Care 2: While More People Fall Into Poverty, 30 Corporations Paid No Federal Taxes
media mentionby Robin Marty
November 3, 2011
8:00 am
There’s some good news in the job market today, as the rate of filing for unemployment dropped to 397,000, the lowest it has been in weeks. Although economists caution that the drop would need to be sustained in order to show true job recovery, it’s still a promising sign for a labor market in which the unemployment claims have dipped under 400,000 only three times in the last six months.
Less reassuring? A new report that the number of Americans living in poverty has reached a record high. Over 20 million people, or roughly one in 15, are living at or below 50 percent of the poverty level. And in D.C. itself, the number rises to over one in ten. That means that a single person is trying to survive on less than $5500 annually, and a family of four on just over $11,000. This is the largest number of Americans in poverty since the Census Bureau began tracking back in the mid 70’s.
Meanwhile, 30 of America’s top corporations paid no federal taxes in the last three years, according to Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Due to tax breaks, credits and subsidies, many actually had a negative tax rate, despite earning a total of over $160 billion in pretax profits during that period. “Pepco Holdings, a Washington, D.C.-area power company, had the lowest effective tax rate at negative 57.6 percent and 78 of the 280 Fortune 500 corporations studied enjoyed at least one year in which they paid an effective tax rate of zero or less. In addition, the average effective tax rate for the entire group of corporations studied over three years was only 18.5 percent, compared to the statutory rate of 35 percent.”
If only those corporations were using their saved tax money to hire more workers at a living wage salary.