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**MARCH 26, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

Needed: More Rescue Funds for the Poorest Communities

****

The Biden $1.9 trillion rescue legislation is a magnificent
accomplishment. But anything of that scale rushed through Congress is
bound to get a few details wrong.

One such detail was the precise allocation of funds to municipalities.
The rescue act committed $350 billion to states and localities.

The drafters of the program were not able to create a new formula based
on poverty or COVID impact. So they used an off-the-shelf aid formula
created for the 1974 Community Development Block Grant program.

In that era, unfortunately, more-affluent communities had to be given a
big piece of the action in order to get broad congressional support for
the program generally. But that formula is a lousy one for current
needs.

As

**The Boston Globe** has reported
,
more-affluent communities have gotten far more aid than comparable poor
communities. For example, the affluent suburb of Newton, Massachusetts,
average income $149,667, got three times the aid per capita as much
poorer Methuen, where the average income is $32,436.

Chelsea, one of poorest cities in the state, got the same per capita aid
as affluent Manchester-by-the-Sea. Chelsea's COVID infection rate is
20.5 percent. Manchester's is just 3.7.

According to my reporting, there is no easy way to reprogram funds after
the fact. Some state governors, who also need committed federal funds
for their own needs, have offered to give some modest revenue sharing
with the hardest-hit cities.

But clearly, in the next round of aid, Team Biden needs to include some
extra help for the poorest. Even when government deliberately tries to
target the needy, them that has, gets.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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