The American Rescue Plan, and what’s next. View this in your browser and share with your friends. <[link removed]>



<[link removed]>













A Paradigm Shift



Yesterday was historic.

One year into a pandemic that has taken over 530,000 US lives and left millions without jobs or economic security, the American Rescue Plan is now law <[link removed]>, and will soon <[link removed]> bring urgently needed relief to individuals, small businesses, and state and local governments.



But what makes this an “FDR-size piece of legislation <[link removed]>,” as New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie calls it, is the sweeping expansion of the nation’s social safety net: from annual cash payments of up to $3,600 <[link removed]> for parents to expansions of the Affordable Care Act <[link removed]> and Earned Income Tax Credit <[link removed]>.



Experts project that the law could cut childhood poverty <[link removed]> by over half and overall poverty by a third, while reducing the number of uninsured people by as much as 4.4 million <[link removed]>.



The after-tax income of middle-income families <[link removed]>, meanwhile, is estimated to rise 5.5 percent—about double the increase of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.



“As I see it, both the scale and the direction of the American Rescue Plan break the neoliberal, deficits-and-inflation-come-first mold that has hollowed out our economy for a generation,” said Roosevelt President & CEO Felicia Wong.



“They’re a tangible acknowledgment that economic policy exists to serve all people, especially those who are most in need and have been historically excluded. That our government should assertively work to invest in a better and more equitable future.”



“We need to remember the government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital,” President Biden said during his primetime address <[link removed]>last night. “It’s us, all of us.”







Economic Recovery Begins at Home



“We have a Congress that is formulating a massive infrastructure package as part of the next wave of stimulus response,” Roosevelt Fellow and Evergreen Collaborative <[link removed]> co-founder Bracken Hendricks told Bloomberg CityLab this week. “Unless homes and buildings are at the center of that infrastructure package and job creating agenda, we will fall short.”



In a new report from Roosevelt and Evergreen, Hendricks and co-authors Kara Saul Rinaldi, Mark Wolfe, Cassandra Lovejoy, and Wes Gobar offer a roadmap: specific federal policy proposals to rebuild housing stock, promote health, lower costs for homeowners, advance 100 percent clean and carbon-free energy goals, and protect the global environment.



Another plus: The Economic Recovery Begins at Home <[link removed]> plan can be achieved in a budget reconciliation package. Learn more in thisfact sheet <[link removed]>andBloomberg CityLab’s exclusive <[link removed]>on the report.







What We’re Reading

Hidden Provisions in Biden’s Rescue Bill Make This a Bigger Deal Than You Thought [feat. Roosevelt’s Mike Konczal] <[link removed]> - Washington Post



Five Things the COVID-19 Bill Revealed about How Washington Will Work in the Biden Era [feat. Konczal] <[link removed]> - FiveThirtyEight



A Tax Code Optimized for White Wealth Leaves Black Americans Behind [feat. Roosevelt’s Darrick Hamilton] <[link removed]> - Bloomberg



Here’s What You Need to Know about “the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases”—a Key Climate Metric [feat. Roosevelt’s Joseph Stiglitz] <[link removed]> - CNBC



Why the PRO Act Is Part of a Green New Deal <[link removed]> - Gizmodo



For Democracy to Stay, the Filibuster Must Go <[link removed]> - New York Times











-=-=-

Roosevelt Institute - United States

This email was sent to [email protected]. To stop receiving emails: [link removed]

-=-=-



Created with NationBuilder - [link removed]