economicsecurity.bsky.social

Tax credits work, and Illinois is proving it. 🎉 Nearly 950,000 Illinois working families received more than $600 million in tax relief through the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit in 2025. The average family benefiting from both credits kept $1,460 in their pockets. ⬇️🧵

3/ Economic Security Illinois led the fight to expand the EITC and create Illinois’ first-ever Child Tax Credit, alongside our affiliate Economic Security Illinois Action, advocates from the the Cost-of-Living Refund Coalition, and state leaders.

Tax credits work, and Illinois is proving it. 🎉 Nearly 950,000 Illinois working families received more than $600 million in tax relief through the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit in 2025. The average family benefiting from both credits kept $1,460 in their pockets. ⬇️🧵

“The payments made it feel like my 10 problems turned to nine. I had more time to think about the life I wanted to start living.” That’s what one #GI participant told the @nytimes.com, which followed three people receiving cash over the course of a year. 🧵⬇️

4/ These experiences show how cash can give people the breathing room to think beyond their immediate needs. As families struggle with rising costs and policymakers consider an increasingly AI-driven economy, these stories remind us that the case for cash is already clear.

“The payments made it feel like my 10 problems turned to nine. I had more time to think about the life I wanted to start living.” That’s what one #GI participant told the @nytimes.com, which followed three people receiving cash over the course of a year. 🧵⬇️

2/ The article asks whether guaranteed income could help address AI-driven job losses. But what emerges is a much bigger story about the power of cash, not just as a lifeline during difficult times, but as a way to give people more stability, choices, and control over their lives.

Across the country, cities like New York City are showing just how far our tax dollars can go by investing in public grocery stores. 1/

1/ California just took a major step toward tackling corporate power and the affordability crisis. Gov. Newsom signed a new law updating California’s antitrust laws for the first time in more than a century. 🧵⬇️

3/ This matters for affordability. When a handful of corporations have too much power, families have fewer choices, small businesses and workers have less leverage, and dominant corporations have more power to set the terms of our economy.

1/ California just took a major step toward tackling corporate power and the affordability crisis. Gov. Newsom signed a new law updating California’s antitrust laws for the first time in more than a century. 🧵⬇️

1/ We're excited to welcome three new research fellows! Jacob Hacker, Gaby Aboulafia, and Devesh Kodnani bring deep expertise in health policy and the political economy of work. With our Ideas Team, they'll develop ideas + strategies to build an economy that works for all Americans.

4/ Devesh Kodnani is an MIT PhD candidate and economist focused on reducing income inequality and helping workers share in AI's gains. He's worked at the Joint Economic Committee, CAP, and Goldman Sachs. At ESP, he'll research social insurance and labor policy, with a focus on AI's impact on labor.

1/ We're excited to welcome three new research fellows! Jacob Hacker, Gaby Aboulafia, and Devesh Kodnani bring deep expertise in health policy and the political economy of work. With our Ideas Team, they'll develop ideas + strategies to build an economy that works for all Americans.

2/ @jacobhacker.bsky.social is a Yale political scientist who studies health policy, inequality, & the politics of risk. Author of "The Great Risk Shift," he's known for developing the healthcare public option. At ESP, he'll research the core pillars of a public option.

ESP’s @mtkonczal.bsky.social joined The Julie Mason Show to break down why Americans are feeling worse about the economy and how the Trump administration's choices like pulling back on antitrust enforcement and massive healthcare cuts are contributing to the affordability crisis.

Last night, President Trump made a pledge we've heard before: cash for every American. The President has promised to cut checks for families struggling with the cost-of-living crisis many times in the past few years, (1/5)

the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. These lifelines offer direct, targeted cash relief to Americans who need it, when they need it. Boosting and expanding these credits would do a lot more to help struggling families than another empty promise. (4/5)

Last night, President Trump made a pledge we've heard before: cash for every American. The President has promised to cut checks for families struggling with the cost-of-living crisis many times in the past few years, (1/5)

but so far, none of these ideas have come to pass. Instead, the President's actions have raised costs and pulled the social safety net out from under millions of Americans. President Trump keeps promising checks because (2/5)

The Trump administration is using strained federal childcare funds to push its vision of what a family SHOULD look like. As ESP's Shafeka Hashash explains, it's "a moral judgment that honors married households while jeopardizing support for single, working parents."