Viral Thread Explains Cancelling Student Loan Debt Helps The Economy

If you’ve gone to college in America, you’ve probably got some student loan debt. For many, student loan debt feels like something you’re dragging around for the rest of your life and can never get rid of no matter how hard you try. The idea of canceling student loan debt has been floated, but did you know that it can actually be good for economics and politics? I had no idea.

Bharat Ramamurti, a member of the COVID-19 Congressional Oversight Commission, created a Twitter thread about student loan forgiveness that quickly went viral. 

Broad student loan debt cancellation via executive order is good economics and politics. A thread (with lots of data). 1/

— Bharat Ramamurti (@BharatRamamurti) November 16, 2020

First, it’s important to remember that *a lot* of people have student loan debt — 45 million or so. For context, 25 million people benefit from the EITC and 38 million people get SNAP. Fundamentally, one of the benefits of debt…