What would you do if you never had to pay your student loans again? Save the economy, new research shows
Overwhelmed by your student loan debt? You’re definitely not alone. Student loan debt in the United States amounts to over $1.48 trillion, and it continues to rise. To make matters worse? Student debt can have a negative impact on your health — both mentally and physically — which can make it even harder to cope with the financial burden.
To make matters worse, women carry a disproportionate amount of student loans in America — nearly two-thirds of it, to be precise — and because of the gender wage gap, it takes women much longer to pay off their debt than men.
So, what can you do about it? Well, ever since lawmakers passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut (that largely benefited the wealthy and corporations), there’s a growing movement to do the same for students.
Republican lawmakers argue the new tax bill will help everyone through trickle-down economics, but a new research paper says canceling student loan debt would have the same effect. Not only would this benefit the 44 million Americans currently buried under student debt, the study states that eliminating all student debt would significantly increase GDP, add up to 1.5 million jobs to the economy, and reduce the unemployment rate.
Um, where do we sign up?
“What would you do with a million dollars?”
Me: Um easy, I’ll pay off all my student loans
“And what about the rest?”
Me: Hahahaha "the rest"
— Ethan Smith (@NotEthanSmith_) February 3, 2018
There are some potential downsides to erasing all student loan debt, including increasing the government deficit.
However, proponents of this plan point out that the GOP tax bill does that anyway. Plus, the opportunity to benefit millions of Americans and immediately stimulate the economy sounds pretty sweet.
Unsurprisingly, Twitter loved the idea:
Please do this please I promise to buy everything to stimulate the economy! https://t.co/FIacMRU9ZU
— nicole (@nicoledandrea) February 10, 2018
If Congress can gift $1 trillion to a few rich people in tax cuts, it can also easily erase $1 trillion of college debt for 44 million citizens. https://t.co/LtCAxxDIpV
— Nick Hanauer (@NickHanauer) February 8, 2018
Cancelling everyone's student debt wouldn’t just improve the macroeconomy, but also increase its fairness, and reduce racial inequality https://t.co/IWvIW86bxR
— Intelligencer (@intelligencer) February 9, 2018
If student debt were canceled, those people would be free to take on mortgages, start families, buy more things that they can’t dream of having now. This would cause more economic stimulus than tax cuts for corporations.
— marxist-insuleninist (@pippy67) February 7, 2018
I receive this in the name of sweet baby Jesus! https://t.co/faJcmKICmn
— Dasha (@TheDivineDivah) February 12, 2018
Even if it doesn’t happen, we definitely think more should be done to reduce the burden of student debt. Seriously, we love dreaming about a future where crushing student loan debt doesn’t even exist. Just think of all the economy-stimulating shopping we could do.
