Evaluating Options to Help Low-Income Households

In our new book, Options for Reforming America’s Tax Code 2.0, we illustrate the economic, distributional, and revenue trade-offs of 70 tax changes, including several that would boost the incomes of poor households specifically. Below we evaluate some options that would provide the largest direct relief to low-income taxpayers but would have little impact on economic growth. We then compare these options to others that would be less effective for helping this group.

For many low-income households, payroll taxes comprise a larger share of their tax burden than individual income taxes do. In fact, due to tax credits such as the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), many taxpayers do not have any federal individual income tax liability at all and will in some cases receive a tax refund. Consequently, expanding credits is the most effective way to target low-income households.

One option for helping low-income households would be to double the EITC for workers without qualifying children. Currently, childless workers are only eligible for a small credit, while households with qualifying children receive a large subsidy. Since the EITC phases out with income, it is well-targeted to vulnerable populations. Doubling the credit for childless workers increase incomes for those in the bottom quintile by 1 percent. The change would decrease marginal tax rates on households in the EITC phase-in range but increase marginal tax rates on households in the phaseout range, resulting in a negligible impact on GDP. 

Pairing this tax change with a reform to the EITC’s marriage penalty would further boost incomes of low-income households. Phaseout thresholds differ between single/head of households and married joint filers in a way that makes joint filers eligible for a smaller credit than when the two people would file their taxes individually. This option would reduce this marriage penalty by increasing the phaseout threshold for married joint filers to double the threshold for non-married filers. The combination of this and the expansion of the EITC for childless workers would raise incomes for those in the bottom quintile by 3 percent. The aggregate marginal tax rate on labor would fall slightly due to the offsetting effect between phase-in and phaseout changes.

Of the three options considered here, making the CTC fully refundable would have the largest immediate impact on low-income households. Unlike the EITC, which is fully refundable, the CTC currently limits refundability to $1,400 through 2025 and phases in above a certain income threshold. This option would eliminate both the refundability cap and the phase-in. This change would increase incomes of those in the bottom quintile by 4.7 percent in 2022. However, as the size of the credit is set to fall under current law after 2025, the impact would be smaller over time.

As noted, since many low-income taxpayers already face zero or negative effective income tax rates, options that reduce taxable income or statutory marginal rates will be less effective in boosting their incomes. Below we consider three options that have only trivial impacts on low-income taxpayers.

Increasing the standard deduction by 25 percent for all filers would not bring targeted benefits to the lowest quintile of income earners. Many households in that income range have incomes lower than the existing standard deduction, and an even larger number already have no tax liability thanks to partially nonrefundable tax credits. Restoring the personal exemption faces similar problems. The personal exemption is economically comparable to a deduction, and as such, people in the lowest quintile will not benefit much given that their taxable income is already very close to zero. 

Finally, making the charitable deduction above-the-line would allow every taxpayer to deduct their charitable giving, rather than only those who itemize their deductions. However, taxpayers in the bottom quintile do not have significant tax liability to reduce in the first place. As a result, this option would only raise the bottom quintile’s income by about 0.05 percent. The model does not include the potential benefit for low-income taxpayers that increased tax incentives for charitable giving may provide, but there is reason to doubt the efficacy of this policy in increasing contributions to charities. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced the incentive to itemize, but despite this reduction in incentives, charitable giving did not fall significantly after 2017.

While strong economic growth—fueled by higher levels of investment, productivity, and jobs—will lift after-tax incomes over time, policies that provide relief by immediately boosting after-tax incomes of lower-income households are also available. As lawmakers consider such policies, they should keep in mind the trade-offs among them.

Options for Reforming America’s Tax Code 2.0