EITC Modernizations:

The Cost-of-Living Refund incorporates key modernizations to the current EITC by:

• Providing support for more people (reaching further into the middle class, having no upper age limit for recipients, including childless workers, and extending tax credits to all tax filers) to reduce financial instability up the income ladder

• Expanding the definition of work to include caregivers and students, to help families and individuals take care of one another, acquire skills, and still get ahead

• Making the EITC user-friendly by providing the option to receive the credit monthly and through automatic filing, simplifying the complexity of the EITC and making the benefit more predictable and easier to understand

Policy Backgrounders

EXPANDING WORK to caregivers and students

• “Extending the Earned Income Tax Credit to Students: A Comparison of Aid Policies,” Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, December 2020.

• “Extending the Earned Income Tax Credit: How the Economic Security Project’s Cost-of-Living Refund Would Affect Family Caregivers,” with state-level estimates, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, January 2020.

• “Supporting family caregivers through the EITC,” Caring Across Generations, 2019.

PAYING THE CREDIT MONTHLY

• “Benefits of Recurring Tax Credit Payments: Lessons from the Chicago EITC Periodic Payment Pilot and Implication sfor Illinois” University of Illinois Project for Middle Class Renewal , September 2021

• The Case for a Monthly Cost-of-Living Refund, January 2020

• Monthly payments: why they matter

• “Restructuring the EITC,” Center for Economic Progress report on Chicago periodic payments pilot

• The value of monthly payments from the perspective of the “Submerged State,” The New Republic, 2011.

• “Periodic Payment of the Earned Income Tax Credit Revisited,” Brookings Institution, 2015.

• Monthly payment policy recommendations:

  • State recommendations

  • Federal recommendations

SIMPLIFYING THE CREDIT TO IMPROVE ACCESS

• Simplifying the EITC through automatic filing: why it matters

• Automatic filing would make CalEITC work better for California communities, September 2020

• Simplified/automatic filing policy recommendations:

  • State recommendations

  • Federal recommendations

• State fact sheets on increasing EITC access through automatic filing, New America and Economic Security Project, March 2021

  • AZ, CA, IL, KY, LA, MA, NJ, NY, OR, WA

ComplementING the minimum wage

• Raising the minimum wage and the EITC together

• “The EITC and minimum wage work together to reduce poverty and raise incomes,” Economic Policy Institute, January 2020.

• “State earned income tax credits and minimum wages work best together,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March 2019.

Expanding to younger and older workers

• “Expanding State EITCs: Age Enhancements and a Credit Increase for Workers without Children in the Home,” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, February 2020.

• “Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit Can Support Older Working Americans,” Urban Institute, September 2019.

• “The Earned Income Tax Credit and Older Workers,” AARP, January 2009.

Extending Tax Credits to All Tax FilerS

• “End the tax penalty against immigrant workers,” Economic Security Project and Community Change, April 2020.

• “The Facts About the Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN),” American Immigration Council, January 2018.

• “California’s Opportunity to Support All Immigrant Families & Communities,” California Budget & Policy Center, October 2019.

• “HB 3028-A Makes Oregon’s EITC More Equitable and Effective,” (ITIN filers), Oregon Center for Public Policy, 2019.

• “Expanding the CalEITC Is an Effective Way to Invest in California’s Children, But Hundreds of Thousands of Children of Immigrants Won’t Benefit Unless Policymakers Act,” California Budget & Policy Center, May 2019.

• “What needs to change so that communities of color have a decision-making role in how state revenue is spent,” Budget Matters 2019 Policy Summit, October 2019.