Tag Archives: Catherine Ruetschlin

It's difficult to project precisely what the overall economic impact of this would be. Student debt is distributed all up and down the income ladder, and people at different income levels will spend or save the freed up money in varying proportions — it's the spending that will juice job growth and economic activity. But a Levy Institute paper from early 2018 — written by economists Scott Fullwiler, Stephanie Kelton, Catherine Ruetschlin, and Marshall Steinbaum — took a crack at figuring it...

A new report from Bard College’s Levy Economics Institute concludes that this bold idea – cancelling all outstanding student debt – would help the entire economy and create more than a million jobs. To those who say we can’t afford to cancel this debt, the report poses a new and different question: Can we afford not to? Cancel and Grow Using widely-accepted economic tools, the report’s authors – Scott Fullwiler, Stephanie Kelton, Catherine Ruetschlin, and Marshall Steinbaum – found that...

The recently passed Republican tax cut package will cost about $1.4 trillion over a decade, according to independent figures. It’s a very expensive policy that currently is not offset by an increase in government revenue, or by spending cuts.Another measure would cost about the same amount and it too would be hard to justify as a deficit-busting policy. But it might have greater economic benefits, say economists. That policy would be canceling all student debt. The contention comes from a...

Student loan debt is a crushing problem in America. Over 44 million people have such loans, with an average balance of about $30,000 — making for a total debt pile of $1.4 trillion. Unsurprisingly, people often struggle to repay these debts with their entry-level wages after graduating. Student debt is now the most common form of troubled debt, with about 11 percent of them 90 days or more delinquent. Worse still, thanks to Republicans and neoliberal Democrats alike, they are almost...