The D.C.-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies has formally launched its 2025 Tax Policy Advisory Committee; a move leaders call critical as President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget and tax overhaul reshapes the economic landscape for Black communities.
The new law, signed last week and branded by Trump as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” locks in key provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — tax breaks that analysts say overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and large corporations — while slashing over $700 billion from Medicaid and cutting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding by nearly a third over the next decade.
According to the Commonwealth Fund, those reductions will trigger the loss of 1.2 million jobs across the country by 2029, with the steepest effects in states with high poverty rates and large Black populations. New Mexico, Louisiana, Kentucky and Arizona are expected to see the most significant proportional job losses as cuts ripple through hospitals, grocery stores, and related sectors.
Joint Center President Dedrick Asante-Muhammad called the launch of the Tax Policy Advisory Committee an urgent response to policies that risk deepening economic inequality.
“This committee will center voices committed to ending racial economic inequality in the tax policy conversation and lay the foundation for a more equitable economy that works for all,” he said in a statement.
The committee includes tax scholars and advocates such as Beverly Moran, professor emerita of Law at Vanderbilt University; Janis Bowdler, former counselor for racial equity at the U.S. Treasury; and Jeremie Greer, co-founder of Liberation in a Generation. The group will guide research and policy recommendations, strengthening the Joint Center’s tax program at a time when, as Senior Researcher Dr. LaToya B. Parker noted, “the stakes could not be higher.”
“Congress is debating the most consequential tax and social policy changes in a generation,” Parker noted. “This committee will play a critical role in reforming a tax code that has too often reinforced inequality and assist in building a fairer system that truly serves all Americans.”
The Joint Center’s recent policy brief, Centering Black Households in the 2025 Tax Debate, underscores that the 2017 tax law — now extended indefinitely — was projected to cost the government $1.5 trillion over a decade without significantly boosting economic growth. Research shows most of the law’s benefits flowed to households in the top 20% of earners, a group in which Black households are underrepresented.
The new reconciliation law goes further, eliminating the estate tax on ultra-wealthy households and imposing work requirements and state funding matches for safety net programs — measures the Joint Center argues will undercut Black families’ ability to build wealth.
The policy changes come as the Black Policy Playbook, developed by the Joint Center and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), identified economic opportunity, healthcare access, and wealth-building as urgent priorities to close the racial wealth divide.
Analysts project that under the law’s provisions, the wealthiest Americans could see tax windfalls averaging more than $118,000, while the lowest-income households — disproportionately Black and Latino — will lose essential support, experiencing an average 2.9% drop in annual after-tax income. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that as many as 16 million people could become uninsured by 2034.
Asante-Muhammad and Parker, who recently co-authored an op-ed describing the legislation as “a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich,” say the committee’s work will include advocating for tax reforms that recognize the disparate burdens faced by Black households. The two emphasize that family structures and historical barriers to wealth-building mean African American households pay proportionally more in federal taxes relative to their white counterparts at the same income level.
“For too long, our current tax code has reinforced economic inequality,” Asante-Muhammad said. “Together, we can ensure our work is grounded in rigorous analysis and community impact.”