President Biden’s Visit: Five Fast Facts About How ‘Build Back Better’ Plan Would Help Michiganders

For Immediate Release Oct. 5, 2021

 Contact:
Alex Rossman
arossman@mlpp.org

CELL: 517-775-9053

President Biden’s Visit: Five Fast Facts About How ‘Build Back Better’ Plan Would Help Michiganders

LANSING–President Joe Biden will visit Howell today to advocate for his economic plan, which includes a bill to fund investments in physical infrastructure like roads and bridges and a “Build Back Better” (BBB) bill to improve the lives of workers and children with proven effective policies to expand opportunity and reduce poverty. 

Ahead of the visit, the Michigan League for Public Policy is highlighting the ways BBB would help Michiganders and the state’s economy. Those include: 

• An extension of the American Rescue Plan’s Child Tax Credit expansion would help over 1.9 million kids in Michigan—roughly 90% of all children in our state. Particularly critical is a provision that makes the full credit available to the kids who need it most: children in families with little to no earnings. While the vast majority of families who benefit from this part of the CTC do work, we should not go back to the former policy that left out these children experiencing poverty from the CTC. Extending the improved CTC is projected to reduce child poverty nationally by more than 40%, with the sharpest reductions in the poverty rates for Black and Latinx children

• A proposed expansion of Housing Choice Vouchers would help an estimated 47,000 Michiganders with low incomes afford stable housing, making it easier for them to get and keep a job and climb the economic ladder and ensuring that many children have stable housing and sharply reducing homelessness.

• The legislation will ensure that 838,000 Michigan kids don’t go hungry in the summer when they can’t get meals at school.

• The plan calls for closing tax loopholes that allow billionaires and corporations to avoid paying federal income taxes, including by closing a loophole that lets corporations hide profits overseas. It also would provide the resources and information necessary for the IRS to ensure those at the top pay what they owe (Source). According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the plan would lower taxes for the bottom 95% of Michiganders, while asking the top 1% (those with incomes over half a million dollars), to pay more. 

• The proposal includes two historic investments in early care and education: 1) two years of universal preschool and 2) a sliding scale limit on child care costs for families. Data from the Center for American Progress shows that Michigan families at 135 percent of the state median income stand to save an average of $112 a week and almost $6,000 a year under the Build Back Better plan, and these child federal child care investments will also help improve racial equity.

Gilda Z. Jacobs, President and CEO at the Michigan League for Public Policy, released the following statement on President Biden’s visit and his policy solutions for an equitable recovery for all: 

“Every Michigander deserves a fair shot at opportunity and prosperity. But for too long, many families—particularly people of color and those families with low incomes—have struggled to make ends meet despite their best efforts to provide for their families. Meanwhile, the wealthiest households and profitable corporations have gotten a bigger and bigger share of our nation’s prosperity, even as they avoid paying their taxes. 

“The Build Back Better plan would make a historic investment in Michiganders, lowering costs for housing, child care, food and healthcare—all of which make it easier for us to work and take care of our families. And it would pay for all or most of those investments by closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and corporations and without raising taxes on anyone with income under $400,000. That’s a great deal for Michigan. We urge our congressional delegation to support the Build Back Better plan.”

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The Michigan League for Public Policy, www.mlpp.org, is a nonprofit policy institute focused on opportunity for all. Its mission is to advance economic security, racial equity, health and well-being for all people in Michigan through policy change. It is the only state-level organization that addresses poverty in a comprehensive way.