Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Improved State Taxes on Wealth, High Incomes Can Help Fuel an Equitable Recovery

Families’ access to wealth has played a large role in determining how the pandemic has affected them. The worst of the economic and health effects have largely bypassed wealthier, higher-paid families — which are disproportionately white — but have been far more prevalent among lower-income families and those of color. Amid sizeable state budget shortfalls and an unequal recovery that has exacerbated racial inequities, states would be well-advised to raise taxes on wealthy families to preserve funding for crucial priorities that can promote an equitable recovery — among them education, increased health spending to contain the pandemic, and boosts to cash assistance and other programs to help struggling families make ends meet during the crisis.

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