The House budget plan that Republicans passed a few weeks ago would mean higher costs for the bottom 40% of Americans, while the rich pay less. That may sound too cartoonishly evil to be true, but that's what new analysis shows.

budgetlab.yale.edu/news/250319/...

Kudos to @sangerkatz.bsky.social and @aliciaparlap.bsky.social for stating this so clearly and directly. The "current policy" gimmick doesn't actually make the cost of tax cuts disappear. Which means someone else will be picking up the tab (and you can be sure that "someone else" isn't rich people).

Republicans in Congress are banking on a terrible news environment to hide the fact that their legislative plans are ridiculously unpopular. We need more clear, direct headlines like this one to cut through that noise.

Hundreds showed up at the Capitol to oppose the Republican budget plan.

Musk's illegal power grab is about a lot of things, but one of them is to impose cuts on popular public services (like Head Start, WIC, public schools) that would never pass Congress, but will allow Republicans to make room for more tax breaks for the rich (like Elon himself).

I think there is a legitimate sense that there never seems to be enough to go around to help Americans here at home. The problem isn't foreign aid, but I understand why billionaires like Elon Musk want you to think it is.

Apparently, the Treasury Secretary nominee is advising Trump to aim for deficits of 3% of GDP by 2028. Because Trump is also planning to enact another round of massive tax cuts skewed to the rich, that means cutting SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans' benefits. Period.

Math in the thread below.

Here's the chart for overall unemployment rate by race.

Totally fair.

This is the number of Black workers who were unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, going back to before the Great Recession.

Now that inflation is back down to pre-pandemic levels, we have a chance to pay some paying attention to economic stories that have been obscured.

e.g. Last recession, millions were stuck for years in crushing, long-term unemployment.

But not this time! Hard to overstate how important this is.

How do you feel about medians?

I'm getting replies saying, "GDP growth? So what? How is that helpful to everyday folks?" (I'm choosing this interpretation of their comments)

Fair enough. Topline growth doesn't always mean growth for all.

But, remember, we also know that wealth is growing for the middle and the bottom.

Wealth growth was also robust for low-income households, growing by more than 55% between 2019 and 22.

But the good news doesn't stop there. Median wealth for Black households is now about 37% higher than it's ever been (still a big racial wealth gap, mind you).

During the Great Recession, median household wealth dropped by 40% and even in 2019 was still nearly 20% lower than it had been in 2007.

After the COVID recession, median household wealth INCREASED by 36% and is now higher than it was before the Great Recession.

Source: Survey of Consumer Finances

We are spending LESS today on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid than we were expecting to spend just a few decades ago. But repeated tax cuts--skewed to the rich--undermined the tax code, and dramatically reduced revenue from what was expected. The result: higher deficits.

Here's one simple way to visualize just how strong the labor market is right now: this is total employment as a share of the total number of working age people in the U.S.

And by this simple metric, there are more people working than ever before!