Center on Budget and Policy PrioritiesOpinion

Congressional Delay of SNAP Cost Shift Urgently Needed to Protect Food Assistance for Low-Income Families

The Republican megabill enacted in July will require most states to pay a share of SNAP food benefit costs — for many states, ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Uncompensated Care Costs Fell in Nearly Every State as ACA’s Major Coverage Provisions Took Effect

Hospitals’ and other providers’ uncompensated care costs have fallen significantly since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) major coverage provisions. But approved and proposed ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

State Tax Changes in Response to the Recession

The national recession has had such a devastating effect on state finances that states took in $87 billion less in tax revenue from October 2008 through September 2009 than they collected in the ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Contrary to "Entitlement Society" Rhetoric, Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly, Disabled, or Working Households

Some conservative critics of federal social programs, including leading presidential candidates, are sounding an alarm that the United States is rapidly becoming an “entitlement society” in which ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Opportunities to Streamline Enrollment Across Public Benefit Programs

Using information collected by one public benefit program to help enroll low-income people for other benefits for which they qualify makes programs more efficient and reduces hassles for struggling ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Helping Families Meet Basic Needs Enables Parents to Promote Children’s Healthy Growth, Development

When families are able to meet basic needs such as food, housing, and medical care, parents and other caregivers [2] experience less stress, which allows them to provide the critical support that ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Increasing Payroll Taxes Would Strengthen Social Security

Social Security faces a significant — though manageable — long-term funding shortfall, which policymakers should address primarily by increasing Social Security’s tax revenues. If policymakers elect ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Medicaid and Medicare Enrollees Need Dental, Vision, and Hearing Benefits

More than 88 million adults in the United States are enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid. [1] Most do not have comprehensive health coverage for vision, dental, or hearing benefits, often leaving them ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Like Other ACA Repeal Bills, Cassidy-Graham Plan Would Add Millions to Uninsured, Destabilize Individual Market

In releasing a revised version of their legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Senators Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham, along with co-sponsors Dean Heller and Ron Johnson, ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Improving ACA Subsidies for Low- and Moderate-Income Consumers Is Key to Increasing Coverage

Lower-income people are much more likely to lack insurance, and they comprise the majority of the marketplace-eligible uninsured. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has extended health coverage to more ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Income Gaps Between Very Rich and Everyone Else More Than Tripled In Last Three Decades, New Data Show

The gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled between 1979 and 2007 (the period for which these data are ...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

A Punishing Decade for School Funding

Public investment in K-12 schools has declined dramatically in a number of states over the last decade.Public investment in K-12 schools — crucial for communities to thrive and the U.S. economy to ...