What We
Are Doing

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to addressing America’s long-term fiscal challenges to ensure a better economic future. Our mission is to increase awareness of the nature and urgency of key fiscal challenges threatening America’s future and to accelerate action on them. To address these challenges successfully, we work to bring Americans together to find and implement sensible, long-term solutions that transcend age, party lines, and ideological divides in order to achieve real results.

The Foundation works with leading policy experts, elected officials, and the public to build support for solutions to put America on a sustainable fiscal path. We engage in grant-making, partnerships and research to educate and involve Americans from a variety of perspectives.

What We Do

We educate, engage and inspire Americans with initiatives and campaigns that increase awareness, drive a thoughtful national dialogue and build support for sustainable fiscal policies that will lead to a vibrant economic future. In 2017, as lawmakers debated changes to our tax system, the Foundation launched a nationwide advertising campaign emphasizing that tax reform should “grow the economy, not the debt.”
We develop original, constructive policy solutions for the nation’s fiscal and economic challenges, partnering with leading thinkers and policymakers representing a range of viewpoints. In 2015, the Foundation completed the third iteration of its Solutions Initiative, a unique project that convenes policy organizations from across the ideological spectrum to put forward comprehensive plans for stabilizing America’s long-term debt. The project demonstrates the wide range of viable options available to policymakers.
We serve as a convener and consensus builder, bringing together a diverse range of people, organizations and ideas to bridge partisan divides — including through our signature annual event, the Fiscal Summit. The Summit has featured many prominent leaders including President Bill Clinton, Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, Bill Gates, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Admiral Michael G. Mullen, Dr. Atul Gawande, and many others.
We produce a robust range of our own research and analysis, enriching the conversation, presenting clear facts and adding insights about the fiscal challenge. The Foundation strives to be an unbiased source of research and analytical materials, including charts, presentations, budget analyses, and assessments of public opinion through the Fiscal Confidence Index, a monthly measure of attitudes about the long-term national debt.
We empower the next generation to take action, through unique college-based programs like Up to Us and our Fiscal Internship, because the voice of America’s millennials is essential as we chart our economic future.
And in 2014, we established the Peterson Center on Healthcare, which is dedicated to making higher quality, more affordable healthcare a reality for all Americans. The Center is working to transform U.S. healthcare into a high-performance system by finding innovative solutions that improve quality and lower costs and accelerating their adoption on a national scale. Visit www.petersonhealthcare.org for more information.

The Foundation is proud to continue its work in these and other areas to develop and promote solutions to strengthen our long-term fiscal foundation, and promote a growing, thriving economy with greater opportunity and prosperity for all Americans.

Research & Analysis

The Foundation provides a wide range of analysis, reports, and charts on fiscal and economic trends to help policymakers, journalists and the public learn more about our nation’s fiscal and economic health.

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Foundation Grants and Projects

The Foundation provides grants to a variety of organizations to engage in innovative projects to build awareness and develop solutions to our long-term fiscal challenges.

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The Fiscal Summit

Learn more about our premier annual gathering dedicated to advancing sensible solutions to our fiscal challenges, bringing together a range of influential thought leaders and elected officials to discuss and debate our nation’s economic and fiscal outlook.

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Education and Awareness

The Foundation engages in a wide range of activities to educate and engage Americans, and raise awareness of the fiscal and economic challenges facing our nation.

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US 2050

What will America look like at mid-century? US 2050 will examine and analyze the multiple demographic, socioeconomic, and fiscal trends that will shape the nation in the decades ahead.

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A Guide to Complex Budget Processes

Understanding what’s happening on Capitol Hill requires an understanding of the Congressional budget process.

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FISCAL ISSUES ILLUSTRATED

This series of infographics helps put some of today's most pressing fiscal debates in context.

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