The lowest-income households in the United States would lose $1,600 a year in federal resources under the domestic-policy package House Republicans passed last month, Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeeper predicts.
At the same time, resources would be increased by $12,000 for the highest-income households under the legislation, according to the analysis the Congressional Budget Office published Thursday. For middle-income households, the bill is projected to increase resources by $500 to $1,000 a year, an increase of less than 1 percent of their income.
Democrats are indicating they will use the new numbers to back up their chief attack on President Donald Trump’s signature legislative target. The rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer, they warn, if congressional Republicans succeed in sending the bill to Trump’s desk this summer.
The package would cause “one of the largest transfers of wealth from working families to the ultra-rich in American history,” said Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, in a statement. “It’s shameful.”
The distributional study of the bill reflects the impact of tax changes, including extensions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and an increase in the state-and-local-tax deduction claimed by many upper-income households, as well as cuts to social safety-net programs such as Medicaid and food aid.
The loss of resources to the lowest earners in the U.S. amounts to almost 4 percent of total income for those households, while the increase for the highest earners would equal more than 2 percent of their income.
Tax cuts would be the biggest driver of gains for households set to benefit from the package Republicans are trying to clear before they leave town this month for a July 4 holiday break. On the other side of the equation, safety-net cuts would mostly drive the loss of benefits for the poorest.
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