WASHINGTON, D.C. –During tonight’s State of the Union address, President Obama echoed U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) call to expand critical tax relief for working families.  During a news conference call earlier today, Brown – a member of the Senate Finance Committee – called for expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

“I applaud the President for his plan to provide tax relief for hard-working Americans and look forward to congressional action on it. If we are going to reform the tax code, we need to start by drawing a line in the sand: No tax breaks for corporations without tax breaks for working families,” Brown said. “Stand-alone business tax reform is a solution in search of a problem. Corporate profits are soaring, the stock market is near record highs, and GDP growth is robust. Meanwhile, wages are flat, college costs are soaring, and retirement savings are dwindling. We need to focus tax reform on where it is needed: with working families, not multinational corporations.”

At tonight’s speech, Brown was joined by Jason Jacobs, a Cincinnati-area worker who would benefit from expansion of the EITC. Jacobs – who is from Macedonia and graduated from Ohio University – earned $9 an hour while working at Target and looking for a teaching job. Though he is now employed in the West Clermont School District, his total income for tax year 2014 was less than $16,000. Because he is childless, Jacobs income is too high to qualify for the EITC. Under Brown’s proposal, he would receive an EITC of $604.

Although the EITC encourages work and helps families make ends meet, the EITC for workers without children remains extremely small—too small even to fully offset federal taxes for workers at the poverty line. President Reagan called the EITC the most effective anti-poverty program in the U.S. County-by-county data on the number of Ohioans who have recently benefited from the credits and the amount of their average return is available here.

Last Congress, Brown introduced the Working Families Tax Relief Act, a proposal that would expand the EITC for workers without children by reducing the EITC eligibility age from 25 to 21 and increasing the size of and eligibility for the credit. In December 2014, Brown led Democratic efforts to prevent making certain business tax provisions permanent without also making the expiring EITC and Child Tax Credit provisions permanent.

Last week, Brown was named co-chair one of five bipartisan Senate Finance Committee Tax Working Groups to advance tax reform efforts in the 114th Congress. Brown will lead the Savings and Investment group, along with U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID). The group – which will have broad jurisdiction to develop policy around retirement security, pensions, the taxation of passive income, and the taxation of financial products – will work directly with the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to produce an in-depth analysis of options and potential legislative solutions related to savings and investment. The findings will be incorporated into a comprehensive report that will serve as a foundation for the development of bipartisan tax reform legislation.

Brown is leading the effort to ensure American workers and families have access to affordable savings and investment options. As ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee and the Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions and Family Policy, Brown has used his committee platforms to advocate for strengthening social security and improving consumer savings products for all Americans.

###