Child Tax Credit: A Reflection for Action
By Robert S. Harvey, President and Co-CEO, FoodCorps, and EdLoC Policy Council member (Original LinkedIn Post HERE)
Have you ever heard someone impassively mutter, “Well, it’s better than nothing, isn’t it”? Last week, a bipartisan group of congressional electeds announced a $78b deal that would meaningfully expand corporate tax incentives and moderately revive the child tax credit (CTC) from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. Most notably, the Wyden-Smith ‘bipartisan’ deal takes as a given that the credit will not be available to families with zero earnings.
Better than nothing, right?
Lest I be misinterpreted as a deflating demagogue who devalues progress [of any extent]—let me avow that 400,000 children being emancipated from the throes of economic poverty is worth exclaiming. The expanded child tax credit significantly increases the fully refundlable tax credit amount made available to families with children aged 0 to 17.
Better than none, right?
But I must inquire of our nation’s soul: how long will the 8.6 million others have to wait? What industries must lobby for us to ensure that all of our children are eating healthy meals, have medical access, and are receiving high-quality childcare?
Inevitably, such inquiries will fade amongst the competing, endorphin-stimulating priorities baked into our privilege—because, whether we admit it, our grasp of the vastness and everydayness of child poverty evades our daily luxuries. And in the United States, where transportation infrastructure is ever-endeavoring to create escape pathways—highways, byways, and tollways—to avoid even the shadows of pervasive poverties only miles away, we can comfortably merge into the next lane and take the next exit.
Better than confronting our neighbors and their sufferings, right?
What started in 1997 as a social-safety net for the middle class—the CTC—during COVID, had its netting expanded and tightened to bolster the poorest among us: families with little to no income. In those months, when “liberty and justice for all [children]” was seen as a moral priority, not a privileged commodity, food insecurity for households with school-aged children dropped by nearly 25% and the child poverty rate dropped to a record low of 5.2%.
When that monthly-distributed tax credit ended in the second half of 2021, children in economic poverty increased by 5.2 million the following year. As a result, our country ranked 31st in child poverty across 34 developed nations
Better than last, right? Wrong.
Congress must act to ensure that the 400,000 children who will benefit from the Wyden-Smith deal, do so! And, it must not rest on this legislation. Our democratic future rests on all children living freed from the horrors of poverty.
This deal, imperfect in many ways—and yet, better than nothing they’d say—must pass.
Reach out to your congressional representatives and urge them to invest in children and pass the child tax credit using this link.
