Trump Tax Breaks Seen Doing ‘Zero’ for Home Prices in Poor Areas
- New research questions widely cited ‘opportunity zones’ study
- Administration used prior report to tout effect of tax policy
Donald Trump
Photographer: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
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President Donald Trump has highlighted that home values in low-income areas picked for new tax breaks “skyrocketed” -- evidence that his administration’s policies are fueling growth expectations in some of America’s most-distressed communities.
New research questions the premise. Home values in areas designated as “opportunity zones” appear to have been affected so little it’s “statistically indistinct from zero,” according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper released this week by Harvard University’s Jiafeng Chen and Edward Glaeser and the Brookings Institution’s David Wessel.