The Impact of State Income Taxes on Low-Income Families in 2011

The successful bipartisan effort over the last two decades to reduce state income taxes on working-poor families has stalled and is in danger of reversing.  No new states exempted working-poor families of four from income taxes in 2011, and in almost all of the 15 states where such families still pay income taxes, they saw their income taxes increase.

Taxing the incomes of working-poor families runs counter to decades of efforts by policymakers across the political spectrum to help families work their way toward the middle class.