And I lose their lives. Mr. Larson, your time has expired.
Mr. Schweikert.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And just, Mr. Secretary, you were already heading there. As everyone here, I'm sure knows, PCE, there's actually trimmed, there's which Kevin, new head of the Fed, prefers. There's actually four or five ways you do balancing on the calculations. So, if any of you want to join economic actually, we have a whole chart of how those calculations work if anyone would like to.
Well, those are real facts and they're inconvenient. And food prices, food at home has risen 2.5% since President Trump came into office. It averaged more than 5% under the Biden-Warren economy. And I've got a list here that President Trump posted, but no one wants to talk about it. Last year, all we heard was eggs, eggs, eggs. Eggs are down 90%. Avocados are down 19%.
Mr. Secretary, you will find...
Which is probably avocados probably more popular in the other side of the aisle.
Yeah, Mr. Secretary, you'll find we often choose whatever number works best for the social media posting we're going to do in an hour. So, welcome to Congress. A conversation we've been having actually with some of your staff and some of the Ways and Means staff is something that often never comes up, but we're going to have to understand it and find a better way to document it. We calculate about 17% of the US economy now is in the tax-exempt space. And within that space, those who receive the benefit of tax exemption, the basic concept is here's the community good you're doing for not having to pay taxes. Okay. There's something you're an expert on, the 990 form that documents to the IRS, to Treasury, to Congress, what is that community benefit? I know your team has been working on this. I know some of the IRS team, we've been working on it. Is there a way to come up with a much more robust universal form so we can understand are these tax-exempt organizations meeting their societal obligation? And if they're not, we can help them meet that, but we don't have enough information today.
It's a great question, Congressman. And you know, there are many tax-exempt organizations, a large part of the economy are hospitals and health care services. So, we should look whether they are meeting the needs and are in fact nonprofits. But your question in terms of what is going on with these nonprofits, the IRS has issued guidance for form 990 that nonprofits, just as banks must KYC, know your customer, we are telling the directors of these foundations, of these institutions, you must know your grantee. So, KYG. If your grantee, if the money is being used for violent activities, you as a trustee, as a fiduciary, are in trouble. If it is being used to take away people's civil rights, you are in trouble and the nonprofit status is in jeopardy.
My team looks forward to continuing to work with Treasury on making that more robust so we actually understand both those that are using nonprofit tax-exempt as funnels to bad acts, but also are they meeting their community obligations? One that you're probably not going to get as a question from anyone else? We have a fixation of debt management. You know, we're the responsible as policy makers, we're responsible for the debt, not the administration. We do make the policy. What can we do as members of Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Ways and Means Committee, to help you convince the markets, you know, please buy a 10-year note. Please, we have some vision, the visibility to see where we're going. I do have some concerns of in the future where the entire world is binging on debt that we have some stressed auctions. What do we do as a country to actually not have that happen to us?
So, since President Trump came into office, the US Treasury market has been the best performing developed market, but that is not assured. It is assured that we will have the Treasury will have a regular and predictable issuance cadence. But, what we must let our borrowers know, people who are buying Treasury bonds, whether it is US households, the foreign central banks, and everyone else in between, that is that we are serious about getting our debt and deficit numbers under control.
That is perfect, Mr. Secretary, and with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Secretary. Secretary Mnuchin, as of April 18th, taxpayers received about 3.4 million delayed refund letters. Illinoisans received 110,000. Texans, Floridians, and New Yorkers each received over 200,000. And Californians received 400,000. Almost 3 months ago, on March 9th, Representative Sewell and I asked you for basic information to demonstrate that Americans are actually getting their delayed refunds. Last month, I requested a meeting with the appropriate staff at the IRS or Treasury for this information. It was not until this morning that I received a response from Treasury. And although the letter contained some high-level information, it is insufficient to reassure me that Americans are receiving their refunds quickly. For example, the information in this morning's letter is substantially outdated. Today's letter has cited 2.2 million CP 553 e-notices, when a separate document you sent me a few weeks ago cited 3.4 million notices as of April 18th. Also, the information in today's letter fails to convey the current number of unique taxpayers whose refunds were delayed. Nor does today's letter give a clear understanding of how quickly taxpayers are waiting on their delayed checks. So, Mr. Secretary, could you tell me when or before June 11th, will you or your staff meet with Representative Sewell and me to walk us through the evidence that taxpayers with delayed refunds received the funds owed to them?
I have not seen the letter that I will follow up on this and the delays that you were talking about are for taxpayers who did not file electronically. We had about 98% of taxpayers filed electronically. They received their refunds within 21 days. It sounds to me that they are out of the 134, approximately 134 million tax returns that we received, that the April number would have been the un-
amount and we are at 2.2. So, we are working through it and much of that has to do with verification, lack of addresses. So, we look forward to working with you on that because we are committed.
