All this has led advocates for excluded worker support like DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s Senior Policy Analyst Doni Crawford to question the zero-sum approach that politicians take when it comes to this cause.
“With a modest tax increase on D.C.’s wealthiest residents, the council will raise over $170 million each year by fiscal year 2025 to help dismantle structural barriers to opportunity for Black and Brown communities and those living on low incomes,”
“These are people who work, who are earning wages but still struggle to get by. So it’s basically allowing them to keep more of the money that they’re earning,” says Tazra Mitchell, the policy director for the left-wing D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute.
At the vigil the Sunday before, both councilmembers said the mayor’s proposed budget of $20.6M for PSH in FY22 — $4M less than in 2021 — is not enough to end chronic homelessness. Other speakers at the vigil included Kate Coventry of DCFPI.
The $200 million they were asking lawmakers to include in the FY 2022 budget is less than half of what excluded workers would need in order to achieve parity with folks receiving unemployment benefits, according to a report by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.
“We have federal money to allow for some childhood stabilization grants, but we’ve not made investments in raising childcare worker wages,” says Erica Williams, the executive director of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute.
Last month, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute and DC Action commissioned a poll that found that 80% of District voters support asking residents making above $250,000 a year to pay more in taxes to fund greater investments in child care and housing.
She [Councilmember Nadeau] proposes to raise funds for this effort by taxing residents making more than $250,000 a year at a higher level — an idea opposed by Mendelson but urged by advocates such as the DC Fiscal Policy Institute and DC Action.
A June study from the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, found excluded workers were denied more than $500 million in unemployment insurance, roughly $40,000 per worker.
A 2018 D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute report found that it would take $2.6 billion over 10 years in construction costs alone to meet the District’s affordable housing goals — more than double the mayor’s annual investment.