Five Pillar Framework

The American Renewal – A Five Pillar Framework to Put America’s Wealth Back in the Hands of Its People  

Prepared for: Policymakers, Legislative Staff, Economic Advisors  

Purpose: To present an evidence-based structural reform agenda addressing inequality, household debt, and declining quality of life.  

Executive Summary  

The American Renewal is a five-pillar plan to reverse fifty years of rising inequality by putting wealth, time, and economic power back into the hands of working Americans. This plan ensures that productivity gains flow to workers by establishing a 1) National Four-Day Workweek; creates millions of new homeowners by 2) Condo-izing America’s Public Housing Stock;  creates a universal 3) American Resource Dividend funded by land, energy, spectrum, and AI royalties; restores fairness with a 4) Full Credit-Card Interest Tax write-off, and launches a 5) Modern Debt Jubilee to break the household-debt trap once and for all. Together, these reforms rebuild the middle class, strengthen families, and ensure that the prosperity of this country finally belongs to the people who create it.  

Background  

Since 1980, America’s GDP has grown four times over, rising from roughly $2.8 trillion to over  

$27 trillion today. During the same period, the stock market has exploded in value, with the S&P 500 increasing more than 30-times over. Yet, the rewards of America’s growth have been siphoned upward away from American Workers.  

In 1980, US workers accounted for roughly two-thirds of national income, while capital and finance accounted for one-third. Today, the ratio has reversed: worker’s share has collapsed to 58–59%, while capital now captures 41–42%—a multi-trillion-dollar annual transfer from workers to corporations and the ultra-wealthy.  

The proof is in the streets: the number of American billionaires has exploded from 13 in 1982 to more than 800 today, while homelessness has tripled, from ~250,000 people in the mid-1980s to a record 771,000 in 2024.   

The same system that mints new billionaires every week is pushing families onto the sidewalk every night.  

The American Renewal proposes five structural interventions designed to correct these trends resuscitate the American Dream by reallocating ownership, time, and economic rents back to the American People.  

Pillar I: Conversion of Public Housing into Resident Ownership  

The greatest wealth-creation event since the Homestead Act of 1862  

Policy Objective: Unlock large-scale household wealth creation by converting public housing into owner-occupied assets.  

Right now, over 1.8 million Americans live in crumbling, 70-year-old public housing buildings while paying subsidized rent to the government for the rest of their lives. Across the street, speculators and Wall Street landlords flip properties and collect trillions in unearned appreciation. That ends now.  

The American Renewal turns every single public-housing resident into a full owner. Yes to homeownership, no more rent checks to HUD, no more waiting lists, no more bureaucratic slumlords.  

The Plan:  

1. Every family living in public housing gets the deed to their unit (or a comparable upgraded unit) for $1–$10,000, payable over 10–20 years at 0% interest. 

2. All necessary repairs and modernization are funded up-front by the federal government (paid for by selling a fraction of the vacant federal land portfolio).  

3. Five- to ten-year anti-speculation lock: you can’t flip it for a quick profit, but you can pass it to your kids or sell at fair market value after the lock expires.  

4. Condo association fees are capped and subsidized for the first decade, so no one is priced out by maintenance.  

Real-World Proof It Works:  

1. United Kingdom “Right to Buy” (1980–present): 2+ million council tenants became owners, creating £100 billion+ in new household wealth with almost zero cost to taxpayers.  

2. Singapore: 80% of the population owns their government-built flats. Result:  

highest homeownership rate in the developed world, near-zero homelessness, and massive intergenerational wealth in formerly poor communities.  

3. U.S. HOPE VI projects (Atlanta, Chicago, Louisville): when public housing was replaced with mixed-income, resident-involved ownership models, crime dropped 50–70%, property values soared, and families built real equity for the first time.  

Economic Justice and Broad-Based Growth:  

1. 1 million+ units × average urban value of $250,000–$400,000 = $250–$400 billion in instant household wealth transferred to the poorest Americans.  

2. That’s bigger than the entire 1862 Homestead Act (adjusted for inflation and population).  

3. It costs the taxpayer almost nothing long-term because the units come off the federal books and start generating property taxes instead of draining them.  

4. Just like the internet, public investment created the assets and the value. This policy keeps that value local, stabilizing pensions, strengthening retirement security, reducing elder poverty and public healthcare costs, and expanding the tax base. Prosperity is broadly shared.  

Pillar II: National Four-Day (32-Hour) Workweek Standard Reclaim the time already earned and supercharge the economy.  

Policy Objective: Align working hours with productivity gains realized since the mid20th century.  

Since 1940, American worker productivity has more than tripled. Technology, computers, robots, and AI now do the work of millions. Yet the standard workweek is still stuck at 40 hours, same as 1940, while wages barely budge and burnout is a national epidemic.  

The American Renewal fixes that with one simple, proven rule:32 is the new 40, fulltime, same pay.   

Here’s how it rolls out:  

1. Immediate federal mandate for all companies with 50+ employees: 32 paid hours = full-time benefits and salary.  

2. Smaller businesses get a 3-year phase-in plus generous tax credits to hire extra staff or automate.  

3. Shift workers (nurses, firefighters, etc.) move to compressed schedules (e.g., three 10s and one 12, or four 8s) with overtime premium restored above 32. iv. No loopholes, no “exempt salaried” tricks — everyone gets the gain.  

Real-world proof it works (and makes money):  

1. Iceland (2015–2021): 86% of the entire workforce now works 35–36 hours (many at 32). Productivity stayed the same or rose, sick days plummeted, gender equality soared, GDP per capita kept climbing.  

2. Microsoft Japan (2019): Switched to a 4-day week with Fridays off → 40% productivity increase, 23% less electricity used, happier employees.  

3. 2024 UK trial (61 companies, 2,900 workers): Revenue unchanged or up, turnover down 57%, burnout down 71%, sick days down 65%.  

4. Perpetual Guardian (New Zealand): Permanent 4-day week since 2018 → profit up 20%, staff stress down 45%.  

The Economic Math Is Brutal For The Skeptics:  

1. Americans currently lose $1.9 trillion a year to stress-related absenteeism and healthcare costs.  

2. A rested, focused workforce is worth hundreds of billions in extra output and lower turnover.  

3. That extra day off? People spend it on travel, dining, home repairs, classes. The time off creates a permanent demand rocket for Main Street businesses. This isn’t “time off.” This is finally collecting the dividend on eighty years of technological progress that was promised to American workers.  

One weekend that actually belongs to you. Four days of work. Three days of life. America gets richer. Families get whole again.  

Pillar III: American Resource Dividend  

A permanent, growing check from the wealth we all create, no means test, no bureaucracy, no politics.  

Policy Objective: Provide universal, ongoing economic dividends derived from shared national assets.  

Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars in unearned wealth are created simply because land values rise, oil is pumped, cell-phone spectrum is used, or AI patents (built on decades of taxpayer-funded research) print money for a handful of corporations and billionaires. That wealth doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to all of us.  

The American Renewal captures those rents and sends every single citizen their fair share,  exactly like Alaska has done with oil royalties since 1982.  

Here’s how it works:  

i. A sovereign wealth fund (modeled on Alaska’s Permanent Fund) collects revenue from:
  

○ A modest land-value tax on large and speculative holdings  

○ Royalties on oil, gas, minerals, and critical resources extracted from public land  

○ Auction fees for electromagnetic spectrum (5G, satellite bandwidth)  

○ A 1–2% public royalty on commercial AI and automation patents  

○ Carbon fees redirected as a dividend  

ii. Every dollar collected goes straight into the fund and is paid out equally to every  

U.S. citizen as an annual (or quarterly) check  

○ no IRS forms, no work requirement, no clawbacks.  

Real-world proof it works:  

1. Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (1982–present): $1,000–$2,400 per person every year (including children).   

2. Result:  

○ Cut Alaska’s poverty rate by 20%  

○ Most equal income distribution of any state  

○ Zero evidence of reduced work effort (people actually work slightly more)  

○ Acts as the single most effective automatic stabilizer during recessions iii. Norway’s $1.6 trillion sovereign fund shows how resource wealth, properly managed, eliminates the need for high income taxes and funds world-class public services.  

Projected size of the American Resource Dividend:   

i.  Year 1–5 average | $1,200–$1,800 per person ii.  Year 10 average | $2,500–$3,500 per person (as AI royalties and land-value capture scale)   

iii.  Year 20+ | $5,000+ per person possible   

A family of four starts getting $5,000–$14,000 a year, and that amount grows each year as the country gets richer. This is ownership at scale.  

It’s the same principle conservatives love in Alaska, libertarians love because it shrinks bureaucracy, and progressives love because it ends poverty without punishing work. It’s the one idea that unites left, right, and center behind a single truth: the commons belong to the people, not to hedge funds, not to tech monopolies, and not to absentee landlords.  

One fund. One dividend. A permanent stake in America’s future that can never be taken away.  

Pillar IV: Full Tax Deductibility of Consumer Interest  

Make every dollar of credit-card interest 100% deductible on your federal taxes.  

Right now, the average American family with credit-card debt pays ~$1,300 a year in interest alone — at rates as high as 29.99%. That money goes straight to the banks, taxfree on their end, while the people get zero relief. Meanwhile, millionaires deduct yacht loans and corporations write off private jets.  

The American Renewal flips the script with the single most powerful middle-class tax cut in history:  

1. 100% federal tax deduction for all credit-card interest paid, no limits or requirements  

2. Includes medical debt interest, overdraft fees, and payday-loan interest.  

Real-world impact (using 2024 numbers):  

1. The average household carrying $7,300 in credit-card debt at 24% interest pays ~$1,750/year in interest.  

2. At a 22% marginal tax bracket, that household instantly gets $385 back on its tax return, every single year.  

3. A family in the 12% bracket gets $210 back; one in the 37% bracket gets nearly $650 back.  

4. Nationwide, this stimulus puts $80–$100 billion per year directly back into the pockets of the 45 million households with revolving credit-card debt  

This isn’t a government check. It’s our own money, no longer confiscated by predatory lenders and then handed to banks as a hidden subsidy.  

Precedent already exists:   

Mortgage interest and student-loan interest are deductible. Credit-card interest used to be deductible until 1986, when Reagan and Congress took it away to fund tax cuts for the rich. We’re simply restoring fairness and supercharging it.  

Result:   

Millions of families pay off balances faster, escape the debt treadmill, and keep hundreds (or thousands) of dollars every April that actually belong to them. Banks either drop rates to compete or watch their profits evaporate as people deduct every penny of interest away.  

One line in the tax code reclaims interest for the American People.   

Pillar V: Modern Debt Jubilee with Structural Safeguards End the debt trap once and for all.  

Policy Objective: Eliminate the household debt overhang constraining economic mobility.  

In ancient Israel and other early societies, people understood that debt couldn’t last forever, so every generation they erased it in a practice called a jubilee.  

American households now owe a record high of $1.13+ trillion in credit-card debt alone, with average interest rates topping 24%. That means millions of working families are effectively paying a hidden, regressive tax of 20–30% on basic necessities like groceries, car repairs, and school supplies. Meanwhile, the same banks that were bailed out in 2008 collect hundreds of billions of dollars in interest and fees every year from people who can least afford them.  

The American Renewal ends this predatory cycle with the largest one-time debt cancellation in history:  

i. Full federal write-off of all credit-card balances, medical debt, and  student loans ii. Immediate cancellation of all accrued interest and late fees on these accounts. iii. Strict new federal cap: no credit card or payday loan can ever again charge more than 15% APR.  

iv. Compounding penalties and debt-collection abuses are outlawed nationwide. v. This is not a bailout for the irresponsible; it is a bailout for the middle and working class from a rigged financial system.  

Real-world Precedent:  

1. Iceland wrote down household debt by 13% of GDP in 2014; default rates collapsed, consumer spending surged, and the economy recovered faster than any other post-2008 nation.  

2. America’s own 1930s Homeowners’ Loan Corporation and farm-debt restructurings prevented millions of foreclosures and laid the foundation for the postwar boom.  

3. Result: an instant $1+ trillion injection straight into the real economy as families stop bleeding money to Wall Street and start spending, saving, and investing in their futures. No more wage garnishment, no more 400% payday loans, no more lifelong servitude to a $400 emergency on a credit card.  

The debt is paid off. The American people are finally free.  

The American Renewal is a course correction for a nation that has allowed wealth, opportunity, and dignity to drift out of reach for too many Americans. By converting public assets into public ownership, returning time to workers, capturing the value of our shared resources, and liberating families from predatory debt, this agenda rebuilds the foundation of broad-based prosperity. The path forward is clear: an economy that once again works for the people who power it. The five pillars of the American Renewal can help our country can reclaim its promise and build a future where every family has a stake, a voice, and a fair shot.