Key Findings

Former Governor Easley and tax policy study groups in North Carolina have periodically called for the enactment of “combined reporting” (CR), a corporate income tax reform aimed at nullifying tax shelters used by large multistate corporations. Some current legislators may be concerned that this could lead companies to leave the state or shun it for new investments. However, an investigation of the location decisions of the 75 largest North Carolina manufacturers demonstrates that such concerns are unwarranted:

• 60 of the 75 have chosen to maintain facilities in at least one combined reporting state.
• Almost half have facilities in 5 or more CR states, 17 have facilities in 10 or more, and 1 has facilities in every one of the CR states.
• 18 have long-maintained their headquarters in CR states, including Cisco Systems, Freightliner, and Georgia-Pacific.
• Several opponents of CR have facilities in numerous CR states, including Smithfield and Baxter Healthcare.

Key Findings

• New data show that homelessness among families with children is already mounting due to the recession.
• If unemployment reaches 9 percent, as some experts predict, the ranks of the poor could expand by up to 10 million and the ranks of the very poor by up to 6 million (including up to 1 million very poor families with children), based on the relationship between unemployment and poverty in past recessions. Large increases in homelessness could result.
• The housing market crisis adds to the risk of increased homelessness. Foreclosures have pushed many families into the rental market, driving up rents in many areas and making housing less affordable.
• Congress should include in the forthcoming recovery package one-time funding for 200,000 new, non-renewable housing vouchers, along with a substantial increase for HUD’s Emergency Shelter Grant program to prevent an additional several hundred thousand families from becoming homeless. At a cost of one-half of one percent of the overall package, these measures would substantially diminish the increase in homelessness during the recession while also providing effective short-term stimulus. Congress can design these provisions in a way that does not create budget pressures after 2010.

[T]he current downturn is likely to cause significant increases both in the number of Americans who are poor and the number living in "deep poverty," with incomes below half of the poverty line...There are a series of steps that federal and state policymakers could take to soften the recession’s harshest impacts and limit the extent of the increases in deep poverty, destitution, and homelessness.

Key Findings

• Increases in immigration tend to improve Social Security’s financial status, and decreases in immigration tend to worsen it.
• More immigration would likely eliminate only a small portion of Social Security’s long-term shortfall.
• The impact of immigration on Social Security’s finances is modest and should not be a major factor in setting either immigration or Social Security policy.

Even before the current economic downturn, some 13 million households, containing 36.2 million people, lacked access to adequate food at some point in 2007 because they didn’t have enough money for groceries, according to the USDA report on hunger.

Key Findings

• Five states have enacted new Earned Income Tax Credits since autumn 2006, bringing the total number of states to 24.
• Of the 42 states (including the District of Columbia) with income taxes, 23 now have enacted such credits.
• State EITCs reduce poverty, increase workforce participation among low-income families, and make state tax systems fairer.
• Twenty-one states have made their credits refundable, ensuring the broadest impact on poverty and maximizing the work incentive.
• A newly-passed credit in Washington demonstrates that states without an income tax can also offer a state EITC.