Congress is about to vote (again) on the SAVE Act—proposed legislation that would make it harder for millions of Americans to register to vote. The SAVE Act would force Americans to show a passport or birth certificate, in person, to an election official in order to vote. Because Americans would need to show documents in person, the voter registration methods that more than 90 percent of Americans use—including registering online, by mail, or at the department of motor vehicles— would be upended overnight.
CAP’s original analysis shows that millions of Americans do not have the documents required to vote under the SAVE Act and that millions more would have to jump through unnecessary hoops to register to vote, perhaps leading to some not doing so at all.
who have married don’t have a birth certificate that matches their new legal name.
94% of Americans
registered to vote using a method, such as online registration, that would no longer be available.
80-100 million Americans
register to vote every federal election cycle and would need to show documents.
Because of the requirement to show documents in person, some rural American voters would be forced to drive up to seven or eight hours round trip to reach their election office just to show documents to exercise their right to register to vote.
The newest version of the SAVE Act is even more extreme. The latest version would even require states to hand over their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security for screening. The administration already tried to strong-arm Minnesota into handing over its voter rolls, now it wants to mandate all states to do so.
Sincerely,
Sydney Bryant Policy Analyst, Structural Reform and Governance Center for American Progress
The SAVE Act is clearly voter suppression
Here’s how this dangerous legislation would block millions of Americans from voting:
Looking under the hood of the January jobs report: Blue-collar industries lost nearly 166,000 jobs in the past year
President Donald Trump called January’s jobs report “great,” but the report contained several warning signs for workers, especially the blue-collar workers he claims to champion. Unemployment fell to 4.3 percent in January 2026 and the economy gained 130,000 jobs this past month.
But downward revisions to last year’s data showed that the economy added only 181,000 jobs overall, or an average of 15,000 jobs a month. In 2025, an overwhelming 93 percent of jobs were added before “Liberation Day” in April 2025. These revisions were particularly negative for workers in blue-collar jobs. In blue-collar industries that include manufacturing, construction, logging and mining, transportation and warehousing, and utilities, cumulative job loss was nearly 166,000 from February 2025 to January 2026.
Working-class jobs in industries such as manufacturing and construction have historically provided decent wages and strong union benefits. Yet, the Trump administration’s immigration and tariff policies have hit these industries the hardest. The decline in blue-collar employment over the past year is emblematic of a segmented economy that is growing in terms of both jobs and wages for college-educated workers while leaving behind other industries and groups of workers.
The ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ raises the fiscal gap to 2.4 percent while harming millions of Americans
Last year, President Trump signed into law the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB)—legislation that rips health care coverage and food assistance away from millions of Americans while simultaneously giving tax cuts to billionaires.
At the same time that the Big Beautiful Bill harms everyday Americans, it increases deficits by $3.4 trillion over the next decade. Before the law was enacted, stabilizing the debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) at its current level would have required reducing primary, or noninterest, deficits by, on average, 1.64 percentage points of GDP each year for the next 30 years. This measure of how much in spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of the two that it takes to stabilize the debt ratio is known as the fiscal gap. As enacted, the BBB increased that to 2.39 percentage points, an increase of nearly 50 percent.
And if all provisions that are set to expire in the future—such as No Tax on Tips and the increase in funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—were made permanent, the fiscal gap would rise further to 2.89 percentage points, a 76 percent increase.
This trajectory is likely to raise interest rates, making borrowing more expensive for American households. It also requires a level of debt service that could crowd out spending on public goods, from infrastructure to education programs.
CAP Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy Bobby Kogan and Senior Fellow Jared Bernstein break down the risks of this deteriorated fiscal path, leading to higher deficits, higher debt, and higher interest rates:
RSVP: Join our friends at CAP Action for a conversation with Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY)
Photo: Getty Images
Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) believes that when most Americans wake up in the morning, they aren’t thinking about politics. Gov. Beshear has led by prioritizing the problems that matter most to Kentuckians: public schools, the roads and bridges they drive on, keeping communities safe, creating jobs, and making life more affordable. Gov. Beshear argues that, by focusing on what matters most, lawmakers can reclaim the trust of those they govern.
Please join the Center for American Progress Action Fund on Thursday, February 19, at 9 a.m. ET for remarks by Gov. Beshear, followed by a conversation with CAP Action CEO Neera Tanden.
