Policy for the People

How Oregon sets the salary of state legislators and other elected officials could soon change.  If enacted by voters, Measure 116 on the November ballot would take away from the Oregon legislature the responsibility for deciding how much lawmakers, the Governor, and other state elected officials get paid, and give that task to an independent salary commission.  In this episode of Policy for the Pe...

Echoing statements from both presidential candidates, one Oregon State Senator recently put forward the idea of exempting tips from Oregon income taxes. But is exempting tips from taxes a good idea?   In this episode of Policy for the People, we explore the idea of no taxes on tips. Daniel Hauser, Deputy Director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy, explains that exempting tips from taxes would...

Measure 118 will be one of the most closely watched measures on the November ballot.  Known as “The Oregon Rebate,” the measure would make it so that each year, every resident of Oregon gets a rebate from the state. To pay for these rebates, the measure would institute one of the biggest changes to Oregon’s tax system in decades. In this episode of Policy for the People, we take a deep dive into M...

Last month saw yet another record in terms of the fortunes held by the nation's superrich. In July 2024, the roughly 800 billionaires in the U.S. were collectively worth about $6 trillion, the highest amount ever. In light of this, it seemed like a good time to replay a prior episode of Policy for the People examining the need to tax extreme wealth. In August of last year, Bob Lord of Patriot...

Next year, 2025, is setting up to be a pivotal year when it comes to how our nation raises the money needed to pay for public services — things like health, housing, the nation’s safety net, and more. The reason for this dates back to 2017. That year, Congress enacted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, better known as the Trump tax cuts. This tax package contained massive changes to our tax system that mo...

Recently, the IRS announced that its Direct File program is expanding. This is a big deal. Filing a tax return is complicated. It’s costly. This is a bad situation for everyone, especially families struggling to get by on low wages. The complexity and cost of filing taxes deters many low-income workers from claiming the tax credits for which they are eligible, undermining some of the nation’s core...

The month of May began with the celebration of International Workers’ Day. May Day, as it’s often called, dates back to the late 19th Century, when labor movements that counted on heavy participation by immigrant workers agitated for better working conditions. Today in the U.S., May Day celebrates both the labor movement and the immigrant community. In that spirit, this episode of Policy for the P...

With tax season coming to an end, it’s a good moment to discuss the vital role that our tax system plays in our lives. At its best, the tax system makes the economy work better for everyone. At its worst, it deepens existing economic injustices. In this episode, we focus on two aspects of the tax system.  First, we discuss Oregon’s record-breaking kicker, which is sending massive tax rebates to th...

With lawmakers in Salem having wrapped up their work, we take a look at a couple of legislative developments that perhaps you have not heard about, but which could make a big difference in the economic well-being of many Oregonians. We begin the show by discussing legislation that better protects Oregonians from unfair debt collection practices. Chris Coughlin, Policy Director at Oregon Consumer J...

We’re talking taxes today on Policy for the People, specifically from the vantage point of the Oregonians with the fewest resources, those who are struggling the most to make ends meet.  In our first segment, we hear about a brand new tax credit in Oregon designed to shore up the lowest-income families with young children in our state. Tyler Mac Innis of the Oregon Center for Public Policy explain...

Once again, the possibility of a federal government shutdown is upon us. This renewed threat ultimately arises out of competing visions of the role of government and the kind of nation we want to have, our guest on this episode explains. Sharon Parrott is President of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Sharon discusses those competing visions, as well as the prospects for enacting legisla...

Hunger in Oregon is rising rapidly, a reflection of the economic insecurity afflicting so many families. In this episode of Policy for the People, we speak with Susannah Morgan, President of the Oregon Food Bank. As Susannah explains, the level of hunger right now is the worst that she has seen in her 28 years of working in food banks in several states. But as she points out, neither hunger nor po...

Perhaps the biggest danger from rising economic inequality is what it’s doing to our bodies, to our health. Economic inequality is killing us. Literally. In this episode of Policy for the People, we hear from Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, author of the book Inequality Kills Us All .  A former emergency room physician, Stephen is currently an Associate Teaching Professor Emeritus at the University of Wash...

The share of children in the U.S. living in poverty has soared, according to new data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau.  In today’s episode, we talk with Tyler Mac Innis, a policy analyst with the Oregon Center for Public Policy, about what’s behind the surge in child poverty. We also discuss how the federal government measures poverty in a way that significantly understates the number...

This special episode examines what is looking increasingly likely: a federal government shutdown. Unless Congress can pass a continuing budget resolution by September 30, the shutdown will begin on Sunday, October 1. What would a federal government shutdown mean for people in Oregon and across the nation? Who would be most affected? And what are the deeper policy and ideological differences drivin...

All of the strike activity we’re seeing right now is a hopeful sign for those who want to see an economy that works for everyone. In this episode, we speak with Margaret Poydock and Jennifer Sherer of the Economic Policy Institute, co-authors of the recent report What to know about this summer’s strike activity . We discuss what’s driving the recent wave of strikes, the challenges workers encounte...

Money is power. And the extreme concentration of wealth that we're seeing means that more and more political power is in the hands of billionaires, who use that power to further increase their wealth, according to today’s guest, Bob Lord . Bob is the Senior Advisor on Tax Policy for Patriotic Millionaires , as well as an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies . In this episode o...

On July 1, workers in one region of Oregon achieved what once seemed an inspired goal. The minimum wage in the Portland metro area — not in the rest of the state — crossed the $15 an hour level. But this milestone arrived more than a decade after workers across the country began demanding a $15 an hour minimum wage. In this episode, we examine how much actual progress Oregon’s minimum wage workers...

Last month, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that threats of violence against the LGBT community are on the rise. We’ve also seen a slew of anti-LGBT legislation in statehouses across the country.  In addition to increased hostility and threats to physical safety, the LGBT community also faces higher levels of another form of violence, what Gandhi described as “the worst form of vio...

The clock is ticking on the nation’s ability to pay its debts, as U.S. House Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats and the White House agree to steep budget cuts. While much of the attention has been on the economic crisis that could follow a default by the U.S. on its debt obligations, that’s not the only risk facing the nation and our state. In this special episode of Pol...

Over the past four-and-a-half decades, we have seen economic inequality return with a vengeance. We're living through a new Gilded Age, comparable to the one at the turn of the 19th Century. The first Gilded Age was the age of Rockefeller and Carnegie; ours is the age of Bezos and Knight. The return of extreme wealth inequality is the result of public policy choices, not least decisions in ho...

Many families in Oregon struggle to put food on the table, and this is especially true for many immigrant families. They are excluded from the nation’s most important anti-hunger program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). As a result, many immigrants – including the very people who grow, harvest, and process the food we eat – cannot access federal food assistance. But there is...

Care workers play a vital role in our communities.  They feed, bathe, and otherwise care for those who cannot take care of themselves. In doing so, care workers make it possible for others to go to work and live their lives. Unfortunately, care workers get paid low wages and few benefits, all while performing physically and emotionally demanding work. In this episode, we speak with Melissa Unger,...

Right now, the Oregon legislature is considering a bill that would establish the Oregon Kids' Credit.  This state child tax credit would put money in the pockets of the families with the fewest resources, helping them cover the rent, pay for food and other essentials. The need for a state child tax credit became all the more urgent after Congress failed to renew the enhanced federal child tax...

One of the big topics of discussion in Salem right now is whether to provide new subsidies for semiconductor companies like Intel. This push for new subsidies stems from the congressional enactment of the CHIPS Act, by which the federal government has pledged tens of billions of dollars to ramp up semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. Understandably, Oregon lawmakers are eager to see some of tha...