Jean Ross is a senior fellow at American Progress, where she focuses on tax and fiscal policy issues.
Prior to joining American Progress, she served as a program officer at several national foundations, managing fiscal and economic policy portfolios, and was the principal of Jean Ross Policy | Strategy, a consulting firm that develops effective policy campaigns and builds strong organizations to lead them. From 1995 to March 2012, she served as the first executive director of the California Budget Project, a nationally respected budget and policy organization (renamed the California Budget and Policy Center in 2015). Ross has also worked as staff to the California State Assembly’s Revenue and Taxation and Human Services Committees and as assistant research director of the Service Employees International Union, where she coordinated the union’s research on fiscal and labor market policies.
Ross’ areas of expertise include policy analysis and development, strategic communications, network building, and organizational development. She received a Master of City Planning with an emphasis on regional economics from the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) and a bachelor’s from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ross was named the 2013 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year by UCB’s College of Environmental Design and was a senior fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Luskin School of Public Affairs in 2000-2001. She has published numerous articles, opinion pieces, and policy reports, and her work has been published by The New York Times, Berkeley Public Policy Press, National Academies Press, Los Angeles Times, and other publications.
Failure to increase the debt ceiling would have a catastrophic impact on the economy and federal programs.
Proposals to prioritize certain payments in lieu of increasing the debt ceiling would increase, not decrease, the federal government’s risk of default.
The Fair Tax Act would replace federal income and payroll taxes with a national sales tax, slashing federal revenues and cutting taxes on the wealthy.
Jean Ross urges lawmakers to prioritize the child tax credit over corporate tax breaks.
To sustain recent reductions in child poverty, Congress should prioritize improvements to the child tax credit over corporate tax breaks in year-end tax negotiations.
The strength and pace of recent job growth demonstrates the importance of public investment at scale for minimizing long-term harm for workers and their families.
Contrary to critics’ claims, the Inflation Reduction Act would only increase taxes for large corporations and the wealthy while providing meaningful benefits for middle-income families across the country.
A key provision reportedly agreed to in the reconciliation bill would extend the Medicare trust fund by three years.
Policymakers should enact commonsense reforms to opportunity zones to boost transparency and accountability, stem rising costs, and focus attention on communities most in need.
Special carveouts are unwarranted and would create new ways for the ultrawealthy to game the system.
While retirement savings incentives—and those recently proposed in the SECURE Act 2.0—favor the wealthy, reforms should prioritize the low- and middle-income taxpayers most at risk of financial insecurity in retirement.
Congress must act now to improve customer service and close the tax gap.
