Summary

The tax system is designed to benefit ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations. In turn, it disadvantages people with less wealth – including working people, Black people, and other people of color. The system can only be changed by building power to demand change. Yet tax reform can be challenging to organize around.

In this brief, we present a framing strategy that, our research shows, is highly effective in building power to change the tax system. It’s a strategy that organizers can use to engage movement-aligned people in target communities – especially young people, working people, Black people, and other people of color.

This strategy leverages the widespread recognition that the system is rigged against most people to bring tax policy out of the clouds and ground it in people’s experiences.