Jason Smith: One Big Beautiful Bill will mean annual increase of $7,200 for workers

(From Eighth District Congressman Jason Smith)

Last year, when President Biden said he intended to allow the largest tax increase in American history to go into effect by letting the 2017 Trump tax cuts expire, most Americans were deeply concerned that the typical American family would have to pay $1,700 more in taxes. 

This would have made it even harder to afford to put food on their tables, clothes on their backs, and gasoline in their cars. The furthest thing from the American people’s minds was that we could create a tax code that was even better for them – but that’s exactly what we were able to do with The One, Big, Beautiful Bill.

Even though we stopped a 22 percent scheduled tax hike on the average American family making less than $100,000 and delivered an additional, immediate $600 tax cut, you’d be hard pressed to find this information in the mainstream media. That’s why, on July 25, I took the Ways and Means Committee to Las Vegas, Nevada to meet with some of the hard-working Americans who will benefit from President Trump’s tax relief policies. Las Vegas is significant because it’s where President Trump first came up with the idea of no taxes on tips. It’s also a city where 21 percent of the workforce makes a living on tips.

In Las Vegas, we invited the blue-collar workers who actually make this country go to come testify before the Committee – a waiter, a food delivery driver, a paint foreman, a manufacturer, a senior, and a working mother. These are the types of people we created The One, Big, Beautiful Bill to benefit – not the wealthy environmentalists and well-connected elites who were the main beneficiaries under Joe Biden’s policies.

Under The One, Big, Beautiful Bill, America’s 4 million tipped employees will get an average tax cut of $1,300 compared to what they pay today. That’s real money to these Americans – such as the food delivery driver who told us that because of the extra money in her pocket, she would be able to pay for medical visits for her husband and be able to afford travel to see her family in Missouri.

Additionally, the over 80 million hourly workers will see their incomes boosted by $1,400 thanks to the new law’s no tax on overtime. A paint foreman testified to our members that the beauty of this provision is that it allows tens of millions of Americans to fulfill the American Dream: that hard work – that going above and beyond – will be rewarded. A waiter testified that taken together, these two provisions – no tax on tips and no tax on overtime – equate to what he pays in energy bills every year. That’s a huge expense for so many Missouri families.

And for the seniors who were squeezed by Joe Biden’s cost-of-living crisis, The One, Big, Beautiful Bill delivers a new $6,000 deduction for Social Security recipients, effectively eliminating the tax they pay on Social Security benefits. A retiree who testified said that people like her who live on a fixed income have to count their pennies, and this new deduction meant no longer having to dip into savings to afford basics like groceries, utilities or an occasional unexpected expense.

In total, what The One, Big, Beautiful Bill means for working families is that annual wages will be increased by $7,200 per worker. Annual take-home pay for a typical family with two children will increase by $10,900. A nearly 5 percent growth of real GDP in the first four years will create more jobs and more opportunity for workers. Tipped workers. Overtime workers. Seniors. Those are the people I’m fighting for because those are so many of the people that live and work in the communities I represent. I will continue putting the voices of working-class Americans first. It is an honor to fight for those hard-working Missouri families alongside President Trump.