Your Constituents Utilize the EITC

Fact Sheet
May 12, 2009 Download PDF

Improving It Should Be Part of Any Revenue Package

As the 2009 legislature enters its final weeks and considers revenue bills to balance the budget and make the state tax system more fair, each legislator should know that a significant share of their constituents utilize the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The following tables and maps show that in the average legislative district one in seven taxpayers receives the EITC. In some districts, the figure is more than one in five.

Download a copy of this fact sheet:

Your Constituents Utilize the EITC (PDF), including maps showing EITC returns as a share of all returns by state legislative district.


Related materials:

An Improved Tax Credit, a New Direction for Oregon, February 2009

Oregonians for Working Families, a statewide coalition that advocates for improving Oregon's EITC.

As noted in the following tables, in 2006 the federal EITC brought $391 million in federal dollars into Oregon, averaging $6.5 million per House district, $13 million per Senate district.

Oregon supplements the value of the federal credit with the Oregon EITC, which currently equals 6 percent of the federal credit.

Oregon’s credit is small. The average recipient gets about $85. Oregon’s EITC is among the smallest of state EITC credits. At 6 percent it is only one-third the size of what it would need to be to rank in the middle of the pack among state EITCs. If increased to 18 percent, it would not only match the typical state EITC, but it would spare working poor families from paying income taxes on their wages.

Most states have moved away from levying income taxes on the working poor, but Oregon has not. Raising the Oregon EITC is the most targeted way to accomplish that goal.

Increasing the Oregon EITC would be a small but important step in making Oregon’s overall tax system more fair. When state and local taxes are combined, Oregon’s low-wage workers pay a higher share of their income in taxes than the highest-paid workers. The 20 percent of non-elderly Oregon families at the bottom of the income scale pay 9.3 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while the top 1 percent pay only 6.7 percent.

Increasing the Oregon EITC would start to reverse that imbalance. Moreover, it would help counter some of the regressive proposals seriously under consideration as the session enters the final weeks, such as increases in fuel and vehicle taxes and fees and increases in beer and tobacco taxes.

House Bills 2066 and 2768 and Senate Bill 392 each propose to improve Oregon’s EITC by increasing its size to 18 percent of the federal credit. A significant number of constituents in every legislative district utilize the EITC. Improving the Oregon EITC should be part of any revenue package the legislature develops this session.



Federal Earned Income Tax Credit by State Senate District, 2006

Senate districtSenator# returns# EITC returnsEITC shareEITC $Share rank
1Kruse52,0398,52616.4%$14,918,3787
2Atkinson54,0789,41817.4%$16,595,1536
3Bates56,3949,08416.1%$15,998,1588
4Prozanski51,2437,25114.2%$11,735,54115
5Verger51,9258,24115.9%$14,060,6309
6Morrisette51,4748,15515.8%$14,240,47810
7Walker55,9338,08414.5%$12,816,71013
8Morse53,1316,26911.8%$10,230,88123
9Girod51,2077,20014.1%$13,190,95616
10Winters52,1016,90413.3%$12,687,91718
11Courtney46,6509,54720.5%$19,038,2551
12Boquist52,4747,43814.2%$13,751,19514
13George56,7996,29611.1%$11,412,12226
14Haas57,3475,6139.8%$9,495,05727
15Starr56,4066,36711.3%$11,746,96824
16Johnson53,8877,09813.2%$12,319,91819
17Bonamici65,5955,5008.4%$8,047,26428
18Burdick60,7994,6517.6%$6,207,01529
19Devlin56,9483,4566.1%$5,106,00730
20Schrader54,6196,12111.2%$10,502,35025
21Rosenbaum58,5627,29112.5%$9,369,30921
22Carter55,2188,63215.6%$13,345,52011
23Dingfelder53,2027,23913.6%$11,509,87217
24Monroe50,7449,83619.4%$19,359,1593
25Monnes Anderson54,1527,99514.8%$15,084,59412
26Metsger58,9937,25212.3%$13,017,19722
27Telfer69,7508,86312.7%$15,000,77620
28Whitsett51,6309,26317.9%$16,863,7625
29Nelson47,1708,65818.4%$16,198,5114
30Ferrioli46,1978,99019.5%$17,048,2022
Senate average54,5567,50813.8%$13,029,929--
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of IRS data for tax year 2006.


Federal Earned Income Tax Credit by State House District, 2006

House districtRepresentative# returns# EITC returnsEITC shareEITC $Share rank
1Krieger25,7674,25616.5%$7,168,37215
2Freeman26,2724,27016.3%$7,750,00620
3Maurer26,0054,85518.7%$8,521,6998
4Richardson28,0714,56316.3%$8,073,11119
5Buckley28,3944,64216.3%$7,760,42018
6Esquivel27,9984,44215.9%$8,237,09521
7Hanna24,9624,21416.9%$7,325,34514
8Holvey26,3333,04811.6%$4,429,26847
9Roblan25,4974,19516.5%$7,242,85217
10Cowan26,4284,04615.3%$6,817,77823
11Barnhart26,1943,45613.2%$5,766,63637
12Beyer25,2834,69918.6%$8,474,1119
13Nathanson28,8793,63112.6%$5,464,97441
14Edwards, C.27,0604,45316.5%$7,352,48716
15Olson27,6483,83213.9%$6,824,37530
16Gelser25,4832,4379.6%$3,406,50653
17Sprenger25,3083,83415.1%$6,960,05024
18Gilliam25,8873,36413.0%$6,227,36538
19Cameron25,7843,35013.0%$6,303,84639
20Berger26,3253,55513.5%$6,386,53235
21Clem24,2464,82019.9%$9,344,5383
22Komp22,4074,72821.1%$9,694,7961
23Thompson26,5073,67913.9%$6,623,18229
24Weidner25,9663,76014.5%$7,128,01325
25Thatcher27,3023,75213.7%$6,992,20233
26Wingard29,4972,5448.6%$4,419,94455
27Read28,7352,5909.0%$4,243,58654
28Barker28,6153,02310.6%$5,251,77749
29Riley24,9723,21012.9%$6,053,82140
30Edwards, D.31,4343,15710.0%$5,693,14752
31Witt27,1273,37912.5%$5,826,72242
32Boone26,7593,71813.9%$6,493,12428
33Greenlick35,5462,3646.7%$2,651,17659
34Harker30,0513,13710.4%$5,396,15951
35Galizio30,0932,5678.5%$4,164,08956
36Nolan30,7042,0846.8%$2,042,59858
37Bruun28,8121,9986.9%$3,208,39257
38Garrett28,1361,4585.2%$1,897,61560
39Kennemer27,6982,90910.5%$5,018,22450
40Hunt26,9213,21211.9%$5,484,12645
41Tomei27,2423,69313.6%$5,583,40434
42Bailey31,3343,60011.5%$3,786,72648
43Shields28,6064,00914.0%$5,543,55726
44Kotek26,6244,62617.4%$7,802,73312
45Dembrow26,7523,54313.2%$5,754,93536
46Cannon26,4243,69314.0%$5,753,34727
47Smith, J.25,1694,87019.3%$9,495,2755
48Schaufler25,5754,96619.4%$9,863,8854
49Kahl27,9244,37015.6%$8,293,34622
50Matthews26,2283,62613.8%$6,791,24832
51Barton31,0663,81212.3%$6,867,77044
52VanOrman27,9273,44012.3%$6,149,42743
53Whisnant33,6134,65513.8%$8,213,76131
54Stiegler36,1374,20811.6%$6,787,01546
55Gilman26,6884,56217.1%$8,217,66213
56Garrard24,9474,70118.8%$8,647,0877
57Smith, G.23,9334,23717.7%$7,799,09311
58Jenson23,2374,42219.0%$8,399,4186
59Huffman25,2764,61018.2%$8,554,09410
60Bentz20,9214,38020.9%$8,494,1082
House average27,2793,75413.8%$6,515,299--
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of IRS data for tax year 2006.

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