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On the public policy debate stage, one theme stands out: People want a government that helps everyone build an economically stable life.
The policy debates of the day suggest that there is widespread support for taxing the vast resources of the very wealthy to ensure basic levels of care and security for children and families. We can see this playing out in New York City, where Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has championed care-centered policies to tackle affordability, and in Colorado, where voters approved a wealth tax to fund school meals.
People Know What’s Possible
Time and again, the American people have told almost anyone who will listen that they are deeply concerned about the fact that households in the top 10 percent hold over two-thirds of the country’s wealth, while many families can’t afford childcare or eldercare, children go hungry, and so many live in tenuous precarity because we lack a true social safety net. Surveys show not only that most Americans are concerned about affordability and economic insecurity, but also that most people support raising taxes on corporations and higher-income households.
Americans know that it’s not that we lack the resources to deliver economic security. It’s that lawmakers appear to lack the will to collect those resources. Since 1981, the US tax code has favored tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals, despite evidence suggesting that tax cuts for the wealthy have little effect on economic growth or employment levels.
Meanwhile, taxing the wealthy to ensure that the government can tackle major social problems is very popular. This popularity is pushing Americans to redefine what’s possible—especially when it comes to caring for the most vulnerable.
New York Is Betting Big on Families
Mayor-elect Mamdani has shown how policies like universal childcare and paid family leave draw broad support. In fact, in the same week that voters expressed their support for investments in childcare, New Mexico launched its first-in-the-nation statewide universal childcare program, proving that, regardless of the naysayers, this is indeed possible.
Crucially, Mamdani’s new administration is packaging childcare as an affordability issue and has proposed solutions to enable the government to deliver. For instance, his administration aims to generate $9 billion in revenue by raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest through a 2 percent tax on incomes more than $1 million and an increased state corporate tax rate that would match neighboring New Jersey’s.
Many New Yorkers have expressed an eagerness for this kind of progressive tax policy in the face of so much economic hardship. And for all the concern in the media about billionaires fleeing the city in the wake of a wealth tax, the reality is it’s not the wealthy fleeing New York—or anywhere else, for that matter—it’s the parents of young children. Parents with children under age six are 40 percent more likely than other groups to leave New York State. And that isn’t good for the local economy. The exit of young families costs the city an estimated $23 billion in lost economic productivity each year.
Simply put, childcare is an affordability issue, and Mamdani’s administration is rightly focused on connecting childcare policy to a larger platform that also includes rent freezes, public transit reform, and city-run grocery stores. These are policies that can make the lives of those who need them most a little easier.
Colorado Votes for Universal Meals
Two successful ballot measures in Colorado are also significant. Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved two tax measures that will boost funding for the state’s free school meals program, which provides free school breakfast and lunch for all children, regardless of income.
Though the program has been in place since 2022, funding it has become difficult in recent years, thanks to rising inflation and other state budget shortfalls. In the absence of more revenue, school districts in Colorado were preparing to have to limit meals to only certain students next year.
Rather than accept this outcome, Coloradans voted to raise income taxes on households making $300,000 or more, which will only impact about 6 percent of households but will raise as much as $95 million more a year for the school meals program. A second proposition that passed will also allow Colorado to keep millions in excess revenue raised for the program to ensure that these meal programs are built to last. These propositions will also allow Colorado to use some of the tax revenue to fund any future gaps in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal food program that has been under increasing strain.
Notably, there was no organized opposition to the propositions. Instead of accepting the school lunch program’s slow decline, Colorado voters overwhelmingly came together to willingly raise taxes to feed children. This is also largely a nationally popular policy: A 2023 poll found that 57 percent of Americans support providing free breakfasts for all students, and 60 percent support free lunch.
A Care Agenda Worth Fighting For
As these new policies are implemented, they’ll help redefine what’s possible—and perhaps help rebuild trust for those who have felt abandoned by a government that’s artificially constrained itself with the notion that it can’t take big swings on behalf of its people.
People have made clear that they don’t want to live in a country where children go to bed hungry or parents can’t make ends meet because they lack childcare, while the richest among us keep getting richer. Rather, they want the government to make sure everyone can build a good life for themselves. These emerging policy agendas and public budgets centered on building systems of collective care are a bold step in that direction.
Fireside Stacks is a weekly newsletter from Roosevelt Forward about progressive politics, policy, and economics. If you enjoyed this installment, consider sharing it with your friends.
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