The Hamilton Project Blog

The Hamilton Project blog highlights the latest research, press coverage, and events from The Hamilton Project. It includes The Hamilton Project's monthly analysis on national employment numbers and the "jobs gap," the number of jobs that the U.S. economy needs to create in order to return to pre-recession employment levels while absorbing the 125,000 people who enter the labor force each month.

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Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark Mazur Cites a THP Proposal

May 24, 2013 • The Hamilton Project • Tax Policy

Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark Mazur cited a THP proposal in his testimony before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on "The Shifting of Profits Offshore by U.S. Multinational Corporations". Discussing the corporate profit shifting and its effects on tax revenues, he cited “Reforming Corporate Taxation in a Global Economy: A Proposal to Adopt Formulary Apportionment” and its estimates of how sales-based apportionment could reduce tax avoidance and raise revenues in the corporate tax system. To read the full testimony, click here.

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How To Close The Loopholes That Made Apple’s Tax-Dodging Completely Legal

May 23, 2013 • The Hamilton Project • Tax Policy

In two stories on this week’s testimony by Apple CEO Tim Cook before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Quartz’s Tim Fernholz and ThinkProgress’ Alan Pyke highlighted a paper released by The Hamilton Project and the Center for American Progress, “A Modern Corporate Tax”. In the paper, Alan Auerbach of the University of California, Berkeley, proposes two reforms to the U.S. corporate tax system: first, an immediate deduction for all investments that would replace the current system of depreciation allowances, and second, replacing the current approach to taxing foreign-source income with a system that ignores all transactions except those occurring exclusively in the United States. Pyke wrote that the proposal “would seem to balance both government and corporate interests.” For the ThinkProgress story, click here. For the Quartz story, click here.

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THP Policy Director Adam Looney Testifies at Senate Budget Committee Hearing

May 22, 2013 • The Hamilton Project • Tax Policy, Effective Government

Earlier today, Hamilton Project Policy Director Adam Looney testified before the Senate Committee on the Budget on the role of tax reform in supporting broad-based economic growth and fiscal responsibility. To read his prepared remarks, click here.

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American Consumers’ Disposable Incomes Shrinking

May 21, 2013 • The Hamilton Project • Tax Policy

In a recent article on Americans’ disposable income, the Epoch Times’ Heide Malhotra highlights data from The Hamilton Project’s “Better Ways to Promote Saving through the Tax System,” by Karen Dynan. In the proposal, Dynan examines the design of government incentives for personal savings, outlining how reforms to these programs would improve saving and economic security for low-income households and reduce expensive and ineffective federal subsidies for high-income households. Malhotra discusses findings from the paper that show the personal saving rate has declined dramatically over the past several decades. Americans saved about 4 percent of after-tax personal income in 2012, down from average saving rates of 5.5 percent in the 1990s, 8.6 percent in the 1980s, and 9.6 percent in the 1970s. To read the full piece, click here.

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A Marriage Mystery: Why Aren’t More Wives Outearning Their Husbands?

May 20, 2013 • The Hamilton Project • Employment & Wages

In a recent story for The Atlantic on why there are so few marriages where women earn more money than their husbands, Derek Thompson discusses data from the Hamilton Project’s “The Marriage Gap: The Impact of Economic and Technological Change on Marriage Rates.” In the employment analysis, The Hamilton Project examines the decline the marriages over the last 50 years, highlighting the correlation between income level and likelihood of marrying. Thompson discusses a chart from the employment analysis that shows “the bottom half of female earners have seen their marriage rates decline by 25 percentage points since 1970” and a chart that shows the correlation between declining marriage rates and declining male earnings. To read the full piece, click here.