What to Know before the Inflation Reduction Act Vote

Understanding the Inflation Reduction Act

With Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s support now secured, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) could be heading to a vote within days.

Before it does, catch up on the latest analysis of the bill from Roosevelt experts.

In a new blog series, we’re digging deeper into the specifics of the IRA—how it will reduce inflation, strengthen our economy, and drive long-term investments in the green industries we need; and how the prices extracted in compromise will fall heaviest on Black and brown communities.

Read more:

• “Four Reasons the Inflation Reduction Act Might Be Better at Fighting Inflation than Projected” by Mike Konczal
• “How the Inflation Reduction Act’s Tax Provisions Will Strengthen Our Economy” by Emily DiVito
• “The Inflation Reduction Act: A Climate Down Payment, but Doubts on Environmental Justice” by Lew Daly
• “The Unprecedented Green Industrial Policy Wins in the Inflation Reduction Act” by Todd N. Tucker and Sunny Malhotra

More than Consumers

For decades, policymakers have viewed their constituents as consumers above all else. Not as parents or workers or students or voters, but as buyers in marketplaces. 

It wasn’t always that way. And understanding history can help us now, Roosevelt’s Suzanne Kahn argues in a new report.

“To explain today’s progressive agenda, we need to be able to measure the health of the economy and society in ways that go beyond purchasing power,” Kahn writes.

Read more in More than Consumers: Post-Neoliberal Identities and Economic Governance.

Jobs Day Takeaways

With 528,000 jobs added in July, “Payroll job growth this month is higher (as a percent of employment) than 93 percent of monthly job numbers since 1980,” Roosevelt’s Mike Konczal tweeted.

“[U]nemployment rate gaps by race . . . have shrunk faster in this recovery than prior ones,” wrote Labor Department Chief Economist Joelle Gamble.

But as both Gamble and Roosevelt’s Ira Regmi note, more work remains. 

“While unemployment rates decline, [it’s] important to remember that sustained periods of growth are necessary to close the large and persistent gaps between employment levels of Black and White folks!” Regmi tweeted. 

What We’re Reading

First on CNN: Top Economists Say Democrats’ Health Care and Climate Package Will Put “Downward Pressure on Inflation” [feat. Roosevelt’s Joseph Stiglitz] – CNN

Sinema’s Big Yes Will Give Democrats a Major Opening – Washington Post

The US Has Now Regained All the Jobs It Lost in the Pandemic – Business Insider

The Upstart Union Challenging Starbucks – The New Yorker