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John,
We only have a few more weeks until the 117th Congress ends and we come back to a divided Congress in January. This means we have only a few weeks to push Congress to address the needs and wants of vulnerable and marginalized communities.
In 2021, the American Rescue Plan included a provision that expanded the Child Tax Credit and made the full credit available to families with the lowest incomes for the first time in its history. As a result, child poverty fell by 46% in 2021, with Black and Hispanic child poverty falling by 6.3 percentage points in each community, impacting 716,000 Black children and 1.2 million Hispanic children.
Child poverty isn’t an inevitability, it’s a policy choice. Congress shouldn’t give billions of dollars in tax breaks to wealthy corporations while condemning 19 million children to poverty. Send a letter to your members of Congress demanding they pass the expanded Child Tax Credit now, before it’s too late!
During the last few days of the lame-duck session, Congress will have the chance to consider $600 billion in tax cuts for corporate businesses. At a time of rising inflation, stagnant wages, and skyrocketing profits, giving tax breaks to major corporations instead of working and low-income families is heinous.
Expanding the Child Tax Credit fixes a major flaw in current law: over 19 million children and their families are excluded from the full credit because their parents' income is too low. You read that right. Families where a parent can’t work due to illness or being laid off, cannot qualify for the Child Tax Credit at all. But many parents who work at low wages cannot get the full CTC. A single parent earning $15,000 a year and who has two children, will receive less than a family with a parent who has a higher paying job. This is a flaw that does nothing but exacerbate inequity and accelerates the racial wealth gap.
Whatever gains were made during the CTC expansion in 2021 have since eroded. Renewing the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit payments is not only the morally right thing to do, but it’s politically popular. 85% of parents with babies and toddlers want Congress to take swift action in passing the expanded Child Tax Credit and nearly ¾ of 800 parents surveyed said tax breaks for wealthy corporations should not be passed until Congress reinstates the monthly Child Tax Credit. 94% of Democrats and 77% of Republicans believe passing the expanded Child Tax Credit should be a legislative priority.
People across the political spectrum agree that expanding the Child Tax Credit must be a priority. Click here to send a message to your senators and representative and tell Congress to put children ahead of corporate profits.
$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 at large for generations to come.
Thank you for all you do to in support of families and children,
Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs
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