Blumenthal Pushes Ford Extension and Increase of Payroll Tax Cut

(Hartford, CT) – Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today joined Connecticut resident Sue Silvestro and economists Patrick Flaherty and Fred Carstensen in Hartford to urge support for an increase and extension of the payroll tax cut for more than 160 million Americans, including 2 million people in Connecticut. Yesterday, Senate Republicans blocked a compromise that would extend and increase the payroll tax cut from 2% to 3.1%.

An extension and increase of the tax cut would increase the take-home earnings of the average Connecticut family by $2,400. If the tax cut is not passed, Connecticut families will experience a tax hike of over $1,600 next year.

Blumenthal said, “We are in the midst of a very fragile and all too slow economic recovery. This payroll tax extension is necessary to give the Connecticut economy, Connecticut businesses, and manufacturers the demand they need and consumer purchasing power that will empower them and encourage them to make investments and hire more people.”

Last week, Michael Pond, co-head of interest-rate strategy at Barclay’s PLC, stated that the GDP growth forecast could drop from two and a half percent down to one percent and cost the economy $250 billion in losses in the next quarter if the payroll tax cut is not extended.

“For me and other workers like me to lose four to six hundred dollars – I can’t even imagine losing that out of our checks and I think it would be very, very important to extend this program. We have single parents working in the food industry,” said Connecticut resident Sue Silvestro, a food service worker at Wesleyan University in Middletown. “We have people that have illnesses in their homes and will be losing this amount of money,” she continued. “The payroll tax cut would mean less money not just to spend but for us to raise our families - for us to keep our homes and help keep our homes.”

Click here to see an interactive map of how the payroll tax cut will affect communities across Connecticut.

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