Richmond, VA-–This weekend marks Virginia’s annual sales tax holiday. During this three-day window, qualifying school supplies and back-to-school clothing are exempt from the sales tax, as are some weather preparedness supplies and EnergyStar-certified appliances. Even modest relief from rising costs can be a big help to working families, but critics of sales tax holidays say they fail in their two major goals: stimulating the economy and providing some financial relief to consumers. Critics suggest that tax holidays just shift the timing of purchases rather than inducing people to buy more things and the amount that consumers save is mostly negligible: a family spending the national average of $874.68 on school supplies would only save $37.61.
Here is a list of policies that were passed by the General Assembly but vetoed by Glenn Youngkin this spring that would have made things easier for working families:
- A $15 minimum wage, which would have raised the yearly income of 611,000 working people in Virginia.
- An education bill that would have helped localities finance new public schools.
- A bill to extend minimum wage protections to tipped workers and crack down on wage theft by employers
- A ban on assault weapons and other anti-gun violence measures that could have protected kids from school shootings
- A bill to extend paid family and medical leave to every worker in the private sector
“A sales tax holiday is fine, , but we won’t let it distract us from the real systemic inequalities that keep working families from being able to afford the things they need,” said LaTwyla Mathias, Executive Director at Progress Virginia. “Our community is struggling with all kinds of costs, our salaries are not rising to meet our needs, and we need our legislators to commit to real change that helps us ahead every day, not just one weekend a year.”