The General Assembly overrode Gov. Hogan’s veto of the Time to Care Act days before the close of this year’s legislative session, guaranteeing nearly all Maryland workers paid time off to deal with major life events like a new child or a serious injury. This victory will make Maryland a better place to work, raise a family, grow up, and grow old. Maryland’s law is one of the strongest in the country. Here’s what it does: The law guarantees essentially all workers in the state the ability to take up to 12 weeks of partially paid leave to care for a new child, to care for a family member with a serious health condition, or to treat their own serious health condition. Benefits will be available beginning in January 2025. Low-wage workers will receive weekly benefits equal to 90% of their average weekly pay. The benefit rate gradually declines for…

Lawmakers reached an agreement with Gov. Hogan last week to create a new tax credit for individuals over age 65. The deal avoids major flaws in the governor’s original tax cut bill and in that sense is a significant improvement. However, even the improved plan does little for the subset of Maryland seniors who are truly struggling financially and costs the state more than $1.5 billion in lost revenue over five years. Moreover, the deal was negotiated entirely behind closed doors and offered the public no meaningful opportunity to weigh in. While the General Assembly is unlikely to change course now, they should have made better choices at earlier points in the process: Legislative leadership should have allowed more time for public input on the compromise. Although the bill serving as vehicle for the plan went through committee hearings in February, the current, dramatically redesigned version received preliminary approval before…

  The planned one-month suspension of the state gas tax that Governor Hogan, Comptroller Franchot, and legislative leaders announced last week will provide little benefit to Maryland drivers and comes at a big cost to public investments. While the current surge in gas prices related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is certainly creating challenges for Marylanders who are living paycheck-to-paycheck and rely on a car to go to work, this measure would do very little to ease their financial pain. Someone who fills up their tank once a week would save about $20 total, spread over the course of the month – whether they’re driving a 10-year-old Toyota or a brand new Porsche. At the same time, this tax break will cost the state nearly $94 million. The gas tax is the state’s main funding source for state and local transportation projects, so that means either the state will have…

Gov. Hogan’s proposal to eliminate income taxes on retired individuals would cost the state billions each year once fully phased in and hand a windfall to the wealthy few, according to estimates from state analysts. The plan would cost the state and counties $7.7 billion altogether by 2028, undermining the shared investments all Marylanders – including seniors – rely on. More than half of tax cuts under the plan would go to the small minority of Maryland households with federal adjusted gross income over $200,000. The revenue loss would make it harder to support investments that build statewide opportunity, such as the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, while primarily benefiting the small subset of overwhelmingly white households that hold the bulk of built-up wealth. The bill is a radical, multibillion-dollar plan to redistribute income to the wealthiest, and will do more to harm low-income seniors than help them. Lawmakers should say…

Gov. Hogan’s budget proposal for the 2022–2023 budget year underfunds public schools by $140 million, adding one more entry to the governor’s record of shortchanging education. The largest piece of the proposed cut exclusively hits Prince George’s County and Baltimore City, which together serve 24% of all Maryland students but 45% of the state’s Black students. These cuts undermine the goals of the historic Blueprint for Maryland’s Future school funding reform and likely also violate the letter of the law. At the same time, Gov. Hogan has proposed $224 million in new tax breaks (increasing to $778 million per year by the 2027 budget year) that will primarily benefit wealthy individuals and business owners. The General Assembly should reject the $126 million in cuts that likely violate the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future legislation and work to secure funding for the remaining $14 million in unfunded priorities. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var…

Research Analyst Christopher Meyer contributed to this post As Maryland policymakers begin the annual state budget process, they have a chance to make transformative investments that benefit Maryland families and communities for years to come and advance opportunity for all Marylanders, whether urban or rural, white, Black, or Brown. The success of federal pandemic relief programs has left the state in the strongest fiscal position it has been in many years, allowing policymakers to continue responding to the needs of Maryland families still facing challenges due to the pandemic and address the needs of communities that have historically been left out of public investments. The state closed its 2020–2021 budget year with an unprecedented $2.5 billion surplus, not including additional funds reserved for use in the 2022 budget year. Analysts project structural surpluses – a measure of the state’s fiscal fundamentals that excludes one-time revenues and costs – averaging $1.9…

Friday’s passage of President Biden’s signature Build Back Better Act in the U.S. Representatives was a major step towards increased opportunities for Marylanders. The bill would ensure families with children can afford the basics, make health care more affordable, take steps to address the climate crisis, and make our economy more just and inclusive. And it would create more than 2 million jobs nationwide in the process. The Senate must now finish the job and put the bill on President Biden’s desk. Build Back Better Invests in Children The bill extends the expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) under the American Rescue Plan for one year, ensuring families continue receiving monthly checks ($300 each for young children, $250 for older children) to pay for necessities. This expansion benefits 1.1 million Maryland children—five out of six children in the state—and reduces child poverty by one-third. The bill also makes the…

Maryland’s labor market stagnated in September, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our unemployment rate stood at 5.9% (seasonally adjusted), statistically indistinguishable from the August unemployment rate of 6.0% and significantly higher than the 4.8% national unemployment rate. There are three main takeaways from the new jobs data: While we have made considerable progress since the worst of the pandemic-induced downturn in 2020, our economy is not yet out of the woods. With 186,000 Marylanders currently unemployed—actively looking for a job but unable to find one—our state’s workers are still facing significant hardship and need ongoing support to stay afloat. The expiration of federal enhanced unemployment benefits on Labor Day did nothing to draw people into jobs. In fact, fewer than 1,000 Marylanders entered the labor force* in September, only 10% as large as the July and August increases. * The labor force refers to…

MDCEP Research Analyst Christopher Meyer contributed to this post Federal and state tax credits for working families have a long history of reducing childhood poverty and helping ensure more families can afford the basics. When Congress addressed longstanding gaps in the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as part of the American Rescue Plan earlier this year, it reduced the child poverty rate by an estimated 40 percent. Making these changes permanent through the Build Back Better legislation now under consideration would help maintain this progress long term, narrow racial disparities in child poverty rates, and help more children reach their full potential. To ensure families and our economy see the full benefits of these expansions, Congress must also reject wrongheaded calls to attach an earnings requirement to the permanent CTC expansion, which would essentially lock out the families most in need of an income boost.…

Hundred of thousands of Marylanders are at risk for losing their housing as a national ban on evictions was recently overturned by the Supreme Court. The ruling stated that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not have authority to ban evictions nationwide, thus putting pressure on Congress to take action to save millions of Americans from homelessness. With Maryland’s eviction moratorium having expired on August 15, renters and advocates have been pushing for Governor Hogan to reinstate the state eviction moratorium until all relief funds are exhausted and reach the families who need them. According to a recent report, Maryland had only spent 25% of the rental assistance funds that it received from the federal government this year, as of September 9. Even before the pandemic, housing instability was a major problem in our state. As hardworking Marylanders know firsthand, wages just haven’t kept up with skyrocketing rent…