{"id":25905,"date":"2020-12-14T11:24:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T16:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=25905"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:24:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T16:24:03","slug":"top-20-gets-6x-more-benefits-from-student-debt-cancellation-than-bottom-20-new-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/12\/14\/top-20-gets-6x-more-benefits-from-student-debt-cancellation-than-bottom-20-new-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 20% Gets 6x More Benefits from Student Debt Cancellation than Bottom 20%, New Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=25906\" class=\"attachment wp-att-25906\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/untitled-design-82-1024x576-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"802\" height=\"451\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-25906\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>From Sen. Elizabeth Warren to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, some of the most prominent progressive politicians in the country are pushing hard for widespread student debt cancelation. So, it\u2019s fascinating to see a\u00a0<a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/bfi.uchicago.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/BFI_WP_2020169.pdf\">new study<\/a>\u00a0show that forcing taxpayers to pay down the roughly $1.5 trillion in government-held student debt is not a \u201cprogressive\u201d policy by any stretch.<\/p>\n<p>Note that just\u00a0<a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/state-watch\/326995-census-more-americans-have-college-degrees-than-ever-before\">one in three<\/a>\u00a0American adults over age 25 actually has a bachelor\u2019s degree. This population, naturally, holds almost all student debt. Yet college graduates typically make\u00a0<a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/michaeltnietzel\/2020\/05\/19\/new-report-the-size-of-the-college-earnings-premium-depends-on-where-you-live\/?sh=970b2452dc3e\">85 percent more<\/a>\u00a0than those with only a high school diploma and earn roughly\u00a0<a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/cew.georgetown.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/Exec-Summary-web-B.pdf\">$1 million<\/a>\u00a0more over a lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>So any government policy that forces taxpayers to pay off loans held by a relatively well-off slice of society is actually\u00a0regressive, meaning it disproportionately helps the wealthy. You don\u2019t have to take my word for it\u2014this is the finding of a new University of Chicago\u00a0<a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/bfi.uchicago.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/BFI_WP_2020169.pdf\">study<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Economists Sylvain Catherine and Constantine Yannelis crunched the numbers to conclude that full student debt cancellation would be a \u201chighly regressive policy\u201d and award $192 billion to the top 20 percent of income earners, yet just $29 billion to the bottom 20 percent.<\/p>\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" class=\"\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/index.html?creatorScreenName=feeonline&amp;dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1333429322900713472&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Ffee.org%2Farticles%2Ftop-20-gets-6x-more-benefits-from-student-debt-cancellation-than-bottom-20-new-study-finds%2F&amp;siteScreenName=feeonline&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&amp;width=550px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-tweet-id=\"1333429322900713472\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<p>The study also examines other proposals to have taxpayers pay off $10,000 or $50,000 in debt per person, rather than all debt. It finds similarly regressive outcomes for these proposals as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOutstanding student debt is inversely correlated with economic hardship,\u201d study co-author Sylvain Catherine\u00a0<a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sc_cath\/status\/1333430330431303680\">writes<\/a>. \u201cSo it is difficult to design a forgiveness policy that does not accentuate inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This finding is not an outlier.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, other\u00a0<a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.urban.org\/urban-wire\/which-households-hold-most-student-debt\">research<\/a>\u00a0from left-leaning institutions like the Urban Institute has reached the same conclusion. So, we\u2019re left with the simple fact that one of the Democratic Party\u2019s top agenda items is a taxpayer-financed handout to the wealthy. And, of course, student debt cancellation ignores the\u00a0<a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/the-democrats-push-to-cancel-50k-in-student-loan-debt-completely-ignores-the-real-reason-college-is-so-expensive\/\" data-toggle=\"popover\">real reason<\/a>\u00a0college is so expensive in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>But we nonetheless face an important question: Why are supposedly progressive politicians, elected as champions of the working class, using their power to push for handouts for the wealthy?<\/p>\n<p>One possible answer is that sweeping big-government policies involve the centralization of so much power that they will inevitably be corrupted by favoritism and clientelism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no such thing as a just and fair method of exercising the tremendous power that interventionism puts into the hands of the legislature and the executive,\u201d Austrian economist\u00a0<a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/resources\/ludwig-von-mises\/\" data-toggle=\"popover\" data-original-title=\"\">Ludwig von Mises<\/a>\u00a0once wrote.\u00a0\u201cIn many fields of the administration of interventionist measures, favoritism simply cannot be avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And as far as favoritism is concerned, guess who votes overwhelmingly for progressive Democratic politicians? That\u2019s right: Young people and the well-educated.<\/p>\n<p>So, while it\u2019s disheartening to see top Democrats seek to exploit the federal taxpayer to their wealthy constituents\u2019 benefit, it\u2019s not exactly surprising. The only way to prevent these kinds of abuses is to limit the power of government itself.<\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/top-20-gets-6x-more-benefits-from-student-debt-cancellation-than-bottom-20-new-study-finds\/\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Sen. Elizabeth Warren to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, some of the most prominent progressive politicians in the country are pushing hard for widespread student debt cancelation. So, it\u2019s fascinating to see a\u00a0new study\u00a0show that forcing taxpayers to pay down the roughly $1.5 trillion in government-held student debt is not a \u201cprogressive\u201d policy by any stretch. Note that just\u00a0one in three\u00a0American adults over age 25 actually has a bachelor\u2019s degree. This population, naturally, holds almost all student debt. Yet college graduates typically make\u00a085 percent more\u00a0than those with only a high school diploma and earn roughly\u00a0$1 million\u00a0more over a lifetime. So any government policy that forces taxpayers to pay off loans held by a relatively well-off slice of society is actually\u00a0regressive, meaning it disproportionately helps the wealthy. You don\u2019t have to take my word for it\u2014this is the finding of a new University of Chicago\u00a0study. Economists Sylvain Catherine and Constantine Yannelis crunched the numbers to conclude that full student debt cancellation would be a \u201chighly regressive policy\u201d and award $192 billion to the top 20 percent of income earners, yet just $29 billion to the bottom 20 percent. The study also examines other proposals to have taxpayers pay off $10,000 or $50,000 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[622,3386,1701],"class_list":["post-25905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-economics","tag-student-loans","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}