Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security

Joan Entmacher

Joan Entmacher is Vice President for Family Economic Security at the National Women's Law Center, where she leads a team working to improve policies important to the economic security of low-income women and their families, including tax and budget, child care, child support, unemployment insurance, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and Social Security. Ms. Entmacher is a leading expert on issues affecting low-income women. She has been invited to testify before Congress on several occasions, written numerous analyses and reports on income support policies and their impact on poor women, and spoken frequently at conferences, briefings, and to the media. Prior to joining the National Women's Law Center, Ms. Entmacher served as Director of Legal and Public Policy at the National Partnership for Women & Families, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College, Chief of the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, and attorney in the U.S. Department of Labor Solicitor's Office. Ms. Entmacher is a graduate of Yale Law School and Wellesley College.

Expert in: Tax Credits Outreach, Federal Budget, Family Support Programs, Federal Tax Policy, Family Tax Credits, Data on Poverty & Income, Unemployment, Social Security & Retirement, Tax & Budget
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My Take

Protect Corporate Tax Loopholes or Feed the Hungry?

Posted by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security | Posted on: March 04, 2008 at 02:57 pm

by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
National Women’s Law Center

For most Americans the answer would be obvious, especially when soaring prices are forcing some families to choose between heating their homes or putting food on the table. The answer is also obvious to the Bush Administration – it’s just not the answer most Americans would choose.

Progress on the farm bill, which would increase funding for Food Stamps, emergency feeding programs, and other vital nutrition programs is still stalled, because President Bush has threatened to veto the bill if it “raises taxes.” And, in Bush-land, closing tax loopholes to make corporations pay their fair share of taxes qualifies as a tax increase. 

Last year, as part of the reauthorization of the Farm Bill, both the House and Senate voted to increase Food Stamp benefits, which currently average about $1 per person per meal, and make other important improvements in nutrition programs. The increases were fully paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes. The House bill would prevent foreign corporations which earn profits in the United States from avoiding taxes by sheltering that income offshore. The Senate bill would prevent corporations from avoiding taxes by engaging in sham transactions that have no economic purpose except as a tax shelter. Both tax reforms stand on their own as steps toward tax fairness. It’s an added bonus that the revenue raised by closing these loopholes would directly help feed hungry children (over 50 percent of Food Stamp participants), low-income women (over half of adult participants, mostly single mothers and elderly), and other vulnerable people.

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Women Need More from the Stimulus Package

Posted by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security | Posted on: January 28, 2008 at 09:48 pm

by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
National Women's Law Center

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Tags: Child Care, Employment, Health Care & Reproductive Rights, Poverty & Income Support, Tax & Budget | Add new comment

Child Support Cuts Taking Money from the Poorest Families

Posted by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security | Posted on: December 05, 2007 at 02:00 pm

by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
National Women’s Law Center

A front-page article in the New York Times last weekend highlighted a vital children’s program threatened by budget cuts — and it wasn’t the children’s health insurance program.

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Tags: Poverty & Income Support | 1 comment

A “Very Reasonable Person” Challenges Tax Breaks for Private Equity—From Inside the Industry

Posted by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security | Posted on: August 01, 2007 at 04:25 pm

by Joan Entmacher

Something surprising happened at yesterday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing.  A venture capitalist, Bill Stanfill, took on his own industry – and told the committee that Congress should eliminate the special tax breaks that he and other private equity managers currently enjoy.

This was the committee’s second hearing to consider whether Congress should require private equity and hedge fund managers to pay taxes on their compensation the way other working Americans do.  (It’s great that the committee is focusing attention on this issue, but as we said before, they do need to come up with a catchier title than Carried Interest, Part II.)

Three law professors testified that the current tax treatment of fund managers’ compensation is unjustifiable. (No surprise there, given the academic consensus on carried interest.) 

Also no surprise that three industry witnesses testified, in effect, that they deserved their special tax breaks, that fund managers might not work as hard if they had to pay taxes on their compensation like everyone else (apparently, the chance to earn hundreds of millions of dollars isn’t enough of an incentive), and, that if other Americans stopped paying for their tax subsidies, all the wonderful things the fund managers (supposedly) do for the U.S. economy would be lost.

The surprise came when the panel’s final witness, Bill Stanfill, a founding partner of Trailhead Ventures of Denver, Colorado testified. Stanfill, a venture capitalist for 25 years, told the Senators that he doesn’t believe the special tax break that he and other fund managers get on their compensation is fair or equitable.  He questioned why he should get a tax break while his son’s third grade teacher, who does so much to enrich human capital, doesn’t. 

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The Chorus Grows Louder: Taxing Private Equity

Posted by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security | Posted on: July 20, 2007 at 03:26 pm

by Joan Entmacher

Yesterday’s Financial Times editorialized in favor of taxing the compensation of private equity firm managers at ordinary income tax rates, just as the compensation of all other workers is taxed. If  you are not familiar with the Financial Times, it is one of the most widely-read business news dailies in the world (it is also the only newspaper we can think of that is printed on pink paper). 

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Tags: Tax & Budget | 1 comment