Are families paying more in taxes than 30 years ago? 

• In 2021, the average family income tax liability was $9,165 (when adjusted for inflation to 2019 dollars).
   
• The 1990 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act increased the top income tax rate from 28% to 31%. Another Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act in 1993 raised the top rate to 39.6%. These acts also increased other taxes, particularly workers’ payroll taxes in 1990 and Medicare taxes on high-income workers in 1993.
   
• The 2001 Economic Growth and Tax Reconciliation Relief Act scheduled widespread tax rate reductions and increased the child tax credit. President Barack Obama and Congress made most of these cuts permanent, but returned the top two tax rates to their pre-2001 levels of 36% and 39.6%.
   
• The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced the average tax bill by approximately $900. On average, families with children in the middle 20% of income earners saved twice as much as single taxpayers in the same bracket.

Get the details about how tax bills have changed for all earning brackets in this article. Want to know more about how the federal government spends the money it collects? See the metrics in the 2022 State of the Union in Numbers.

How many nuclear weapons does the US have?

From being the only nation to deploy nuclear weapons in warfare to signing onto weapons treaties, the United States is a central figure in the global discussion on nuclear weapons. The Ukraine-Russia war has stoked concerns of a nuclear conflict and sparked conversations about America's inventory. See the data on the nation's nuclear weapons at USAFacts.

• As of September 2020, the United States had 3,750 active and inactive nuclear warheads. This does not include an additional 2,000 retired warheads scheduled for dismantling.
   
• The nation’s nuclear inventory was at its largest in 1967, at 31,255 warheads. The US dismantled 11,683 nuclear warheads from fiscal years 1994 through 2020.
   
• The US entered the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, in which participating countries agreed to refrain from explosive nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater.

What’s the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? And what other nations possess these weapons? Get the answers here.  

Who's getting student debt relief? 

The prospect of additional student debt relief has been a hot news topic lately. While the White House weighs the potential for relief, if it will include an income cap, and several other factors, USAFacts analyzed the metrics on the student debt relief already enacted by the Biden administration.

• The Education Department absolved 323,000 people with total and permanent disabilities from paying back their loans in September 2021, clearing $5.8 billion in student loan debt.
   
• The department also discharged $1.1 billion in loans for ITT Technical Institute attendees, affecting 115,000 borrowers. 
   
• In 2021, a new Education Department process automatically signed current and former active-duty servicemembers up for student loan interest waivers. More than 47,000 eligible borrowers had their loan interest waived, more than nine times the 4,800 people who benefited in 2019.

Click here to learn more. Wondering how the nation’s student debt grew into the trillions? Read this article for the backstory on how loans are awarded.


One last fact