John,

Congress is under massive pressure to pass a tax package soon, but corporate lobbyists aren’t interested in investing in families and children. They want more tax handouts to corporations so they can enrich their CEOs and wealthy shareholders. And just yesterday, 150 Representatives sent a letter to Speaker Johnson urging him to make this a priority before the end of the year.¹

We’re not letting them get away with this.

When the Child Tax Credit was expanded in 2021, child poverty fell by 46%. In just one year, there were 716,000 fewer Black children, 1.2 million fewer Hispanic children, and 820,000 fewer white children in poverty—a stunning achievement.²

When Congress let it expire at the end of 2021, all of the gains made were wiped out. The percentage of people with children who reported sometimes or often not having enough to eat in the past week rose from 10.4% in the summer of 2021, when families were getting the CTC, to 14.6% in the summer of 2022, when they weren’t—a 40% increase. And without the CTC, it’s still getting worse—just before Thanksgiving, the proportion of people with kids reporting this kind of hunger rose to 16%.³

Child poverty isn’t an inevitability, it’s a policy choice. Demand Congress put children, not corporations, first and include the expanded Child Tax Credit as Congress negotiates a year-end tax package.

Congress has a chance to expand the Child Tax Credit to fix a major flaw in current law: over 19 million children and their families are excluded from the full credit because their parents' incomes are too low. You read that right. Many parents who work at low wages cannot get the full CTC. For example, a single parent earning $15,000 a year and who has two children, will receive less from the tax credit than a family with a parent who has a higher paying job. Plus, families where a parent can’t work due to illness or being laid off, cannot qualify for the Child Tax Credit at all. This is a major flaw that does nothing but exacerbate inequity and accelerates the racial wealth gap.

$250 to $300 per child, per month. That’s all it would take to keep millions of children out of poverty, which leads to better school performance, better health outcomes, and more mentally and emotionally well-adjusted children. Expanding the Child Tax Credit will have immeasurable benefits to families and our society for generations to come.

Send a letter to Congress today and tell them to include the expanded Child Tax Credit in any forthcoming tax package.

Thank you for all you do,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs

¹ Rank-and-file House Republicans press Johnson for year-end tax deal
² Expansions to Child Tax Credit Contributed to 46% Decline in Child Poverty Since 2020
³ CHN analysis of Census Household Pulse Data - here and here.