Economy & Jobs

Fighting for a Fair Economy

Michael believes we need to build a fair economy that lifts working families and the middle class, not just large corporations and the wealthiest. Over the last 50 years, America has remained the most innovative, dynamic economy in the world, and Colorado has been at the forefront of our economic leadership. At the same time, the basic American promise—if you work hard, you can get ahead—has proved impossible for too many people to achieve.

Incomes for working people and the middle class have not kept pace with the rising costs of housing, health care, education, and childcare. Many of our rural communities have been left behind and failed to benefit from broader economic growth and job creation. In too many neighborhoods, grinding poverty has limited our children’s opportunities for too long. Every economic policy Michael fights for in the Senate helps address these challenges.

Giving Kids in Every Community a Chance to Succeed

Michael has fought to expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC) through his American Family Act and the Working Families Tax Relief Act, both of which would help low- and middle-income parents afford the costs of raising a child and significantly reduce child poverty.

In 2017, Michael introduced the American Family Act to overhaul the existing CTC to reduce child poverty and make it dramatically more meaningful to low- and middle-income families with kids. After the worst public health crisis in a century, Michael successfully urged President Biden to expand the CTC for one year in the pandemic recovery package known as the American Rescue Plan.

Modeled on Michael’s American Family Act, the American Rescue Plan increased the CTC to $3,000 per child for children ages 6 and older and $3,600 per child for children younger than 6. It also delivered the credit on a monthly basis to help families meet expenses as they arose, and made the credit fully refundable so that it no longer excluded an estimated 27 million low-income children, including 350,000 Colorado children, who had been left out of the original credit’s full value. The expanded credit cut child poverty in the United States nearly in half, cut hunger by a quarter, and provided economic security to tens of millions of families for six months.

More than 60 million children nationwide, including more than 1 million Colorado children, benefited from the expanded monthly CTC payments in 2021. Michael continues to fight to make permanent the expanded and fully refundable Child Tax Credit.

Supporting Working People Through The Tax Code

Michael also successfully urged President Biden and the White House to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in the American Rescue Plan. Michael introduced the Working Families Tax Relief Act in 2019 with 46 Senate cosponsors. The bill’s provisions to improve the EITC for low-paid childless workers became the basis for the one-year EITC expansion in the American Rescue Plan. These improvements nearly tripled the maximum credit from about $540 to more than $1,500, reduced the minimum age of eligibility from 25 to 19, and extended credit to older workers.

The bill provided greater economic security to 17 million workers nationwide, including nearly 300,000 in Colorado. Michael is fighting to make the EITC expansion permanent.

Reforming our Tax Code to make it Simpler, Fairer, and Economically Competitive

Michael is a champion of comprehensive, fiscally-responsible tax reform that makes our tax code simpler and fairer, while encouraging investment and job creation by American businesses in the United States. That’s why he fought against the Republican tax plan in 2017 which overwhelmingly benefited large corporations and the wealthiest Americans, not the working families in this country who need relief most. Michael continues to work to repeal these tax giveaways, which are projected to add over $4 trillion to our debt over the next decade if extended.

Saving for a Secure Retirement

Michael believes that Social Security is a rock-solid guarantee that we need to protect for every American. He has introduced and passed bipartisan legislation to help Americans save and retire with dignity. Michael’s retirement legislation helps families cope with unexpected expenses, allows public safety officers to access their retirement savings early without penalty, helps spouses of active-duty servicemembers save for retirement, and provides financial stability and needed resources to Americans battling terminal illnesses.

Making Job-Creating Investments in Infrastructure and Innovation

Michael believes lawmakers should invest in infrastructure for future generations the way our parents and grandparents invested in the roads and bridges we enjoy today. For that reason, he helped pass a historic, bipartisan infrastructure bill, which heavily invested in Colorado’s roads, bridges, broadband, airports, and public transit. In addition to funding hard infrastructure, the bill included funding for several of Michael’s priorities, such as high-speed, affordable internet, forest health, and western water infrastructure.

Michael also helped pass the CHIPS and Science Act to revitalize domestic manufacturing, reinvest in our critical supply chains, and reinforce U.S. leadership in advanced research and development. The law includes nearly $53 billion to support semiconductor manufacturing and research. It also includes $500 million to create new Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs across the country. With Michael’s advocacy, Colorado became one of the first states to receive a Tech Hub designation for quantum technologies. By 2030, Colorado’s Tech Hub is expected to create up to 15,000 new jobs.

Addressing Colorado's Housing Crisis

Colorado faces a housing affordability crisis. Rents and homelessness are on the rise. Our mountain towns struggle to fill jobs because workers cannot afford to live in their communities, limiting their economic growth. To address the crisis, Michael brought together bipartisan leaders from across the state to put forward actionable solutions, including building more housing and cutting red tape. Michael is also working to help families stay in their homes and introduced the bipartisan Eviction Crisis Act, which would create a permanent emergency rental assistance program to reduce preventable evictions and limit the devastation to families when eviction is unavoidable.

Subscribe For Newsletter Updates!