THE PACKAGE
The Fair Share for Rhode Island Package is a set of four bills that require the highest-earners in the state to pay a comparable share of their income in taxes as the rest of us. It will re-balance the state’s upside-down tax system, protect the state against Trump cuts, and fund critical services like public education, healthcare and childcare and public transportation.
Together, the Package will raise more than $650 million annually and only affect top earners and people with extreme wealth.
The rest of us won’t pay a penny more.
Why the big push this year?
Without more funding, thousands of Rhode Islanders across the state will face real consequences from Trump’s cuts and state budget shortfalls – children will lose access to food, seniors will be denied healthcare, and costs will continue to climb for all of us.
How much will the Fair
Share package raise?
At minimum, the Fair Share for Rhode Island Package will generate $650 million per year, every year, or more than $3 billion every five years, entirely from the top 1% of taxpayers finally paying their fair share.
How will the money be spent?
With more than $650 million in new revenue every single year, every community in the state will benefit from the Fair Share for Rhode Island Package.
Like similar legislation that passed in Massachusetts and across the country, the Fair Share for Rhode Island Package would raise sufficient funds to enable major investments in education, hospitals and healthcare, roads, bridges and other infrastructure, and public transit. Healthcare workers, teachers, transit riders, union members, diversity advocates and community groups are all part of the coalition working with lawmakers to pass the Fair Share for Rhode Island Package, and to make sure the revenue generated is invested effectively and equitably.
Specific investment decisions, such as rebuilding a bridge, hiring more teachers or counselors, increasing college scholarship funding, buying electric transit buses, or building new vocational school classrooms, will be made by the state legislature through the annual budget process, or by local cities and towns.
When we pass the Fair Share for Rhode Island Package, local communities will be able to advocate for their specific funding priorities to make sure that the funding goes where it’s most needed, and we will have more money, every single year, to fund those priorities.
Examples of how Massachusetts invested the revenue generated from their Fair Share amendment include:
$782 million
in direct aid to local school districts across Massachusetts
$422 million
for regional transit authorities, including expanded service hours, route expansions, and making fares free
$419 million
to give every child free school meals, saving families hundreds of dollars a year
$289 million
for financial aid to students at public colleges
$298.5 million
for the construction and repair of roads and bridges across the state
$287.5 million
for tuition-free community college
Why do we need to pass the
Fair Share for ri package in 2026?
Without more funding, thousands of Rhode Islanders across the state will face real consequences from Trump’s cuts and state budget shortfalls – children will lose access to food, seniors will be denied healthcare, and costs will continue to climb for all of us.
Rhode Island’s tax system is already broken, with nurses and teachers paying more of their income in state and local taxes than the richest 1%.
And as more and more of us struggle to afford rent, groceries and healthcare, people across Rhode Island are working harder, paying our fair share in taxes and getting less from our government than ever before.
And with Trump making massive cuts to the critical services Rhode Islanders depend on, we need a new, fairer way of raising revenue. The Fair Share for Rhode Island Package will generate the funding that’s necessary to protect every single Rhode Islander from Trump’s cuts.
If we don’t pass the Fair Share for Rhode Island Package, people across Rhode Island will feel the impact:
Approximately 34,000
Rhode Islanders will lose health care.
Rhode Islanders will see their healthcare premiums double (on average).
An additional 41,400
RIPTA will face a
causing reduced service across the system, increased wait times and cancelled routes on the weekends.
$32 million deficit
Electricity costs in Rhode Island will increase by an average of
starting in 2026.
$100 per year
in Rhode Island are at immediate risk of losing some of their SNAP benefits.
10,000 people
Just this year, RI will lose nearly
in federal education funding, potentially devastating afterschool programs, multilingual learning, and adult education.