John,

Right now, Congress is negotiating over a package of tax policies that includes corporate tax breaks, looking to add it to a must-pass spending bill. We need to send a clear message to Congress that any tax package must include support for low-income families, not just large, profitable businesses. It needs to include the expanded Child Tax Credit, focused on the 19 million children currently left out of the full benefit.

2.9 million children were lifted out of poverty by the CTC alone during 2021, according to the Census Bureau. Ending the CTC expansion and other assistance caused child poverty to soar, from 4 million poor children in 2021 to 9 million in 2022; if the CTC expansion had been retained, 3 million fewer children would have been poor. Just one painful result: this summer, 4.9 million more people with children reported sometimes or often not having enough to eat, compared to the summer of 2021 when the CTC payments were being delivered — an increase of more than 60%.¹

The United States is the richest country in the world. Child poverty in this country is an abomination.

Expanding the CTC isn’t just the morally right thing to do, it’s popular across every demographic. 82% of voters support an expanded CTC — including 77% of Republicans.²

Congress’ job is to carry out the will of the people. It’s obvious that the people want an end to child poverty. Congress must act before it’s too late.

Send a direct message to Congress today and tell them to lift millions of children out of poverty by expanding the Child Tax Credit for the 19 million children left out of the full CTC.

Thank you for all you do,

Meredith Dodson
Senior Director of Public Policy, Coalition on Human Needs

¹ Census Bureau, Household Pulse Survey Data Tables, calculations by Coalition on Human Needs, comparing results from 7/21/21 - 8/16/21 to results from 6/28/23 to 8/7/23 for people living with children.
² 82% of Voters Support Broad Eligibility of the Child Tax Credit, As Census Data Shows Child Poverty Doubled After Program’s Lapse in 2022

-- DEBORAH'S EMAIL --

John,

We’ve got an urgent opportunity to expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC), but Congress needs to hear from you.

In 2021, the American Rescue Plan included a provision that expanded the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and made the full credit available to families with the lowest incomes for the first time in its history. The CTC and other pandemic assistance caused child poverty to fall by 46% in 2021, with the Black child poverty rate dropping from 16.9% to 8.1% in just one year and the Hispanic child poverty rate falling from 14.7% to 8.4%. The CTC alone lifted 716,000 Black children and 1.2 million Hispanic children out of poverty.¹

When Congress allowed the expanded CTC to expire at the end of 2021, all that progress eroded. The number of poor children more than doubled, from 4 million in 2021 to 9 million in 2022. Now 19 million children are left out of receiving the full credit because their families earn too little income.

Child poverty isn’t an inevitability, it’s a policy choice. Congress now has the opportunity to fix this egregious error by attaching an expansion of the Child Tax Credit focused on children in the lowest-income families to the upcoming stopgap spending bill. Send a letter to your members of Congress demanding they expand the Child Tax Credit in the funding bill being negotiated right now.

Raising children is expensive. Brookings Institution reports that an average middle class family will spend $310,605 raising a child to adulthood.² We all benefit from the investments parents make in the youngest generation, and as society we should shoulder some of the responsibility to ensure all have the support they need to reach their full potential.

The current structure of the Child Tax Credit is upside down. A parent with two children needs to make over $27,900 in order to receive the full CTC — they’d need to work full time at twice the current federal minimum wage to get the full CTC.³ Many parents and caregivers cannot work full time because they have important responsibilities in their families and communities, or have chronic health conditions or disabilities themselves.

And due to historical and ongoing racial discrimination, Black, Indigenous, and Latino people are over-represented in the lowest paying jobs. This results in nearly half of Black children, 4 in 10 Indigenous children, and 1 in 3 Latino children receiving less than the full credit — if they receive a credit at all — purely because their families’ incomes are too low.⁴

Congress is working to finalize a tax package to attach to an upcoming stopgap spending bill, and this is an important opportunity for lawmakers to make the right policy choice for our nation’s children and families — by prioritizing enhancements for the CTC for the 19 million left out of the full credit. With business lobbyists pushing hard for tax breaks, join us to send a strong message to Congress that their top priority must be reducing child poverty to ensure all children can achieve their fullest potential.  

Click here to send a direct message to your members of Congress today to urge them to pass an expanded Child Tax Credit that helps as many of the 19 million kids currently left out of the full benefit as possible.

Thank you for all you do,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs

¹ Child Poverty Fell to Record Low 5.2% in 2021
² It’s getting more expensive to raise children. And government isn’t doing much to help.
³ Lapse of Expanded Child Tax Credit Led to Unprecedented Rise in Child Poverty
⁴ Any Year-End Tax Legislation Should Expand Child Tax Credit to Cut Child Poverty