Franklin Roosevelt And The Forgotten History Of The Earned Income Tax Credit

On line 27 of Franklin Roosevelt’s 1934 tax return, he claimed an “Earned income credit” of $1,400. The author was curious about it and discovered a bit of lost history about the never-ending battle between labor and capital, and some interesting connections between the lost history and tax policy embodied in the current Earned Income Tax Credit. The author demonstrates that both subsidies rest on a normative concept of progressivity, grounded in the concept of ability to pay tax.