we showed where things stand for the unemployed, including the number of weeks of unemployment insurance available in each state.

• On state budgets and taxes, Michael Leachman listed three reasons why caution is the right approach to state surpluses.

• On the minimum wage, we highlighted CBPP Senior Fellow Jared Bernstein’s column in the latest edition of CQ Researcher that explained how raising the minimum wage would help the economy.

• On income inequality, Chad Stone recapped three animated graphs from our Illustrating Income Inequality blog series that showed how most of the income growth in recent decades has occurred at the very top.

In other news, Chuck Marr issued a commentary on how the EITC is an anti-poverty initiative that both conservatives and liberals can agree on. A variety of news outlets featured CBPP’s work and experts recently.  Here are some highlights: Chris Christie's out of step on working poor Star-Ledger January 24, 2014 Making a Political Football Out of the Jobless U.S. News & World Report January 22, 2014 Oscar Nominees Cash In On State Tax Subsidies Forbes January 21, 2014 The Limits of Marriage as a Path Out of Poverty New York Times January 20, 2014